On Fri, 7 Sep 2007 11:32:10 -0500, "TMOliver"
wrote:

I am comfortable admitting to eating better in France and Belgium than in
most of the US, especially when it comes to French and Belgian food. The
same is true in Italy, where I've been a frequent visitor since 1962. But
on every visit to Europe it seems harder to find the same "good" cafes of
yesteryear, replaced to often by the fast food morass. Obviously, I am far
more likely to find good European food in any one of the US's larger cities
than I might encounter "traditional US cooking" in Europe. As for Asian
food in Europe, except in Paris, it's almost laughable compared to that
available in Houston, SoCal, San Francisco or the Seattle/Vancouver area.

Another exception is Indonesian (or Indo-Chinese fuson) in the Netherlands.
And we have excellent Asian and middle-eastern food in the DC area as well.

Nowhere in Europe is a traveler likely to stumble upon the sort of pleasant
surprises found across the US in untoward locations, the little Basque
places around the corner in some near deserted Nevada junction, or the
upstairs Vietnamese seafood hangout in Kemah where the shrimp, squid and
tiny octopi are sautéed on a harrow disc. No French village has anything to
match the Napa with that old second rate winery with the grand deli, fine
selections of area cheeses and cured meats (and a rack of baguettes) and
plenty of shady tables outside to sit and enjoy them with the fruit we road
food travel fans have learned to always carry along.

We've found lots of similar surprises in small French towns, such as Carnac and
Cahors.

Fortunately, I am grandly happy with good Italian and French food,
especially the "plain vanilla small town/family/cafe" sort, available with
plenty of local and regional variety. But then I need to be, because in
much of France and Italy, the alternatives to that cooking are unacceptable,
either sad imitations of "foreign" recipes or a choice of grotesquely
over-priced restaurants caught up in fleeting media frenzy. Just as I am
pleased to add a name to my old directory of "Decent Italian Dining Rooms"
circulated among my friends who travel there, I'm always sad to remove one
of the great finds of yesteryear now departed (or worse ruined by trying to
be fancy and popular). What we do not have in the US are many small hotels
with good dining rooms, a tradition in much of Europe. Most hotel food in
the US falls into the late-term abortion category, deserving of prevention
on moral grounds alone. As for the UK, I'm never sure, but do note that
every "improvement" in English food seems accompanied by a collateral
increase in the number and spread of plastic ranks of fast food and what we
used to call "Greasy Spoons", institutions that the British seem willing to
not only tolerate but frequent

Nicely put, overall.

-- Larry