It didn’t really remind me of fajitas. There were no onions, tortillas, or sauces and the vegetables were things like pieces of cabbage. They were not stir fried. Each item seemed to have been cooked separately and then stacked on the plate, making a big mound of food, topped off with a frankfurter.
Strange, but tasty.
Bahrain has just about every type of cuisine you can think of, in varying standards of quality - Indian, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Italian, French, Lebanese, etc. Someone is apparently opening an “Australian” restaurant soon, serving kangaroo steaks and emu, among other things, which as an Aussie just makes me cringe!
I recall having great Indian and Italian food at the Speke Hotel in Kampala, Uganda a few years back. We were staying at the Sheraton, but the Speke Hotel had better food.
The Sheraton in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania used to have a pretty good pizzeria at one stage, although I haven’t been back in years.
I remember eating at an Outback Steakhouse in Manila once.
I also recall eating great Indian food in Nepal, but seeing as how India and Nepal are neighbours, that might not meet the “exotic” line the OP was looking for!
I hope that you are counting the Outback Steakhouse as an American restaurant, and not an Australian one, in spite of its Australian themes.
Oh, I realised the second we walked in the door that it was an American take on things, plus the fact that I have never seen one in Australia!
Would that be Monsoon Cafe? I know that they have a restaurant in L.A. (and probably elsewhere in the U.S.), but Global-Dining (the parent company) is definitely Japanese. They do Zest Cantina, Cafe La Boheme, Gonpachi, Tableaux, Stellato, Legato, PastaZio, Food Colosseum and Decadence du Chocolat as well.
Any larger town in Bulgaria has a. an Italian restaurant (or at least a restaurant that serves pizza and a few pastas) and b. a Chinese restaurant. Even my little village has two restaurants that serve pizza. I had Chinese food a few months ago, it was…interesting. Not bad, just not what I am used to (which of course is hardly authentic anyway, this was just inauthentic in a different way).
But: I bought some pasta at my local market and the checkout guy asked me what it was, and did not seem enlightened by my answer of “pasta”, so Italian food is clearly not universal yet.
In Sofia, there are at least three Indian restaurants, a Thai place I’ve heard is good but I don’t know where it is, and a Mexican restaurant called Machu Piccu which I haven’t visited based on the name alone. I had a doughnut from Dunkin’ Doughnuts when I was in Sofia a few weeks ago! It was goooooood. (Is American fast food an ethnicity?)
Dooner stands are all over, but aren’t particularly exotic. Same deal with Greek tavernas.
Claim made from ESL teacher in Japan, who was homesick after being away 13 months on a two year contract:
He finally found a “Mexican” restaurant he had heard existed. The prices were high but he was wanting some American food and was hungry. So he and his friend ordered $76 tostadas. After almost a 90 minute wait, out came a large plate, onto was placed a half-dollar-coin sized dollop of refried beans, topped with a triangular dorito, which in turn was topped with a smaller dollop of guacamole, topped with a smaller dollop of sour cream, and finally topped with half a sliced olive. He said all they could do after laughing with that sick stomach feel was to order two more each and blow there budget for the next 3 months.
I know the feeling… I figured that the Chinese/Vietnamese joint my family eats at in Houston must be fairly authentic for two reasons. One, the place is packed with lots of Asian people. Second, the food was very similar to the food at a Chinese place in Oxford, UK.
(The funny part was that I didn’t realize that immigrants speak broken English withn an accent, and the British-accented Chinese girl was even harder to understand than usual)
There are a couple of okay Mexican-food restaurants in Bangkok. Not like in the Southwest, but good enough to satisfy your Jones. I like Tia Maria’s the best.
There’s an excellent Lebanese restaurant in Bangkok named The Cedars. The Thai owner also operates a Thai restaurant in Beirut.
Speaking of the Middle East, there’s a small Little Arab area off of Sukhumvit Soi 3. Some good Iranian, Iraqi, etc, fare.
Tel-Aviv has just about any “Ethnic” food imaginable, from tex-mex (including one good one!) to Mongolian and Japanese, and most points in between.
Some of the better “oriental” restaurants can even tell the difference between Thai and Chinese 
And of course there are two zillion “Arabic” and Humous/Falafel/Shwarma joints – but of course those don’t count as “ethnic,” here.
As for American – we have McDonalds, Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, KFC… :rolleyes:
Tex-Mex is not really good, though. Ah, if you could only taste the wonders of the Southwest. I remember Tomasita’s in Santa Fe and Sadie’s in Albuquerque.
[QUOTE=jjimm]
“Several”??? There are at least 5,000 in Chungking Mansions alone. 
QUOTE]
I think you are probably right.
Ayup. There’s three restaurants in the building; Monsoon, Cafe La Boheme, and Zest Cantina. It’s about a 12 minute walk from the Shibuya train station though (it might be closer to Harajuku, actually.) I’ve only ever gone there twice, so I’ve only tried Monsoon.
Ethnic food is sorely lacking here in Cameroon. In my province, there is a French restaurant for ex-pats, but that is it. There is an Italian guy in the next province who makes his own motzerrella. In the capital, there are a couple Chinese restaurants, two Indian restaurants, a sushi bar and a smattering of European restaurants. We look forward for months for the chance to get to go to these places.
What do they sell in those places?
Despite various attempts, I can’t think of a definitive Australian cuisine. Most whitebread households probably serve up the same things (or similar) for dinner as in the US, ie some meat and some vegetables. Yes, we love barbecues but those aren’t unique to Australia. The only truly local foods I can think of are things like certain desserts and confectionery. What does an Outback Steakhouse have that a Texan-themed one doesn’t (or vice versa)?
It’s closer to Shibuya, and I really like Zest.
Tokyo has some great restaurants. My wife and I regularly eat at a number of differnet places: Vietnamese, Lebanese, Greek, Turkish, Thai, Portuguese, amoung others. Also Napalese, Ethiopian, Sri Lankan, Spanish (also the two I’ve been have been mediocre), some fantastic but expensive French, and a few reasonable French ones, Irish pups and others.
TheLoadedDog writes:
> What does an Outback Steakhouse have that a Texan-themed one doesn’t (or
> vice versa)?
Here’s an article by an Australian on visiting an Outback Steakhouse:
Here’s the Wikipedia entry on Outback Steakhouses:
Their signature appetizer is the Bloomin’ Onion. It’s not Australian, and they may not have invented it themselves, but the first I heard of it was in Outback advertisements. The Wikipedia entry notes that there seems to be a lot of Creole influence in the seasoning.
Georgian food is awesome, but surprisingly, the best Korean meal I ever had was in Moscow at the surreal and drab Moscow Renaissance Hotel. Unfortunately, it looks like the restaurant is no longer there.
Ethnic cuisines of all sorts were well represented in Budapest when I lived there. Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Indian, Indonesian, Chinese, German, Russian, Tex-Mex, Pan South American, etc…, can be found there in varying degrees of quality. The Tex-Mex (The Iguana Cafe) was the best I’ve found anywhere in Europe, probably because it was started by a couple of Americans. It’s also the only restaurant in Europe I’ve seen Mexican chorizo on the menu. Tex-Mex and Mexican, as a rule, are butchered cuisines throughout Europe. Oddly enough, there was not a single Polish restaurant in Budapest.
In Paris I was taken to a Chinese restaurant which turned out to be basically Vietnamese (no surprise there). It was excellent. But pizza in Paris should be avoided.
When I was in Malaysia - where the Malaysian and Chinese food is really good - a visiting English scholar was taken to an ethnic English restaurant so he could chow down on the roast beef of old England.
All I can tell you is, they do not know how to make biryani in Malaysia, forget about it. Not even close. You have to go to Hyderabad, India if you want biryani done absolutely right.
I’m still waiting for someone to start singing “I’ve Got Friends In Pho’ Places”.
Still WAITing…