[yokaze]

I can't speak about Bangkok, or Chicago.

On Tokyo, Barcelona, and to a lesser extend LA, SF, I feel more confident to say something.

It is greatly a question what you are looking for, and the author quite apparently appreciates the variety.

And I have to give it to them, I do not think that Tokyo or Barcelona are in the same league there.

That is not to disparage the quality of the food. I hold Tokyo in high regard, and would say it is the place I would most likely feel confident to go to a blindly chosen random Japanese restaurant. In Barcelona, you already have to filter out the tourist traps. (Hint: Paella & Sangria)

But in both places, it felt to me more dicey if would like some non-local food. It always seemed to be heavily adopted to the local preferences. But maybe my experience is outdated.

My armchair theory is, that both cities "suffer" from the fact of having a great culture of own cuisine. Not sure, if their customers do not appreciate the otherness, or the cooks are preemptively trying to "fit in".

As the author writes, LA is a melting pot, and I have eaten there great food from all over the place, especially when the menu was only half-translated. But then, it may be a prejudice, I am less confident that I can pick a random place, and receive the same quality as in Tokyo.

[lhorie]

I thought it was interesting that the author specifically calls out Thai food. LA has a thai population of only about 27k (Chinese is about half a million, for comparison). The abundance of Thai restaurants in LA and other large cities is largely due to a Thai government culinary diplomacy initiative[0] to promote gastro-tourism.

I tend to find that Chinese food, for example, is more organically represented. In San Francisco, despite there being a Chinatown proper, and several other minor pockets (around Sunset for example), the quality of offerings is fairly mediocre, mirroring the americanization of its chinese population, compared to, say, Toronto, where you can find great a many restaurants with untranslated menus, catering to a large native chinese population.

> My armchair theory is, that both cities "suffer" from the fact of having a great culture of own cuisine. Not sure, if their customers do not appreciate the otherness, or the cooks are preemptively trying to "fit in"

I think this is a variation of the concept of "food grammar"[1]. I've noticed, for example, that in San Francisco, a lot of asian eats feature jalapeno peppers, and there's a number of mexican inspired fusion things (senor sisig, for example).

California rolls have quite a life of their own: they themselves are spin-offs of traditional sushi meant to cater to those who may be squeamish about raw fish, but I've seen restaurants in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood (an area w/ a lot of sushi restaurants) make some very flamboyant rolls that are completely detached from that rationale (mango sauce, anyone?)

The thing with a city developing its own food grammar is that it can be hit or miss. Personally, I'm not big on SF's jalapenos-everywhere thing. Sometimes, I just want a good traditional bahn-mi, not a San Francisco take on it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culinary_diplomacy#Thailand

[1] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/do-italians-eat-spaghe...

[enjo]

When I lived in LA I always felt like the variety argument was kind of nonsensical. It's not like the typical LA neighborhood has great reprsentation of a lot of different ethnic foods. The best korean is in korea twon, the best chinese in the SGV, etc... but day to day it doesn't matter that "LA" has it because theres nowhere you can live where you are even an hour drive to most of it.

Most peoples actual LA experience is that they stay mostly confined to one little part of LA because they have a two hour commute during the week. They never get to really dig into that food scene because it's just to big a hassle to be a part of it.

Hot take: I don't think the best food in southern california is even in Los Angeles it's in Baja Mexico to the south.

[secondaryacct]

I m not sure what level of pricee you expect, also. But LA is really far and hispano-american to be truly neutral culinarily.

I'm french and therefore a bit food snob. I live in Hong Kong, a place where the local food is 3 USD a meal, and the meat dicey while most nationalities, French especially, are represented at all price levels. It's still going to be skewed toward Asian taste (where are the Camembert sushi, a staple of parisian cheap sushi restaurant!?)

I dont know american food scene but it's probably horrendous: a memory of a 2 week stay in NYC when I was 16 scarred me: people in the US call "fat" "food", they cant actually comprehend taste. Just like my indian friends are so burned by spice they cant see the difference between different types of steaks (and tbh, like I find all type of spice just tasteless fire and cant distinguish them).

It's not bias you have, it's complete ignorance, I humbly assert :D I hope at least you're not the kind of american who think fortune cookies are traditional chinese culinary culture (it s an american invention)...

But if you speak of ultra luxury chefs and their distribution vs Tokyo or Barcelona you may be right, but it hardly matters: that's not real food either.

[simonw]

The food scene in larger American cities like NY, LA and SF is fantastic - and I've spent a lot of time outside of the USA.

[carabiner]

What I've noticed about the French/Italian food snobs is that they seem to view American food culture as it was in 1990s suburbia. Back then, good olive oil or artisanal cheese was pretty hard to find outside of small "gourmet" food stores. It's very different today.

[finiteseries]

Purely outsider anecdotes:

Despite also using a similar (or even less!) amount of spice and largely enjoying the same “beige” palette and textures as the rest of the continent, I found Northern Europe’s cities so delightfully open to the rest of the world’s cuisine in contrast to my experiences in the south, I don’t think the other comment is completely off the mark in how immense “local pride” kind of definitely factors into a very certain way of doing things to the exclusion of others, even locally between eg Barcelona & Valencia.

It probably isn’t a coincidence how curry, and donër kebab are devoured left and right by rich-ish and poor in England and Germany to the point of entering the national identity after rocky starts in the middle of the last century while France and Italy’s right wings are still to this day thriving on specifically culinary othering, to the point of coining things like “kebabization” and trying to ban kebab stands in the city centers of Florence and Marseille.

I would also maybe be careful conflating simply being very French or very Italian, and being a food snob in food circles these days. Interest in French, and recently the Italian cuisines have absolutely plummeted globally and its over the top vocal adherents are often linked to some rather unpopular social attitudes (in food circles, anyways).

eg Indian and Thai are booming, though! https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=french%2...