Actually I prefer eggs Benedict and grapefruit juice for breakfast over pancakes or hash browns,bacon,fried eggs and orange juice. Does that make me a snub?

Pinchme, IMO from your other post, I don't think so! I am so like you. I refuse to pay what I feel is an inflated price to just stuff my mouth. Especially when I can get reasonably priced & very good tasting food (IMO) at home! There is so much of our American food that I love. And I can understand how folks in other countries love their food. That's what makes the world go round - we are all different & that's a great thing! :-)

Julie

We're spoiled here in the US. We have the best of the best where food is concerned. It's no wonder we miss it when we travel. I don't know about you folks, but I don't have the bacon, eggs, hash browns kind of breakfast often....but when I do....what a treat. And when I'm on vacation in a foreign country, if I choose to have an "American" meal....that's my business. If a traveler from Paris wants a typical french b'fast...I'll direct them to the nearest LaMadeleine. It isn't the same as in Paris, but if it's what they want, and makes them feel welcome here in Texas....well then, that's a good thing.

Time for some of you to start thumping your chests and screaming "USA #1! USA #1!" I see that there is no culinary or ethnic diversity in Europe, and that the best of the best is all in the United States. Kind of looks like the revenge of the anti-foodies.

But in any case, one can find everything and its contrary on this board. Let us not forget that the favorite restaurant of (middle class) European tourists in the United States is Denny's.

Sorry jewela, much as I love the US and most of the food there, you do not have the best of the best cheese, nor the best of the best bread, nor coffee.

When in the US we tend to eat at a range of places, very rarely hamburgers or pizzas, but grills, Tex-Mex etc etc.
When touring in Europe we do the same.

I agree there is some hypocrisy on the board regarding US citizens and their food/sports viewing choices whilst in Europe. Not eing a sports fan I can't imagine seeking out a place to view a sporting event - but my OH would, and does, for major football matches, no matter where he is.
Good news for you all is that the Beeb have the rights to the Superbowl now, so in the UK and great chunks of northern Europe you can enjoy watching it, even if it is in your hotel room. Not the same atmosphere maybe but still.

"Let us not forget that the favorite restaurant of (middle class) European tourists in the United States is Denny's."
Well no wonder Europeans think our food sux! back in May of this year we were in Denver to visit my sister.. The wife and I went to breakfast at Denny's by our hotel. We ordered the tipical Denny's fare. We both ordered our eggs "over medium" however, when they got to our table they looked almost raw! my wife cut part way into her eggs and said no way. We called the waitress over and told her our eggs were wrong! after she tried to argue that we ordered them that way, she took our plates back... She brought us back the same plates with the same eggs except now the eggs were cooked hard! and the rest of the crap on the plate was cold! I asked her if she was kidding? she just looked at me and walked away! Needless to say we got up and left. As we were in the parking lot, the manager came out and tried to tell us we had to pay for the breakfast we ordered! I can't tell you here what I said to him but is wasn't very nice.

>Here in Naples [Fla], tons of Italian tourists flock to Olive Garden. Now are you really going to tell me that the quality there is better than some great American steakhouse next door? <

Gad, talk about choosing the lesser of two evils...Olive Garden vs Ponderosa :)

>What's wrong with an English breakfast?

Cold fried eggs, cold toast, cold grilled tomato, cold rasher of "bacon", cold beans, cold Vienna sausage, vile coffee. :)

PM says:
>All for under $20.00 per person at 100's of places. Do that in Paris or Rome. <

Paris has over 1500 restaurants. There are hundreds where you can have a good meal for 20E or less. Where will you be staying?

How come no one has mentioned grits and biscuits as being part of an American breakfast? :)

((I))

I try never to enter these threads.
It seems to me, reading this forum now for a few years that the "slamming" referred to seems to be the "slammer's" attempt at being superior. Isn't that eye-brow raised superior attitude usually a cover-up for one's inferiority? i.e., the best defense is a strong offence.
I'm American. We do have GREAT ingredients that can be made into GREAT food. Or, it can be prepared, frozen and then nuked. UGH. (Again, that's my opinion.)
As to opinions on this board, the attitude that if it is french or italian makes in therefore better is, well, ludicrous and somewhat snobbish.
To make my boring point even more boring, as an EXAMPLE only, I agree that the French make amazing cheeses, pates, wines and they combine them sensibly. Those cheeses goes with those wines and those ingredients indigenous to that particular area. So eat that! But what is French Cuisine? Its an amalgum of all the races and cultures that have touched France since the french and everybody else fell out of the trees and climbed out of the sea...
So is everyone's else cuisine. Why can't a Vietnamese family who returned to France in the 40's or 50's, started a restaurant and now in a couple of generations have their restaurant as French Cuisine? Down the street is an Algerian family. It is now French Cuisine?
I enjoy the live and let live people.
Live and be free and do what and when and eat what you want. If one looks down their superior nose at my choices...well? mmm...

Actually, Paris has more than 8000 restaurants. Please note, however, that the number is going down. (This doesn't mean that people are eating out less -- it means that restaurants are getting bigger and the tiny places are disappearing.)

Ira wrote,
"All for under $20.00 per person at 100's of places. Do that in Paris or Rome.
Paris has over 1500 restaurants. There are hundreds where you can have a good meal for 20E or less. Where will you be staying?"
Our hotel is at the corner of blvd de Sebastopol and Rue de turbigo. I have read many threads about inexpersive meals in Paris. With few exceptions or falafels and other "street" foods. I only find sit down meals in a simi nice tipical Paris restaurant to be in the 30 to 40 Euro range, minimum ($41.00 to $55.00) If you have some suggestions of good restaurants in the 12 to 14 Euro ($15.00 to $20.00) range I would be very happy to hear them.

I don't see the harm in yanks wanting whatever it is they miss when on holiday. Just so long as that's not ALL they eat. If they did that then I would think they are missing out on the experience of the countr4y they are visiting.

I like to eat the food, drink the beer etc when abroad, but I do have the occasional yen for a pork pie or decent bacon.

You can't really go to an "English" restaurant abroad - the closest you can
usually get is a faux-pub.

However I found this review of a place in pasadena which amused me:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/articl...mp;IssueNum=74

It sounds horrible.

This place in Amsterdam is actually pretty good:

http://tinyurl.com/3yd48y

"You can't really go to an "English" restaurant abroad - the closest you can
usually get is a faux-pub."

Ah, but you can, at least if you come to Naples, Florida. We have "The English Pub on Linwood" started about 20 years ago by a couple who moved from London. It has since sold to another English couple. The entire staff are ex pats from the UK. And on any given night you will find about half the crowd spouting UK accents. Most of their food stuffs that you can't get here are imported (they also sell many of them as a side line). They have up to 12 beers (all imports) on tap at any given time. There are darts and those silly little casino and quiz machines, the entire interior is delightfully tatty and looks exactly like many rural British pubs (no, not at all like a Disneyfied copy -- which is, I agree, far more common here). And nearly all major UK sporting events will be on the telly by satellite. (No American football will EVER be shown there).

I've talked to a lot of Brits there, and I have yet to hear from a single one who would say there is anything "faux" about this pub. It's the real deal.

And I don't think we are all that unique. While this one is perhaps the most authentic one I've seen, there are others around the US started and run by former UK pub owners.

The essence of this discussion really concerns the diners. Each has a peculiar idea about food. Restaurants are businesses. They offer what they expect their customers want. I wonder how many tourists travel abroad because they want to tell their friends about it. Today food is an obsession with those that can afford it.

The essence of this discussion really concerns the diners. Each has a peculiar idea about food. Restaurants are businesses. They offer what they expect their customers want. I wonder how many tourists travel abroad because they want to tell their friends about it. Today food is an obsession with those that can afford it. American beef, served in any of a hundred ways is the best meal available anywhere. Europeans have long served meats of dubious quality magnificently masked with superb sauces.

Patrick,
Isn't there another 'authentic' English restaurant in Naples - I think it's on Airport-Pulling. Something called Medieval Times?

On the beach during my last trip to Naples I overheard a family just raving about it. :)

<American beef, served in any of a hundred ways is the best meal available anywhere.>

Oh boy, the subject of American hormone mush meat has again been raised.

I don't know. I think you may have your references crossed. There is a huge place called Medieval Times near Orlando -- a big dinner theatre/jousting tournament place that is quite popular.

Here in Naples there is a funky "family fun park" called King Richard's, with some tacky rides and things and a snack bar, in a building that looks vaguely like an English castle (if you're wearing dark sun glasses, and you close one eye). But can't imagine that's what you're talking about. I just checked. There is no Medieval Times in our phone book.


PS. kerouac has clearly never had a fine American steak or there is no earthly way he'd call it "mush meat". That's as absurd as calling a Parisian creme brulee "tough and hard to chew and swallow.

When I read about people calling American beef "mush meat" I have to laugh! Beef, GREAT beef! is suppose to be tender without stewing it in gravies. A great steak like here in Texas.. is prepared with a little salt and pepper grilled on an open pit until dark pink inside. NO sauce.. NO gravy..! I do however understand that the people who talk smack about American beef don't eat the good parts of a cow and stewing it is the only way to eat those throw away pieces. The only bad meal we had in Germany was in Hornberg in the black forest. I ordered a grilled sirloin steak.. what I got was a piece of round/rump steak that was so tuff.. the more I chewed it the bigger it got in my mouth! everything else was wonderful but the grilled steak was just gross.

Neo, all of my T-bone steaks for years came from McDill AFB PX in Tampa, and they were excellent. But it is a well known fact that the texture ('tenderness') of American beef is due to what most of Europe considers to be abnormal chemical processes. Is it often delicious? Absolutely! Is it good for you? Questionable. Should the meat industry create Frankenmeat the same way the tobacco industry used chemicals to hook smokers? Highly doubtful.

Its not that difficult in the US to find a reputable butcher and get beef that's not been fed growth hormones or fed "meat" waste in their feeds. I'd boycott those cows as well frankly.

Well, I'm off to pot-road an organic chuck roast so my hub can make (I'm gonna spell this incorrectly) semilknoodle (bread dumplings). Its our first chilly day! WooHoo.