Good pizza is good pizza even if it has no toppings. Bad pizza is bad pizza even if you load it up with pepperoni and sausage.
People who can get good pizza know this.
I do not expect Trinidad to have good pizza.
I can vouch for that, especially during my time in Moscow last year, the women at the stalls in the mini mall at the Cosmos Hotel laughed at me when I asked them if the speak any English followed by nyet, (Russian for the word no). :mad:
I talked to someone local who is usually pretty perceptive and they said what I’m missing is that most customers of these foreign fast food places aren’t going there for the food, they are going there to confirm to themselves and others/co-workers that they have made it so they can eat at foreign fast food places. Like they don’t even give a shit if food is missing stuff, they just want others to see them carrying a bag with a logo and to make themselves feel good that they can afford it so they are above the riff raff.(I have never heard the term riff raff so often in my life as here.)
What they said makes sense, there is a place called Mr. Chow that is absurdly expensive and serving nothing special, but they give it to you in a distinctive visually bag which you see people flaunting. They are basically selling an expensive bag to show your co-workers your status.
I once mentioned to my wife I saw someone walking with a bag for a business that did not even exist here, and in fact only existed in the state of Texas. She said oh people go away and bring back bags to walk around with and show off, or give them to their relatives, it is silly.
Mystery kinda solved I guess.
I hope this was a joke…
This is a thing, too. In Manila it’s a huge thing to get a starbucks dayplanner. You have to get stamps from Starbucks for each drink, and when you have enough (I have no idea how many stamps it takes) they give you a planner. This way the middle class who can waste money on starbucks can show off that they can afford to frequently go there.
When I was visiting there the barista was incredulous that my wife and her former co-worker didn’t want the stamps. “Are you sure??” It’s not about using the dayplanner anyway, it’s about showing off that you own it. Super lame.
That doesn’t work if it is KFC or Church’s. 
But then, I guess those places tend to not screw up the orders (and woe if they do!).
Well, just back from St Martin. Had a wonderful time. Ate a ton of fresh fish, conch, jerk chicken, etc. The closest thing we experienced to “bad service” was waitstaff running on “island time” but that is something we’ve grown used to and actually like. Lingering over dinner, after dinner drinks, etc is better IMO than the U.S. situation where your check arrives seconds after your entrée with a “lemme know if you need anything else”.
As you should, because as a tourist and in a tourist area, even if it is “island time”, good service is expected.
Trinidad is not touristy at all, and does not cater to tourists. And yea, they would like it (in some establishments) if you would leave immediately as your food is finished and not linger (even if many do).
I mean, even locals know that the island does not have a good reputation with regards to customer service. But how good or bad it varies by region, while the expat or university area may have decent service, other pockets may have abysmal service.
LOL KFC might as well be a local chain, my son loves their spicey crispy or I’d never set foot in them but man the LINES! I think I saw somewhere that KFC when adjusted for population(obviously they have more sales by volume in more populous countries) makes more profit in Trinidad&Tobago than any other country!
Yea if you stick to the tourist or expats areas Trinidad is fine as well, go into more normal areas and service drops way off. Also Trinidad while being very diverse, it is a separate diverse not intermingled. Pockets, areas, and cities can not only have very distinct feels but populations race and income wise. In one city you might see nothing but Christian and Catholic cathedrals, in another nothing but Hindu temples are visible. Some areas a few yards separates nothing but opulent mansions and corrugated metal roofed shacks without even an outhouse, it is very separate but diverse race and class and income wise.
Hah looking for a cite on the KFC situation I ran into a local writer disgruntled.
Ok so I was wrong, it is highest grossing behind the USA.
It was an online romance in a foreign country, but if my parents had the sense to trust my judgement which they never have from when I was a child they would have seen it was legit. They insisted on saying garbage like my wife was just looking for a greencard even though she wasn’t CLEARLY, and was a gold digger which was a laugh since she was in far better financial shape than I was at the time we met.
She didn’t force me to abandon anything, I did it voluntarily since I couldn’t wait. And I gave up no future, if anything being married to my wife has whipped me into shape and given me the future I’m living now instead of who knows what. I can’t emphasize enough that the financial level I am in now and my future is all due to my wife’s influence and emotional support. My wife fit way more into a middle class USA lifestyle than I did when we met. And my parents to their deaths refused to see any of this. My mother in law understood me and related to me on an adult level way better than my own parents.
I’ve mentioned it in other threads but my parents were seriously mentally ill(or at least my mom was and my dad was a co-dependent enabler) and neglectful in all ways and all around abysmal parents. And all I asked was for them to realize I had a real marriage to a wonderful woman who was improving my life, and had a son I loved with all my heart who was THEIR grandson.
They would say shit like is your marriage even legal? I don’t think it is legal since it wasn’t in the USA, funny since our marriage cert is good enough for US immigration.
My father started talking to me on the phone like he was speaking to a customer and very terse, my wife even noticed it and asked your father has always talked to you like that?
First time I went through the trouble of having digital pics of our son sent to them through snapfish, since they refused to get internet access this was the first time they had seen him and I said:
“Did you get the pics?” 
“Yes we did…”
“And?”
“I said we got them!”
When they were at my sisters house I went through the effort of talking them into setting up so they could watch us and their grandson via webcam and talk on audio, which was not easy. Within five minutes where they said nothing they said your sister said we have to turn off the PC and go to bed goodbye.
My sister later told me this was an absolute lie! She told me she was there when they saw the pics, and she was there when I told them they were going to be grandparents and they said I was trapped forever now and looked sad, she told me in her opinion it was exactly what it seemed like.
After my dad died my mom said if I returned to the USA my wife and son could not come to her house(she basically owned three but a long story told in another thread) and she would meet us at a McDonalds for an hour to see her grandson. I told her not a chance, you’re not going to disrespect my son that way.
When she had stage four terminal cancer and said she needed help with daily living, and had received twenty five thousand dollars lump sum for life insurance payout I said I would return with my wife and son and move in with her at one of her three houses to help assist her and she refused. I told her this will be a enormous burden not only labor wise on my family but financially too, she just wouldn’t accept I had a real family and we were happy and living fine. She said not only would she not assist me financially in the move, or allow me alone to move back home, but I had to break up with my wife and abandon my son and come alone paying my own way and renting a place for me alone to stay AND she told me I’d have to get a part time job when I wasn’t helping her so I could give her the money.
I turned down her generous offer(sarcasm), and both my parents died without ever seeing me again or meeting their grandson. They never seemed broken up about it or even seemed to care. Oh and my mom was worried my wife might get some of her jewelry so made me swear I’d give it all to my sister.
I don’t know why I kept talking to the both of them, I guess on some level I still loved them and hoped they would see sense before they died.
Oh yea forgot to add my mom blew the whole 25 grand in less than a year on crap she shopped for, and was then begging my and my sister for money so she could eat. More lies we found out she was getting 2 grand a month from social security, instead of the 600 dollars she claimed to, her bank account never went below a balance of 500 dollars the entire time she was crying to people she could not afford to eat. She told both of us many times we should have good jobs and be supporting her financially and giving her money, we don’t know if this was her being selfish as usual or some weird cultural thing from the country my mom grew up in.
Not only did she not leave anything to me and my sis after her death aside from the physical objects we can possibly dig out of the three houses as she was a hoarder, we are BOTH at a total loss as to how to go about it and I honestly feel to just totally ignore them. (the IRS will take the houses at probate due to debts)
I found out from my niece that she was there with her son, my mom’s great grandson, many times at her house because she lived in the same city and she needed help. So great grandson ok, grandson not ok.
Anyway sorry for hijacking my own thread, just thought I’d explain the situation with my parents and why they were totally absurd to not support me in building a life.
What country were your parents from, Grude? I’m really sorry to hear that your parents never accepted your marriage. My mother warned me about marrying a Filipina, thankfully it was just once and she has accepted my marriage as “real”, but I have gotten the occasional jokes about it. My mom has other mental problems (I made a thread I kind of regret making years ago where I got a lot of sympathy LOL), she hasn’t done the things you related but she also forms her own reality.
Just remember, THEY are the ones who missed out by not being part of your family, and there was nothing you could do to change them. Whether their deal was racism, or mental illness (but I repeat myself) you have to focus on your family that accepts you. Blood is vastly overrated.
My mom was born and raised in Germany but left as a teen, my dad was from the USA. She had a lot of odd things that seemed related to that, like thinking her brother deserved no share of inheritance since he was a married man, even though she was a married woman! Start of an estrangement between them, he left Germany much younger than her.
Yea I regret oversharing on this board too, but I found the support and sympathy very valuable. Aside from my wife or sister there is no one in real life I can share it with, or that would even understand.
I struggled with not knowing what it was for a long time, bizarrely my mom related fine to my wife over the phone when she talked to her, better than me. My wife said my mom is easy to handle you just have to deal with her like you’re blowing smoke up someone’s ass basically or like a narcissist(she said my mom reminded her of problem customers she dealt with in the past). I just couldn’t do it for long, it was too personal for made me angry to have to do it.
But even my wife was shocked how in the end it made no difference, she was like huh I tried to build up a relationship for your sake and it seemed to work but in the end it meant nothing to her.
If anyone reading this thread is thinking well grude how could you have thought otherwise about a third world country, it is because on my first visit long ago it did not feel or look like a third world country.
Pretty much most of the country is indistinguishable from any first world country in appearance and development, even ghetto areas have normal size houses in normal size yards or cramped public housing apartments. Only poor really rural areas have the stereotypical third world look.
It is only around the edges the difference in standards or culture starts to show, and by the time you notice that you’ve been here a while.
But if it’s your intention to remain there, shouldn’t you ‘get right’ with this aspect of it? Either shop in the tourist areas or make your peace with ‘this is how it is’ ! It certainly doesn’t sound like it’s going to self correct.
It seems to me your choices are vote with your dollars, (taking your business only to shops that meet your standard for acceptable behaviour), or shop at the convenient stores and suck up that that’s how it is, (something you know going in!), or keep driving up your blood pressure tilting at windmills.
I mean, if you keep going back to places with shitty service, instead of the places you acknowledge are closer to western standards of service, ( touristic and expat centres), then you’re encouraging the shitty service because ‘they’re closer!’.
Regardless, if you’re going to make you’re life there you gotta get right with it, I think.