Ah I always thought when americans talked about egg rolls they meant the same thing as spring rolls.
I was about to say I’m not surprised if a restaurant doesn’t necessarily have spring rolls because, as the name suggests, they are a dish associated with the spring (new year) festival.
I had to google the distinction and yeah, I’ve never had egg rolls. Neither in the UK nor in 8 years in China.
Often, but not always.
Our favorite local Central American place serves both a white queso and a yellow queso. Every so often, they are unable to source their preferred yellow cheese to make their yellow queso (I understand that it’s not just regular ol’ American cheese). When they can’t get the right yellow cheese, they stop making the yellow queso and tell customers that only the white queso is available.
On a similar note, when you look at the Yelp reviews for Parker’s Barbecue, generally considered one of the best places for Eastern North Carolina style barbecue, you will find a few one star reviews from Yankees who are apparently unfamiliar with that style of barbecue and are angry that they don’t have any “barbecue sauce” on the premises. Eastern North Carolina style barbecue simply isn’t served with that generic sweet/smokey condiment; it’s served with a vinegar sauce. The vinegar is literally the defining element that makes it Eastern North Carolina style.
Don’t get me wrong, if you want to mix pulled pork with some sweet/sticky/smokey barbecue sauce, knock yourself out. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that per se, it’s just that that’s not Eastern North Carolina style, and IMO it would be silly to expect that at a place that specializes in that style of barbecue. Yet some people not from that region seem to think that’s an “essential” part of barbecue.
What part of Mexico is that, again?
Stranger
Cheese dip often is made with cheese treated with sodium citrate.
I mean, if you want it runny & smooth, it does help.
Yes, the only proper tamales are the ones you make yourself and then eat the same day, or that you buy from a Mexican store that only sells them on weekends. They must be fresh to be “proper” tamales.
Seriously, the issue is the assumption inherent in the thread title:
Restaurants that don’t serve essential dishes/items
What’s perceived as “essential” is so very, very regionally, culturally, or economically driven. I’m not going to tell someone who is opening a restaurant what is “essential” to their business. Of course, if the owner/chef’s preferences don’t match, or don’t win over their potential customers, it is likely to cause the business to fail.
I guess the only time I’d share the feelings of the OP would be if I called my restaurant “Chicken and Biscuits” and didn’t serve either that I might feel like a bait and switch were pulled. Even then, maybe they do something like “deconstructed” chicken and biscuits (or chicken deep fried in a biscuit batter onna stick, or something else novel) which would still qualify?
Anyway, the OP’s feelings are a part of why so many chain restaurants are successful, no matter my opinion of said places. If you want to be able to go anywhere in the US and have the same dishes available to you, be it for comfort, because you’re not adventurous, or just don’t want to spend the effort, you go to a chain place. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s borderline arrogant to assume that your definition of essential is shared by all.
In the 1950s my uncle was transferred to Mexico City to oversee the Firestone tire plant start-up. When grandma would visit him she always brought back a couple of bags of tortilla chips. They were absolutely unknown in Ohio and we tried to conserve them for a few days but, damn, they were tasty.
This. But also valid substituting “Chinese”, “Italian”, or any of a number of “ethnicities” in for Mexican. “Essential” would depend on the particular region the restaurant’s owners/chefs got their recipes from. Spaetzle isn’t “essential” for a German restaurant - spaetzle is a regional specialty from the Schwabian area of Germany.
Tex-Mex is a perfectly valid regional cuisine. It’s just not the same as Sonoran cuisine (probably the most recognizable to Americans as “Mexican” food) or Oaxacan cuisine or Mexico City cuisine.
Tortilla chips are very old, at least in Mexico. What’s new is specifically selling them with melted cheese and other toppings.
Chipotle offers queso but it’s only sort of recent.
They held off for noble & idealogical resons for a while but it was no match for the needs of the American diner. The rapid consumption of a 1500 cal burrito demands a level of lipids and salts so high, it needs to be lubed down with a few hundred extra calories of more lipid salt slurry. Cheaper 'n lettuce.
Really? Someone at Chipotle actually thought queso was a bridge too far? “Oh no! Someone might think we don’t serve authentic Mexican food!”
No butter for waffles? The savages! I always put butter on waffles and pancakes. I can’t imagine not providing it.
Butter, and maple syrup, which they also lacked the last time I had a waffle from them a few decades ago. I’d bet that they still, despite their name, do not serve butter and maple syrup.
Fortune cookies are only authentic to the US market. They were invented here. In fact, there in one company in NY, Wonton Foods that supplies the majority of fortune cookies used by Asian restaurants around the world that give out fortune cookies. For 30 years, Donald Lau, Wonton Foods, CFO wrote all of the fortunes used in their cookies. In 2017 he retired due to writers block and passed along the fortune writing duties to the company’s head of IT, James Wong. The Company has kept a database of all of the fortunes that Lau wrote over the years and can continue using those as well…in bed!!!
real butter and real maple syrup, no they dont have those. “buttery spread” and maple flavored pancake syrup, they have tons of that. In fact the tables here seem to be covered in the syrup. I only eat at Waffle house a couple of times a year. Holidays when many restaurnts are closed and on a yearly trip I go on. Waffle House is pretty much always the same.
Oh,god. I hate those sticky tables. 
Thank you. I only eat at Waffle House infrequently, but they have that buttery spread and syrup both of which they are happy to provide when you order waffles.
I think when most Americans think of Mexican food they’re actually thinking of Tex-Mex which is what the majority of Mexican restaurants serve throughout most of the United States. And I’ve been to California, and didn’t have any trouble finding queso at Mexican places, so let’s not get too snobby. The first time I went to New Mexico I was pleasantly surprised. I love Tex-Mex, but I didn’t know anything about the regional differences and was happy I got something that I wouldn’t normally have gotten in Texas.
There’s dish in New Mexico called carne adovada. Chunks of pork in a spicy red sauce. I’ve been craving it since I ate at Tomasita’s in Santa Fe last Fall. Apparently, nobody in California has ever heard of it. I also picked up the habit of putting green chilies on my cheese burgers.