Based on the thread title, I thought this was going to be about New Zealand accents.
NZ fish and chips are…words cannot explain how good they are. You can get brilliant suppers in any coastal area - of which there are many - and, even inland in a small town you drive through, stopping for a fish and chips lunch is wonderful.
Every Friday we’d have a fish and chips supper when I was young, back in the UK, and they were good, I’d cycle to the local chippie and get 5 portions and hurry home so we could enjoy our end-of-week treat. My parents were chefs and even my mother’s beer batter doesn’t equal the fish and chips you can get in NZ, probably because their fish is so fresh, and the environment so gorgeous.
I have to mention the time I went to Cleveland to inspect some equipment being built for my employer (oilfield equipment manufacturer in Houston). Well, the lead engineer on the project really liked the Mexican food he ate when he visited us in Houston, so he had to take us to this Mexican place there in Ohio.
I’m not kidding, I ordered a plate that came with chile con queso. I received a small bowl of chile con carne with a slice of American cheese on top. It took me a while to figure out what it was.
Yeah, the size wouldn’t have bothered me if it had been cooked all the way through. I almost wondered if it was frozen when they dropped it in the fryer, and it just never thawed enough to cook completely before the outside got crispy golden brown and they decided it was done. I wound up eating around the edges and left most of the middle part on the plate.
After I moved down south, I started to like me some chicken-fried steak. I stopped at a restaurant while driving back up to Chicago, saw it on the menu.
A piece of roast beef, breaded and fried, with brown gravy. :eek:
Downtown Honolulu has some great places for plate lunch with ingredients from Asian and Polynesian cuisine. But if you see Italian grinders or gyros on the menu, run haole run.
I believe it is a sure sign that you are going to be served bad Chinese food, when the restaurant puts bottles of Heinz ketchup and French’s mustard on the table (this happened years back in Salina, Kansas).*
*although the worst Chinese food I ever ate was a glutinous tasteless mess at a place in a small town in coastal Scotland. Afterwards, we went back to our room in a rickety multi-story “lodge” and spent the night rehearsing fire escape routes.
The fish in the “fish and chips” around here seem to be always made with salmon. 
So, so wrong.
I had fish and chips twice during my visit there 2 years ago. The first was in Akaroa. Can’t remember what kind of fish it was but it was fantastic. Then had some in Hokitika a few days later. It was not very good. Also had white bait for the first time too. I would love to have some again.
Whoops, posted twice.
In at least two English/Irish themed pubs in the St. Louis area I have ordered fish and chips, only to be presented with some McFilet thing and greasy house-made (ooh!) crisps. I really dislike potato chips, fresh or not. But come on–they should have known what “fish and chips” meant!
At one of those places, on a separate occasion, I ordered shepherd’s pie, and got some gloopy hamburger a la king with fricking puff pastry on top.
But the owner brought out some poteen on the house, since I actually knew what it was and nobody else ever ordered it, so I forgave him. 
Actually, most things I’ve ordered in St. Louis were quite a bit off from expectations. Don’t get me started on their “famous” “Italian” “food”… :rolleyes:
I have encountered food items in restaurants and food courts here in Trinidad that seem like someone saw a picture of the food item, and tried to recreate it without even looking at the ingredients. Locals assure me that yes this is how they make it here, and have forever.
Lasagna-ground beef and ketchup between lasagna noodles, topped with a drizzling of soy sauce and served COLD.
Shepard’s pie-a round ball of mashed potatoes with ground beef and cheese mixed in.
Gyro-they had the compressed lamb meat right, but they combine it with grated cabbage inside and use a tortilla like wrapping, and instead of tzaki sauce which is yogurt based you get what seems to be watered down mayo.
Barbecue-baked chicken with a sweetish glaze, yes CHICKEN! And to make it worse it is clearly not BBQ’d!
I’m probably forgetting a few.
Mr. Whatsit and I once stopped to get Chinese food at some little one-light town in Wyoming. (That was probably our first mistake, but it was late, we were hungry, and they were open.) We ordered sweet and sour chicken – seemed safe – and hot and sour soup, which seemed a bit more risky.
The chicken was plain chunks of white-meat chicken, sauteed and served in a bowl. In a separate bowl on the side (a large bowl, like you’d serve cereal in) was what appeared to be La Choy Sweet & Sour Sauce.
The hot and sour soup was neither.
We decided not to go back. In fact, we haven’t been back to Wyoming since then either. A bad meal can really put you off.
Any bagel that is first of all, not from New York (or made by my aunt), and second has ham on it. Or any meat and cheese. Or the “Bagel dog.” A non-kosher hotdog wrapped in bagel dough and deep-fried. Indiana loves it some deep fried stuff. I know someone who deep-fried an entire turkey for Thanksgiving.
***delicious ***fried seasoned cornmeal batter balls, with bits of onion in them.
The bagel dog sounds…not so bad after midnight. 
Especially if it’s a Vienna Red Hot. (I think those are kosher, though. At least theoretically.) Then again, I am a Hoosier. I’d rather have a good corn dog, though.
Well, I’ll be damned. Vienna bagel dogs are a thing.
I have had deep-fried turkey twice. Once from somebody in Indiana, another time from a Louisianian. I could take it or leave it.
I suspect that hush puppies were designed as a way to use up leftover catfish fry batter. At least, that’s why I’ve made them a couple of times. I kind of like them.
I never would’ve believed that was a real place. After checking it out, though, I see not only that it exists, but that it’s pretty much what you see in South Park.
Wouldn’t it have been “fush and chups”, in that case?
According to the traditional story, that’s exactly how they came about. But made by campfire chefs at outdoor fishing camps, and then thrown to the dogs to stop them whining and begging for scraps, thus the name. It’s probably bullshit, but I read it in a folklore collection from 1948, so it’s at least 60 year-old bullshit. They’re also a staple in North and South Carolina barbeque restaurants. And GrumpyBunny is exactly right - they’re delicious.
At my college they had (soft serve) cookies and cream ice cream…with no cookies. Tasted exactly like cookies and cream ice cream, it just didn’t have any cookies in it. They must have used some kind of cookie flavoring. It’s really strange the first time you try it.