Local Cuisine or Food You're Familiar With?
 

A principal I try to follow when travelling (with varying degrees of success) is to always eat the local cuisine rather than their rendition of my home cuisine. How do other Fodorites feel about this?
One reason is that many countries simply cannot do our food the way we do. Also the local food is part of my travel experience, and I usually look for where locals go rather than where tourists go. Usually it pays off, although one can get burnt (as I did in Malaysia) - but that too is part of the experience!

Pig's Knee in the Czech Republic - delicious!

though I don't travel as much as you in the more exotic places such as Malaysia. I always eat the local dish, the cheeses, the apertif and digestif and it's amazing in France alone, as Italy, how it differs in each area, and how enriched it makes a trip.

Twoflower, I follow the same principle when I travel: local cuisine is an integral part of the experience. Never would I eat at a McDonald's or other American-based chain while travelling outside the US. And even though I am fascinated by the popularity of the southern-style barbecue joints that have sprung up in London recently, I can't see eating American barbecue in London when I could be having a wonderful pasty or pork pie instead, which I cannot easily buy in the U.S.

Sometimes the issue arises whether to stick with native cuisine and forgo immigrant cuisine. For example, London has amazing Indian cuisine and Chinese cuisine, said to be among the best (or even THE best) that one can get outside of India and Chinese-settled parts of Asia, respectively, and which are among my favorite cuisines. However, as I have only eight days in London this April and have so many British foods that I love and want to eat while in London, I have decided to forgo Indian and Chinese this time around. There are not enough meals to aloow me to indulge all my cravings. My reasoning is that I'll have Indian food when I'm in india and Chinese food when I am in certain parts of Asia where it is the native cuisine.

I would also mention the indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands

I too love to eat only local food when in other countries. However, my experience so far has been spending a maximum of five days in one location, so to try all local specialties I'd like to try, I'd have to eat six or seven meals a day! So much food, so little time (sigh!)

twoflower:

I once followed a principal. But that particular head teacher proved useless at finding his way round the town we'd just arrived in.

Since then, I've always found principles are better things to follow.

Sorry to be picky. But preserving the power of the English language needs pedantic nuisances like me to speak up.

On the substantive point, however, I'd suggest you don't gar far enough.

Why try? Just eat the local stuff every time. It's never difficult: tens of millions of locals do just that every day.

Britain and Holland apart, of course. But they both had the sense to colonise countries that did know how to cook. Eat Cantonese three times a day in London and you won't go far wrong.