# Most out-of-place dishes you've seen on a restaurant menu **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2013, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803 "2013-03-24T06:25:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/21 "2013-03-24T17:51:55Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > When it comes to restaurants, plenty of adults are incredibly boring. You see Applebee’s and Olive Gardens thrive everywhere while great little non-franchise places close left and right. I’ve seen plenty of adults eating burgers at ethnic restaurants or other interesting places. In particular, I had a semi-friend who’d always want to tag along with us to restaurants but, without fail, would order a burger every time, no matter how much we tried to talk something up. He would say that whatever food we were eating - mexican, thai, whatever, was too bland 😕 and then order a burger and fries. He was, by far, the most boring human being I’ve ever known. Sounds like a friend of mine (although she was just a boring eater not a boring person). She grew up in a family that ate the blandest food possible all the time. She considered _Pizza Hut_ to be too exotic to eat at. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Tonya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/4491bb/32.png) [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/22 "2013-03-24T18:01:24Z")
When I was a kid I worked at a burger and fries drive thru for a while. Their schtick was that you _couldn’t_ have it your way, all burgers were served the exact same way to make the line move more efficiently. So everything had mustard, ketchup and pickle, the ‘deluxe’ had lettuce, tomato and mayo, no exceptions or extras. Very basic menu, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, deluxe burgers, fries and drinks. No fishwich or chicken patties or nuggets or whatever. The one glaringly out of place offering was the double olive burger, a double deluxe burger with sliced green olives. Not that it’s not an interesting take on a burger, but certainly not the most common one, if they were going to deviate you’d think it’d be something like a bacon cheeseburger or such. Nope, green olives, wtf? ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/23 "2013-03-24T18:03:30Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Yeah, it always disgusts me whenever I go to a new and really interesting and good restaurant, and there’s a last page on the menu with cheeseburgers and chicken fingers. Really, are you such a fucking food coward that you’d go to a great seafood place or Lebanese food or whatever and order the fucking chicken fingers? They should poison those food items to weed those people out. They’re there, you know, _for kids_. One of my clients is a restaurant, and they have chicken fingers along with their much better items. But in their defense, they’re the best damn chicken fingers you’ve ever had. The cut and bread them fresh every day. No frozen fingers shall ever darken their menu! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/24 "2013-03-24T18:13:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **even sven** : > > The local diner in Santa Cruz has typical diner fare- breakfast, sandwiches, meatloaf and…pho. > > Turns out the owner is Vietnamese, and just couldn’t bring himself to do a menu without a Vietnamese dish. On a similar note, there’s a place near here that’s a mix of American diner fare like country-fried steak and meatloaf, and Greek ethnic dishes. Because the owner/chef is Greek. It’s more of a half-and-half split, though, rather than one single out-of-place dish. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/25 "2013-03-24T18:20:53Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > On a similar note, there’s a place near here that’s a mix of American diner fare like country-fried steak and meatloaf, and Greek ethnic dishes. Because the owner/chef is Greek. It’s more of a half-and-half split, though, rather than one single out-of-place dish. That’s very common here in the northeast. A large number of restaurant proprietors are Greek, and no matter what cuisine they present as primary, there are Hellenic dabs throughout the menus. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/26 "2013-03-24T18:21:54Z")
Sometimes the reason that a restaurant offers items that you don’t expect is that you don’t know the full extent of a country’s cuisine. For instance, there are sometimes Italian dishes on Ethopian and Eritrean restaurant menus. This is because Ethopian (as well as Eritrea, which was then part of Ethopia) was controlled by Italy during various periods. We tend in the U.S. to think of other countries as being fairly ethnically pure, while we are influenced by everybody. It’s more complicated than that. Another example is that there are massive amounts of Indian and Pakistani food items served in the U.K., so much so that it would be surprising to meet a Brit who hasn’t experienced those cuisines a few times. ---
**Author:** ![Ms.Pumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a87d85/32.png) [@Ms.Pumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Pumpkin)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/27 "2013-03-24T18:22:22Z")
Locally, there is a restaurant called Pedro O’Hara’s. They advertise “Mexican, American, and Irish cuisine.” Always thought that was really strange. I’ve never been there, but it’s popular and successful. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/28 "2013-03-24T18:22:27Z")
In this Mexican town I’'m currently in there’s whole restaurant that’s out of place. It’s an Asian/South Asian place. The other half of the menu is Italian. And the menu is a book. All signs to stay away, right? But the place is packed every night and it’s some of the best Asian food I’ve ever eaten. The pizza’s okay too. On top of that, on weekends they have a blues band of expat Americans. The hostess is an Australian woman of mystery and charm and the kitchen staff looks like they spent a decade hard duty on a tramp steamer. Waiters are Mexican. I’m not sure if they put those little umbrellas in their drinks or not but I did see the mother of all cockroaches scurry along the wall one evening and a lizard in the lounge area. Out of place! (Kinda hard to keep 'em out when there are no doors or windows.) ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/29 "2013-03-24T18:24:43Z")
There’s a ‘casual Italian’ place we like to go in Sacramento, Paesano’s. Its menu has all the things you’d expect at such an establishment: there’s mushroom ravioli, fettucini Alfredo, spaghetti carbonara, fresh-made pizzas…and at the bottom of eh menu…pad Thai. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/30 "2013-03-24T18:32:40Z")
DC has a couple good ones. Out in Shaw, there is a shady fish and chips joint that also serves…bulgogi. Going up Georgia Ave. towards Silver Spring, there is a restaurant that claims to be “Ethiopian-Mexican.” I’ve never had the guts to try it, but it’s certainly an unexpected combo. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/31 "2013-03-24T19:35:13Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Sometimes the reason that a restaurant offers items that you don’t expect is that you don’t know the full extent of a country’s cuisine. Or even regional cuisine. I thought it was unusual the first time I saw a BBQ joint in Arkansas serving tamales. But I found out that tamales have become a common part of Arkansas cuisine. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/32 "2013-03-24T19:47:24Z")
We used to have a place about ten minutes from me called _Samurai Sal’s_. They served Sushi and Italian food. I never tried it. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/33 "2013-03-24T20:12:38Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > This. Also, it seems to me like fried chicken and waffles is a little bit of a foodie trend right now. I don’t think I’d ever heard of it before about five years ago (I’m Canadian, if that makes a difference), but lately I’ve been seeing it all over the internet and on food tv shows. I was just watching _Iron Chef America_ and the secret ingredient was [silkie chicken](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie), and one of the contestants made chicken and waffles with it. So it seems like it wouldn’t be unusual for a higher end restaurant to do a different take on the dish using squab. I did not know this. The menu item makes a lot more sense now. **Fusion restaurants** : That’s also not what I intended this thread to be about. I know about fusion restaurants, and their whole bit is that anything from whatever they’re fusing is fair game. Heck, Missoula even has a couple fusion restaurants: [Sean Kelly’s](http://www.seankellys.com/index.aspx) sounds about as pseudo-Irish a pub as you’d ever want to get faced in on St Paddy’s Day, and it largely is, but their motto is “Where the Gaelic & the garlic mix.” and the Italian aspects of their meals aren’t bad. The other is [Nara Korean Barbecue & Sushi](https://plus.google.com/103170261073059521166/about?gl=us&hl=en), which is not the only sushi place in town but _is_ your only option for a bowl of bibimbap. And, yes, I should have remembered the token American item sometimes seen on menus. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/34 "2013-03-24T20:18:37Z")
There’s some mediterranean/middle eastern place that opened near me a few months ago. I’ve never eaten there (not my type of place) but have seen their menu. They have tacos. Huh? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/35 "2013-03-24T20:33:15Z")
> [@Ms.Pumpkin](#): > > Locally, there is a restaurant called Pedro O’Hara’s. They advertise “Mexican, American, and Irish cuisine.” Always thought that was really strange. I’ve never been there, but it’s popular and successful. There used to be a twin set of chain restaurants named Carlos Murphy’s (Irish-Mexican) and Luigi Murphy’s (Irish-Italian). The Irish part was largely silly window dressing; the first, at least, had decent Mexicanish food. Haven’t seen either in years. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/36 "2013-03-24T20:46:00Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > The other is [Nara Korean Barbecue & Sushi](https://plus.google.com/103170261073059521166/about?gl=us&hl=en), which is not the only sushi place in town but _is_ your only option for a bowl of bibimbap. Most sushi/Japanese places in the US are run by Koreans. Many will have Korean food available, though they won’t necessarily advertise that fact. ---
**Author:** ![YourAdHere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/65b543/32.png) [@YourAdHere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YourAdHere)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/37 "2013-03-24T21:58:53Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > This. Also, it seems to me like fried chicken and waffles is a little bit of a foodie trend right now. I don’t think I’d ever heard of it before about five years ago (I’m Canadian, if that makes a difference), but lately I’ve been seeing it all over the internet and on food tv shows. I was just watching _Iron Chef America_ and the secret ingredient was [silkie chicken](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie), and one of the contestants made chicken and waffles with it. So it seems like it wouldn’t be unusual for a higher end restaurant to do a different take on the dish using squab. Chicken and waffles also just became the latest flavor of Lays potato chips per a user submitted contest . > **[BiteClub Archives](https://www.sonomamag.com/category/biteclub/)** ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/38 "2013-03-24T22:07:20Z")
> [@YourAdHere](#): > > Chicken and waffles also just became the latest flavor of Lays potato chips per a user submitted contest .[URL=“[BiteClub Archives - Sonoma Magazine](http://www.biteclubeats.com/layschicken-and-waffle-potato-chips/)”] Which means we’ll probably see them at Sam’s Club, the usual venue for such controlled consumer experiments. If they even come close to Chicken-in-a-Biskit, however… ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/39 "2013-03-24T22:18:46Z")
> [@YourAdHere](#): > > Chicken and waffles also just became the latest flavor of Lays potato chips per a user submitted contest . > > [BiteClub Archives - Sonoma Magazine](http://www.biteclubeats.com/layschicken-and-waffle-potato-chips/) I’m holding out hope that Sriracha wins. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803/40 "2013-03-24T22:29:50Z")
The Blue Nile in St. Paul MN is an Ethiopian joint with good dishes, but they oddly have the best damn french fries in the state. And they’re not at all advertised as such. They’re just on the bar food section of the menu. Oh, and speaking of the bar, they have some of the best/hard to find craft beers on tap in the Twin Cities - which is really saying something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-out-of-place-dishes-youve-seen-on-a-restaurant-menu/653803.md?page=3)