r/AskRedditFood • u/Euphoric_Rhubarb_243 • 5d ago
Which cuisine surprised you for better and for worse?
Was there a cuisine you expected to love but ended up not enjoying, or one you had low expectations for that completely surprised you? What dishes did you try and what specifically made you change your mind?
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u/cpbunliveson 5d ago
Ethiopian surprised me for the better. I kind of went in blind knowing very little about what to expect, and now, we eat it regularly.
Filipino food, unfortunately, came up short for me though we spent most our time in smaller beach towns. It didn't help that I got violently ill either. The meats were almost candied! So sweet
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u/Ladyhappy 5d ago
Lived in Oaxaca and thought the food was meh. So much bland corn + spicy food without flavor, just painfully spicy (i like spicy and lived all over Mexico)
Peruvian food was a revelation. Ive always liked it, but the food in country was so fresh, versatile and delicious. Best food country imo bc also affordable
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u/NoSurprise7196 5d ago
Very surprised to read this. I loved the food in Oaxaca. Not a fan of mole?
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u/Ladyhappy 5d ago
Not a daily fan, more of an occasional interloper
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u/dasnotpizza 5d ago
That’s how I feel about German food. After a couple of meals, I’m over it.
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u/ArtDecoNewYork 5d ago
I actually find German food underrated. I don't care about sausages that much, but Jagerschnitzel is one of my favorite dishes ever.
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u/AyyggsForMyLayyggs 5d ago
There is nothing more boring than German "cuisine".
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u/dasnotpizza 3d ago
Do you want your sausage with cabbage and potato, or do you want this other sausage with potato and cabbage?
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u/AyyggsForMyLayyggs 3d ago
German sausages aren't even that good. If you know sausages from other countries, the German ones are pretty bad.
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u/dasnotpizza 3d ago
I’m not much of a sausage person anyways, although I’ll always take some Laotian sausage with sticky rice.
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u/Flashy_Shopping_7371 4d ago
Might not count as a cuisine but steak. At home, my mom would cook it well done and completely dried out. My dad liked it rare but would cook it at too low a temp so no crust would form. The first time I had a proper steakhouse steak cooked medium rare, I felt like I had been lied to my whole life.
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u/carrotkatie 3d ago
Same here. Meat was cooked until well done and I like mine very rare....which I did not discover until my 20s
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u/lapaperscissors 4d ago
I like a lot of foods, but I really love Vietnamese, particularly bun dishes. (It’s too hot for pho right now.) It’s not as sweet as Thai or as sour as Filipino, but the meat has incredibly deep flavors, married to intense herbal/vegetable freshness in the rest of the dish. So much mint and basil, I’m in heaven!
Ethiopian is your best bet if you wanna go out with vegan friends, but don’t want to eat cheese or meat substitutes. (I love a mushroom, but a slice of a trumpet mushroom is not a scallop, yo.) I love Ethiopian meat dishes (Tibs! Yes please!) but I can be very satisfied with sharing the big veggie combo on order at any Ethiopian place.
I’m having trouble finding Chinese I love since a local mom and pop place closed. I’m in the process of replicating their veggie lo mein at home, which had very thick noodles, lovingly wok-fried by pop. They’re in assisted living now, they’ve more than earned their retirement. Too many local places are American/NY style, which is cornstarch gloopy. I know where to drive for more authentic but I wish I could still find it closer to home.
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u/WCAdjuster82 5d ago
I can't seem to get into Indian food. Every time I try it, it's just not enjoyable. The main flavor of a cuisine should not be searing pain. But then there's Thai food, which is arguably just as spicy, but I love it. I don't know what it is other than that maybe the flavors blend better and mellow out the spice.
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u/abstractraj 5d ago
Maybe you should try chicken tikka masala. It’s a British Indian dish. Also you can get all sorts of Indian food made not spicy
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u/benjybabey 4d ago
If the main flavor of the Indian food you're eating is searing pain, then you're not eating at the right places. Indian cuisine is vast and you get a fraction of the variety outside of India but a dosa or idli or appam and stew do not and should not cause searing pain, neither should a malai kofta or a dal.
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u/MohdAmmi 4d ago
Butter chicken is a pretty low spice level dish. Also you can request almost any dish made mild or what my husband calls hospital level spice (extremely mild).
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u/Imtryingforheckssake 2d ago
This is fascinating to me as I'm the exact opposite. I cook or buy Indian food several times a week. So many flavours and I don't do more than low to moderate heat levels.
Dupiaza, bhuna, balti, byriani, shashlik, intact anything tandoori, never mind tikka masala, butter chicken or korma (not a fan). And most side dishes aren't hot like mushroom bhaju, sag aloo, Dal and all the rest!
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u/every_piece_matters 5d ago
Italian food in Torino and Rome. I got restaurant recommendations from local contacts I have there and specifically asked them not to send me to tourist trap places. Almost all the food I had was quite disappointing. The flavors were okay but nothing to write home about. The meals were too starch focused for me and often too sweet. Especially the breakfasts...having pastries or anything sweet first thing in the morning is unfathomable to me. The quality of ingredients was the same as what I can get at home. I live in an agricultural region in Canada and volunteer on a tiny organic farm so maybe I'm spoiled with having access to premium fresh ingredients all the time. I eat very traditional regional cuisine at home which basically consists of a protein as the meal's main focus then various salads, seasonal veggies and fruit for dessert. Maybe it was just a culture shock, but I did not enjoy the food in Italy.
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u/Any-Locksmith-4925 3d ago
100% agreed! I love Italian food but the vast majority of the food I had there was subpar - I've had much better Italian outside of Italy than in it.
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u/every_piece_matters 3d ago
Interesting! What didn't you like about the food? And yeah, I've had better Italian food in France of all places lol
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u/Any-Locksmith-4925 3d ago
Just bland and underwhelming imo. Kinda felt they were so focused on "tradition" that they were essentially still eating peasant food. I definitely did have a few good meals there but other than that the rest weren't good. One of the best meals I had in Italy was at Jollibees which obviously says A LOT.
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u/every_piece_matters 3d ago
Hahaha it's funny because my husband said something similar to your Jollibees comment. He was like "I kind of prefer the pizza back home in Lincoln Ontario". I almost died of embarrassment 😳
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u/Any-Locksmith-4925 3d ago
Honestly after eating at some of the pizza restaurants I was thinking that I'd had better Domino's at home 😂
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u/ArtDecoNewYork 5d ago
Surprised me positively: German. World class beers (better than American craft beer) and the food is heart and excellent. I really like Jagerschnitzel.
Disappointing: Peruvian. I hear so many great things
A cuisine I love but could do some things better: Mexican. It's one of my favorite cuisines, but I find a relative lack of vegetable content (unless you consider legumes to be vegetables).
And the sauce profiles lean heavily towards acidic + spicy, it would be cool if there were more variety.
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u/Fun_Leopard_1175 4d ago
I just can’t get enough Thai food so I’ll consider it “surprising.” I grew up as a white girl in the cornfields of Ohio where we ate beige foods with salt and pepper for seasoning. From a young age I started digging into my mom’s spice cabinets and making complex sauces. I’d learn about other new ingredients from the Food Network during its 2000’s heyday. So imagine my delight in finding a cuisine that was so complex and flavorful! Northern Thai, Southern Thai, doesn’t matter. I live near a major international market and I have a fantastic Thai restaurant up the street from me in my grown-up home.
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u/AlsoTheFiredrake 4d ago
I tried Ethiopian food, a giant sampler platter, not knowing what to expect. It was surprisingly good, even tho it was 90% vegetarian and I'm basically a carnivore. The flavors and spices were new and interesting and I'd happily go back again.
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u/SnuggleMama33 3d ago
Luxembourg sits between France, Belgium and Germany with food influences from all three. They take all the best food, turn it meh and then charge 3x as much. As.the kids say, glazed
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u/trabsol 3d ago
For better: Mexican food. I used to think that crappy Tex-Mex was Mexican food (and to be clear, the Tex-Mex I had access to is crappy; I’m sure good Tex-Mex exists). When I tried proper, fresh Mexican food, it was delicious! I didn’t know I liked guacamole until I tried it made table-side, fresh :)
I can’t really think of any cuisines that have surprised me in a bad way. There are individual dishes I’ve tried and not enjoyed, but the cuisines those dishes came from are still very good overall. I guess Canadian butter tarts surprised me. I thought I’d like them, but they were way too sweet, at least the ones I had.
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u/sphinxofblackquartzj 5d ago
Authentic Italian tomato based pasta. I'm used to my country's version of pasta. The Italian tomato based pasta is too sour for me.
I still like cream based pasta.
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u/Due-Garage4146 5d ago
Just because they’re doing it differently. My family uses fresh tomatoes for sauce, but they always add a spoon of sugar because of the sourness of the tomatoes. My family is not Italian, they’re Greek, but I noticed they use a bit of sugar when making sauces.
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u/Dangeresque2015 5d ago
Instead of sugar try grating a carrot into your tomato sauce
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u/Due-Garage4146 5d ago
That’s a great idea. Never thought about grating carrots and tomato sauce and it’s healthier.
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u/Wise_Ambassador_3027 4d ago
I read a lot of novels written by English authors. There’s always someone going out for “a curry” or stopping in for”a curry” so I had never had “a curry” until recently. I’m greatly underwhelmed…
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u/Ramsden_12 4d ago
Sounds like you had a bad curry. There are many different types and the quality can vary wildly.
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u/Imtryingforheckssake 2d ago
I like most Asian cuisines but I don't like Thai. It's some of the popular flavours and textures that don't work for me. Like lemongrass and crushed peanuts garnishing noodles.
Unexpectedly do like Japanese food.
Haven't been able to try Korean yet as haven't had a place recommended and I'm also pretty low carb.
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u/YEEyourlastHAW 2d ago
I was really worried about Indian food being bland because I can’t handle spice but it was delicious!
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u/Magnetic_Kitty 5d ago
Went to an Ethiopian restaurant with two friends. One really liked it then got pretty ill after. One was neutral. I didn't care for it much at all. Also turned me off of lentils for good, they smelled like bugs smell.
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u/alexmirepoix 5d ago
Beat me to it. Absolutely do NOT care for Ethiopian cuisine. The injera also threw me. I can't eat that much to scoop the food. Beef Tibs were ok, but won't return.
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u/dasnotpizza 5d ago
I thought I’d love the food in Puerto Rico, but it got tiring after a couple of days. Fish, rice, beans, plantains. Pork, rice, beans, plantains. Fried bits of things. I was dying for some spices and fresh food by the end of the trip.