It’s not just the US that has bland restaurants and/or is afraid of spice.
I’ve been to restaurants in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Austria, and Bulgaria.
I’m sure there are places that spice things up more and some of the restaurants were really good, but some were also some of the most bland food I’ve had at a restaurant.
It’s the same thing in the US; there are places that won’t put any spice on and there are places that will leave you crying the food is so hot and everything in-between.
Also every “Mexican” food dish I’ve had in Europe has just been bad. Y’all are doing it wrong.
Spicy food does not mean good food or more interesting food, eastern European food is almost never spicy but it’s almost always really good and hardly bland as most westerners would cower in fear at the sight of some marinated fish or some such.
I used to live in Japan, and let me tell you, a lot of typical Japanese cooking is unexpectedly quite lightly seasoned. I don’t mean all food, but especially common things like rice and fish dishes.
It lets you taste the food itself more than the seasoning. If you start with good ingredients, you don’t need to dress it up as much.
You should check out Korea or China for much better food, though. Japanese food isn’t bad but it is terribly boring. Even most of the interesting Japanese dishes have Chinese origins.
Worst offender in my experience: the Dutch. I actually think their way of “seasoning” is to actively remove any natural flavour from the ingredients. They have the best Indonesian food outside South-East Asia though. Also, the Nordic Countries do a lot of things right, food is not one of them.
Also every “Mexican” food dish I’ve had in Europe has just been bad. Y’all are doing it wrong.
Yes, I read that a lot from Americans. I don’t think Europeans care much for Mexican food because there’s mostly no cultural connection to Mexico and no Mexican immigrants (Spain might be an exception). The rare Mexican restaurants you’ll find in Europe are there for the American soldiers stationed here. Basically, when in Europe, go for Arab, Asian, or African food if you don’t like the local food.
I had some pretty terrible Thai in Poland, so it’s definitely not uniquely Mexican food 🙂 That’s just one that I’ve had a few more encounters with that was more consistently bad.
Fair point about the cultural influence; it’s probably less cultural influence than number of immigrants (and the US definitely has a lot of immigrants from asia and Mexico). I live in Ohio, so I’m fairly far from the border, but the Mexican food still ranges from “pretty good” to “fantastic.”
Meanwhile finding like good French, German, or Belgian cooking, even in areas with historic immigration from those areas in decades or centuries past is quite difficult.
Even more traditional “early European American immigrant” food (like chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, mush, turkey, roast beef sandwiches, etc) can feel endangered outside of Amish country, family kitchens, and large chain restaurants that do it badly.
Care to share some of the dishes you tried?
Generally the cuisine in those countries isn’t spicy, but does not shy away from herbs and pickled anything. However we’ve been plagued by overpriced, tourist trap bad restaurants here, and Covid just made it worse.
I do echo that Mexican restaurants in Europe that I’ve been to are bad or meh at best. I’ve never been to Mexico and I hope the restaurants are owned by exiles who fled the country hunted by pitchfork wielding mobs, infuriated at how bad the cooks were :D
Probably varies depending on where you live. I don’t even live in a big American city, but we do have access to a wide variety of restaurants including very spicy ones (they have non-spicy options of course, but there’s plenty of places that serve spicy dishes from all over the globe.
We never said the US was afraid of spice. We said they think butter is a spice
