Heinz is American, is it not? Heinz ketchup has been synomymous for “ketchup” and found absolutely everywhere here for my entire life, and I was born well before the 80s.
Humorous reversal is quite entirely the point of this thread. Normally, when someone criticizes, say, ahem Olive Garden one of the reasons is that it claims to 'Italian" cuisine but it isn’t authentic.
In this thread, we ponder the ways in which American cuisine is served inauthentically overseas. it doesn’t mean they are lacking in tastebuds - it means they are either clueless, lack access to the proper ingredients, or just prefer something different in that locale. Either way it is funny to see what gets passed off as “American.”
After all, there categorically is a proper way to serve American cuisine. People can put whatever they want a burger, but if they are billing themselves (or god forbid, themeing themselves) as “American” there better not be any ham in that burger. If you put Kimchee in your jambalaya, it might be good but it isn’t authentic. If you don’t put any eggs or sugar or spices in your pumpkin pie, it’s hilariously bad AND not authentic.
It’s all about poking fun at the marketing with occasional guffaws over the actual food.
I suspect you’re not using fatty enough mince if you have problems with it falling apart. The one time I tried to make burgers in Greece this was the case; the ground beef there was incredibly lean.
The best burgers are made with mince/ground beef that is only 70-80% lean. The fat keeps 'em together.
Now, a question for you: how does the beetroot work on burgers? I love burgers, and I love beet(roots)s, and I’d like to try them together. I’m assuming it’s not just a big slab of raw beet. Are they pickled beets? Or just cooked? One big piece, or diced up, or what? I must try this.
Is it such a tragedy if this were even the case? Lord knows most of Europe looks down its collective noses at our cuisine (or did). It’s a bit of harmless culture bashing. Do you expect an International Incident of some sort?
Case in point: I, personally, think Mexican cuisine tastes like garbage. (waits for all those who now cry, "you’ve never had REAL Mexican food!). Well, yes I have and I still can’t stand it. That doesn’t mean I’m anti-Mexico. But it also means that if for some reason, I were to try to cook in the Mexican style, I would mess it up to an incredible degree. I don’t “understand” it for lack of a better way to explain it. The people here aren’t even expressing that they have strong feelings against another culture, just that some cultures can’t translate the subtleties of flavor, mouth-feel and texture that make up American food. I wouldn’t expect a Chinese cook in Shangai to understand cheesy fries or chocolate pudding, but I would derive some mild amusement of what s/he came up with. Obviously, YMDV.
That Chicago style pizza place in London was called (no idea if it still exists) The Chicago Pizza Pie Factory, IMS. My brother brought me back a souvenir glass from there when he first went to London waaay back in the day. He said it was pretty good.
I have to say that when I travel, I rarely eat “American” food. I try to eat the country’s food. (now who’s the snob? 
).
Again with Japan-
Denny’s and Coco’s were the only places open for breakfast that weren’t in our hotel so we ate at those places quite a bit. It was kind of typical American food via game of telephone.
I really enjoyed Johnnie’s restaurant which felt like a mix between Denny’s and TGIFridays.
Top the burger with a slice of pickled beets. It basically takes the place of pickles as the sour component, while adding a gentle sweetness.
Lotteria is actually a Japanese chain, and I thought they were pretty bad. Maybe they’re better in Korea, but there was a Lotteria practically next door to my apartment in Japan and I still avoided it in favor of the MOS Burger or McDonalds that were farther away.
My most humbliest apologies.
Yeah when I’m talking about Beetroot it is effectively pickled beetroot (I presume they use vinegar - I’ll have to check the ingredients on a tin of it tonight). One of the most common ways to buy beetroot in Australia is a tin of sliced (pickled) beetroot.
And yep basically we’re talking about adding a slice of beetroot to the burger along with the other salad items. Personally it’s lettuce, tomato and a slice or two of beetroot.
Hope that helps.
Lotteria is part of the Lotte conglomerate (Lotte Mart, Lotte Department Stores, Lotte Giant, etc.) which does business in Japan but is headquartered in Korea. Lotteria food might not stack up against the best burger joints in America, but if you’re in Korea and have a choice between Lotteria, McDonald’s and Burger King in Korea, pick Lotteria.
Thank you both, yes, it helps.
As far as I know, you can’t buy pickled beet(root) in the US. At least, I’ve never seen it. However, my mother makes 'em for me with regularity (and I suppose I could make it myself, it’s super easy, but she’s all trained and brings it over and so I don’t have to worry about it… why mess with a system that works?)
The only problem is that they’re small, like maybe 1.5-2" across. That’s about 4-5 centimeters for you metric people. Not nearly big enough to go across a whole burger. Do the pickled beetroot… er, does the pickled beetroot (is that a plural or not? sheesh, talk about separated by a shared language!) come larger in Australia? Or do you use a bunch of them, like we do with cucumber pickle slices on burgers here in the US?
I don’t know why this is so damned important to me today, but it is!
If that’s the size you can get, just layer it on, as you say like the pickle slices.
The canned beetroot we get does tend to be a fair bit bigger, the biggest slice through the middle of the beetroot is often ~10-12 cms. (~4 inches) so one slice of that size can easily cover a roll. But within the can obviously will be slices from the ends which get down to 2 inches or less.
I saw that place when I was in Madrid! Didn’t go in, though, I had already been exposed to the Spanish idea of American food. The most notable examples were an “American” pizza with ketchup and ground beef and hamburgers consisting of a single patty between two pieces of french bread.
The Lotte company was founded in japan in 1948. The world’s very first Lotteria fast food joint was opened in Japan in 1972.
Something tells me you did not read your own cite.
*Like I said, I don’t know how good Lotteria is in Korea (or how bad McDonald’s is there for that matter), but in my experience Japanese McDonald’s beats Japanese Lotteria by a wide margin. And I say this as someone with no particular fondness for McDonald’s.
The food isn’t horrible (although hummus, naturally, appears as a side dish), but for sheer incongruousness, you can’t beat the Elvis Inn, outside Jerusalem.
Most “Mexican” restaurants I’ve been to in Taiwan have a particular quirk about “nachos”. When I order nachos, I’m picturing a big table basket of warm, fresh, crispy, just-baked tortilla-based flavorocity (for FREE!) just ready for dunking in salsa like we get in Texas. Imagine how I feel when I am presented a small, room temperature plate of about ten Doritos lined up around a plate, surrounding a small dollop of sour cream in the center. Which costs EIGHT US DOLLARS. And when I say Doritos, I mean that literally: they ARE Doritos, just dumped from a bag and covered with that nasty faux-chili powder, which the restaurant probably just bought from the 7-Eleven across the street.
Actually, pepperoni are hot peppers, as opposed to the normal mild bell peppers.
Think of all the European tourists who expect some nice hot peppers and get meat in the US!
That’s probably a large reason - if they adapt a foreign dish to the taste of the new country, they can sell it to the natives instead of the tourists. For example, although we have real Italy right next door, Italian restaurants in Germany make pizza different from at home (less spice, less garlic), because that’s how Germans want it.
There’s the story that when the Eastern bloc fell, and McD went there, the Poles were upset that McD used Russian potatoes for their fries - they wanted to help the Polish farmers, not subsidize the Russian farmers.
And in India, you of course can’t sell as many burgers from cow meat as from a different meat…
You mean the part where they say it was founded in Japan by a Korean businessman, whose Korean family still controls it? Or the part where they compared the Korean and Japanese operations?
Here’s how Wikipedia describes Lotte’s various divisions:
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to describe Lotte as primarily a Korean entity that does a lot of business in Japan. You’re right about the first Lotteria being in Japan, though.