Krispy Kreme are all over London. I once dropped into one to buy a doughnut as a snack. The assistant looked at me disdainfully and said "Just the one?".

Krispy Kreme are all over London.>>

sounds messy.

Wow – looks like there are 45 Krispy Kreme locations of various types (including Hotlight Stores, where they make the doughnuts – HOT DOUGHNUTS NOW!), plus lots of Tescos that sell the doughnuts as well.

My stomach will probably regret it (I can't eat doughnuts like I used to), but I'll HAVE to visit a KK while I am in the UK next month to try one (or more) of the "not-available-in-the-USA" varieties like Jaffa Cake or Chocolate Dreamcake or Millionaires' Shortbread or Lemon Meringue Pie (topped with actual toasted meringue - why don't they sell these in the US??).

Actually, it looks like of the 16 varieties on the website (including 2 seasonal Halloween varieties), only 8 are sold in the US. http://www.krispykreme.co.uk/doughnu...ughnut=classic

By the way, thanks to KK I now know that vanilla bean (US) = vanilla pod (UK).

@ beeberry -- on See's Candies, not necessarily true -- at least not with my friends -- I wasn't referring to Americans now living in London, but rather my English friends who visited the West Coast -- they're the ones who find See's Candies "lovely", as they put it.

But I agree, most people -- when it comes to chocolate (or popcorn for that matter) find what they grew up with is where their personal taste lies. I was never fond of Cadbury chocolate anymore than I was fond of Ghiraddeli chocolate. Having said that, the Yorkie Raisin & Biscuit bars I would kill for. Fortunately, they are available in a number of British shops in Santa Monica, like my other English treat, the Garibaldi biscuits.

The English almost uniformly HATE root beer, simply because they haven't grown up with it. And I was not too pleased when I first moved to England to find that popcorn had sugar rather than salt on it.

Surfergirl - we moved to the US when my DS was 12, he took to root beer like a duck to water.

Everyone else in our family thinks it tastes like Germoline - Our British friends here will know what I mean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germolene

Sugar on popcorn? I prefer caramel.

>>Everyone else in our family thinks it tastes like Germoline<<

Your family eats haemorrhoid cream?

>>Everyone else in our family thinks it tastes like Germoline<<

Your family eats haemorrhoid cream?>>

Germoline is simply an antiseptic cream [though still a bit yucky to eat, I would think].

Preparation H is for the "farmer Giles".

Hershey's didn't take the cocoa butter out of all their products, but did switch to vegetable oil in quite a number of them in 2008. However, the original Kisses and Hershey Bars still have the cocoa butter.

I like better chocolates, sure. But don't mind Cadbury and when someone occasionally thinks I need an Americana fix, the Hershey's Kisses they send. It's just two different things to me. One is much more chocolate, chocolate (and that's the Hershey's). I've had Mexican chocolate that's not dissimilar and well, after all, chocolate IS Mexican. I'm sure there's plenty there though that is like European chocolate just as there are US manufacturers. And the European (and Australian) gravitates towards lots of dairy, lots of sugar and not a lot of actual chocolate (which is dry and bitter...). And what they make is smooth and nice. And different.

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We were just in California recently and I had to try In n Out after hearing so much. They were ok, I thought. But just ok. Agree the fries were pretty awful. All in all, I'd pick Steak n Shake first for burgers or fries. Or Backyard Burger even.

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Wonders how long Krispy Kreme UK can keep pretending to make all those doughnuts no one buys before they can't pay the rent anymore. Apparently they're pretending sales are up 12.6% this year. (not sure why though personally.. I can not stand Krispy Kremes)

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Remembers a couple of British themed full service restaurants in Memphis. Pretty much roast beef, prime rib, potatoes and yorkshire puddings...

>>Remembers a couple of British themed full service restaurants in Memphis. Pretty much roast beef, prime rib, potatoes and yorkshire puddings...<<

Ah, but did they come with motherly ladies who made you eat up all your greens ("or NO pudding!") and keep your elbows off the table?

Did they also say, "Those who eat most pudding, get most meat"?

I only saw the menu at one place, but at the one I did go to,if I recall it was pretty much just an acne'd kid who just said "y'all" a lot. I'm trying to think if they said anything about puddings (It wasn't to ask how you could have some if you don't eat yer meat). All I do remember is at the time is that I had no idea "pudding" for dessert wasn't a custard. Lack of research on my part. I didn't order it. And that anything green, but not round, didn't seem to factor highly into the standard. I asked for a salad instead of peas. Nice roast though.

Actually IN London, I had nice curry, reasonable stir fry and a truly awful hamburger.

In regards to Travelgourmet's statement:

I just object to people posting wildly inaccurate information. It is fine to prefer, for example, a Cadbury's Dairy Milk to a Hershey's Milk Chocolate, but this talk of secretly removing cocoa butter or what is a legal amount of wax is unhelpful. I think there is a lot of misinformation about food and much of it comes from well-meaning people that repeat stupid things they heard without actually thinking. Then some other well-meaning person repeats it and, next thing you know, that misinformation becomes conventional "wisdom".

I read the info. on replacing cocoa butter in chocolate in the paper, however, here is the story as told on the Today Show.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/267881...sheys-formula/

annhig on Oct 29, 11 at 8:00am
>>Everyone else in our family thinks it tastes like Germoline<<

Your family eats haemorrhoid cream?>>

Germoline is simply an antiseptic cream [though still a bit yucky to eat, I would think].

Patrick_L - we never used it on haemorrhoids (never even had one) but my Mum would use it as her 'to go to' cream for any infection and as kids we always ended with it in our mouths.

Root beer/germolene :(

I guess I'm a little confused on Britsh food. I understand that the thread's original point was NA foods not available in UK, but has devolved into a "British Food is Good and has been for many years" vs. "it's crap" debate. My experience is limited in the UK, so I googled info on British food. Found an interesting website: http://pocketcultures.com/topicsofth...vourite-foods/

Funny thing is, at a minimum, 6 of the top 10 are not British. You can buy it or eat it in the UK, but it's not British - specifically the Curry dishes and that ubiquitous UK delight - spaghetti BOLOGNESE!

Are we talking about that kind of Britsh food, not traditional british foods like spotted dick?

Well, not all of us Yanks detest all British foods. From my time living in England I really miss both pork pies and Scotch Eggs. I know many Brits deplore those as crap foods, but I like them, and they are not available here in my part of the States.

There is one bakery in Sidney, B.C., that does pork pies, and I stop by every time I pass through on my way to Victoria. A kind friend who lives in Sidney will also pick up some for me when he takes the ferry over to Anacortes, but other than that I find myself jonesing for those unhealthy snacks.

Well, not all of us Yanks detest all British foods. From my time living in England I really miss both pork pies and Scotch Eggs. I know many Brits deplore those as crap foods, but I like them, and they are not available here in my part of the States.>>

a good pork pie or scotch egg can be a delight, a bad one, not! [like most things, really].

it is funny how we have adopted the dreaded "chicken tikka marsala" as our national dish, but perhaps it's fitting as it's been invented to suit UK tastes; ditto the ubiquitous spag bol which doesn't exist in Italy either.

Conversely, archetypal english dishes like spotted dick are rarely to be seen, inside or outside family homes, partly, I suspect due to the name, and partly due to the amount of time that it takes to cook.

IMHO we have become very lazy about food and if we can't do it in 30 mins, we aren't interested. the only exception to that is the sunday roast, which continues to be cooked up and down the country in many households.

I happened to spot a new line from Montezuma today (new to me, anyway): chocolate bars somehow incorporating puddings, among them, Eton Mess, apple crumble and............... spotted dick.

I was tempted, but not at £3.95 a bar.

LondonYank - I have a friend in the UK who has requested PAM cooking spray: "My friends really like it, so bring as much as you can."

"Funny thing is, at a minimum, 6 of the top 10 are not British"

So?

Tomatoes aren't native to Italy, potatoes aren't native to Ireland, coffee's not native to North America and I've never seen a tea bush producing leaves you can brew a cuppa out of in Britain.

Mid-20th century Britain simply had no culinary heritage to draw on (all that stuff about the Roast Beef of Old England describes what rural toffs ate. Most Britons had moved into cities by about the 1870s, since British agriculture couldn't compete with cheaper food imported from the New World. The new city dwellers just fried or boiled whatever was handiest or bought it from a hot food seller).

Once WW2 ended, and we'd gone back to eating Oz/NZ lamb, North American wheat, Danish pork and bacon and South African fruit, it made at least as much sense to import our recipes from a few hundred miles away as our food from the other side of the world.

I haven't had access to PAM cooking spray in some time, but can't recall now if it differs significantly from your generic spray vegetable (or canola, olive, etc) oil. I have to imagine they have spray oils to coat pans in the UK, don't they? There are quite a lot of different brands of that sort of thing here in Oz.