I don’t blame them, but it does make me wonder what kind of idiots are randomly walking into blatantly ethnic joints where every other customer is an expat and ordering something they are not prepared to try, really?! Did they accidentally walk in and just order thinking it was Taco Bell?
I’ve more than once been questioned when ordering a Moxie. Not that there are that many places you can get Moxie, so it mostly happens at hot dog stands and clam shacks in Maine. I have to reassure the staff that yes, we’ve had Moxie before. I assume they get a lot of returns when people find out what it tastes like. I don’t actually like it - it’s for my husband when I order it.
This crosses into a whole different thing which is what I call under the counter foods, stuff that is technically illegal or if not in a grey area. It depends how paranoid the owner is and how big the consequences are if caught if you will be served unless you have the right accent. I could definitely see this over time becoming a general distrust of anyone who is just adventurous.
An Ethiopian place with no liquor license I was in was known for serving the honey wine or mead(the name is escaping me) pretty openly.
There was a African place in Houston busted for serving Armadillo, they didn’t claim there was anything wrong with the meat it just was not approved for human consumption(the animal):rolleyes:.
There was an article about the writers attempt to track down an illegal fruit in Chinatown in NYC(it was fruitless:p) I don’t remember the exact fruit.
I have never been to Long Island, but I used to go to a bagel deli in Skokie IL all the time. That said, I did not know there was a difference between smoked salmon and lox. What is lox, then?
Cured but not smoked salmon. A completely different kettle of fish, I assure you.
Years ago in Dominica I ordered from a handwritten menu based on my half-assed translation. The woman shook her head and, although she spoke no English, she made a “meow” sound and I agreed to order something else.
My first thought here is durian.
As **silenus **says, they are very different:
The surprising bit was that I am in New York City where you’d think they would know the difference. At the time I remember thinking it was because I’m female - it was something in the way he said it, slightly condescending in tone.
I’d think that would be easy to find - just sniff for the scent of rot.
Because they are used to the watered down version in their home town. Or they want to try something “exotic,” but don’t realize it’s so far outside their own experience. Or they just pick a name at random to see what it is.
When I ordered that sushi, I was expecting something else, even with the warning. Still, it did have what they told me it would, so I had no cause for complaint, and it was delicious. I could imagine someone who’s only eaten supermarket sushi would be immediately put off by finding it in a bowl and not made up of little bite-sized chunks.
I was once having dinner with my girlfriend in a Scottish restaurant (no, not McDonalds) run by a craggy old Scot. There were several single-malt scotches on the menu, and I told him, “I don’t have any experience with single-malt scotches; can you recommend one?” He said, “Ye wouldn’t appreciate it; I’ll bring ye a beer,” and trudged off.
What really made my girlfriend giggle was that he then brought me a light beer.
And possibly lose out on a new experience. Sometimes it’s worth it to push against resistance. And whenever I’ve done this, the servers have been quite pleased at my enjoyment of a dish that they thought that only their fellow ethnics would like.
The sea urchin eggs I can completely understand. But who in the hell is ordering sushi and is surprised to find raw fish on their plate?
:rolleyes:
Then I’ll go somewhere else where I don’t get told what I want.
Probably just an assumption that Americans are only familiar with California rolls and other such Western-style sushi.
But then you’re being just as unpleasant and judgmental as they are. Fine, if that’s what makes you happy, but I’m more happy pushing boundaries and achieving pleasant surprises for everyone. That’s actually how people learn to think outside their preconceptions.
If you get up an walk away at such a slight provocation, you only confirm their stereotypes and you don’t get anything out of it except the headaches of being grumpy and finding another place to eat.
I prefer to find a way to not end an encounter negatively. But your rolleyes suggest to me that you actually might prefer being outraged, offended, and grumpy. Whatever floats your boat then.
I know they don’t mean it in an offensive way but it always irritates me when they say “That is for Chinese people (or Indian people or whatever). White people won’t like it” Seems borderline racist.
We are all the same species with exactly the same taste buds and stomachs. I’m just as capable at eating whatever you eat. In fact I would wager that my eating experience is way wider than theirs given that people who say that tend to only eat their own ethnicity’s foods
If a waiter is talking from experience (e.g. out of the past 50 non-Chinese who ordered that dish, 49 of them hated it), I’d appreciate the warning.
But the idea that congee with beef (one of the most inoffensive foods imaginable) would be objectionable to western palates is just ridiculous.
This isn’t quite what the OP was asking for, but it sort of fits:
There’s a Chinese restaurant near my workplace that, in addition to the regular menu, has an untranslated Chinese list of dishes on the wall. A couple of friends and I would occasionally do a “Fear Factor” sort of lunch, where we would just point to one of those dishes and say, “I’d like that.” Nothing that we were served was ever shockingly exotic, and I tend to think that the waiter would just go back to the kitchen and say, “Give these a**holes some chow mein; they won’t know the difference.”
There are apps you can get that will translate them for you through your camera phone. Not sure if they work with hand-written Chinese, but could be interesting to try. May take the fun out of your game, but it would allow you to test if they’re bringing you what you ordered.