Sadly not. I was refering to the English cuisine part of my post.
On the other hand God knows what a kidney pie would contain if it was being made up in Nigeria. It’s really weird the whole English-Victorian cooking that managed to stick around in Nigeria. One more misery for this country.
I think what **WotNot **is getting at is that the (in)famous British dish is steak and kidney pie.
Oh… steak and kidney pie! Thank you – I was momentarily misled by the way le Capitaine left out the main ingredient, there.
Perhaps it’s little wonder that it’s a while since he had a good one, if he’s been asking for “kidney pie” all this time. That really doesn’t sound terribly appetising.
No one in my family has any interest in ‘balut’, other than to try to get outsiders to eat it on a dare. This ‘delicacy’ has never been served at any of the numerous Filipino gatherings/parties I’ve attended.
That’s trolling, and it’s against the rules.
I’m not going to give a warning for this, but you should definitely rethink your thread-starting strategies.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
I have to differ on Filipino cuisine-I’ve had chicken cooked with soy and ginger-delicious!
As for British-I haven’t had much experience-but the Brits do seem to overcook their veggies. But good British fish and chips is very good indeed.
In the Netherlands, I’ve found the seafood to be generally good-broiled zeetong is very good.
But nothing will ever change my mind about poi-you have to be very hungry to eat that stuff!
I went to one of those Festival of Nations things where each “nation” has people dressed in “native” costumes, at a table selling tchotckes and a sampling of a “native” food. The Russians had cheap wooden nesting dolls and sold Dixie cups of borscht, pierogies, etc. (the Ukrainians across the hall were real dicks, complaining pierogies were THEIR cuisine and the Russians were stealing it! , and a fist fight almost broke out, but I digress). The Filippino community (all 3 of them) were ladling out dishes of thin noodles cooked with, I think, shredded cabbage? in chicken broth. Doesn’t sound like much, sounds bland, but it was SO GOOD. I can’t say why, exactly, but we went back for more and more. No vinegar or meat. I’ve looked up recipes and tried to recreate those noodles, to no avail.
That’s pancit and it’s delicious. It’s basically stir-fried rice noodles. I’ve made this recipe before and it turned out pretty good. Personally, I love Filipino food.
As do I. Pancit, lumpia and adobo are some good eating.
Am I to assume you are basing a cuisine on one dish? I’ve a refrigerator full of Filipino leftovers. I’ve been to every Filipino restaurant in Queens, most in Brooklyn, and many in Manhattan. Sure, there are a few dishes that I tend towards (such as the previously mentioned pansit bihon), but as an overall cuisine, it needs more help than just adding lots of fish sauce and/or soy sauce.
salinqmind, that sounds like pansit, although it usually will have meat and/or seafood.
I can illuminate the mysteries of West Africa cuisine…yeah, it’s not great. The staple food is a ball of mashed grains cooked into a wallpaper paste consistency. You break off a small gooey ball and use that to scoop up various sauces. These sauces can sometimes be quite tasty. Peanut sauce is a winner, and there are some really good spinach-like sauces. Other sauces are pretty gross. Slimy okra with whole black dried fish was never a big hit, and some dishes can go way too heavy on the red palm oil. Mostly the sauces were bland and inoffensive…just a variety of greens in oil with some protein thrown in if you could afford it.
That said, some west African specialties are outright delicious- spicy hearty black-eyed pea fritters, delicious grilled fish, icy sweet hibiscus flower juice, sweet potato fries with scotch bonnet pepper sauces, banana fritters, sweet porridge flavored with tamarind and key lime,baguettes stuff with avocados, boiled eggs and spicy meat, grilled spicy goat kabobs, sour steamed rice pancakes, clove-infused sweet tea, beef jerky with a spicy peanut glaze, thick yogurt flavored with mango and date sugar, and if you are anywhere tropical the fruit is unbelievable. There is also plenty of variety. Tropical coastal countries like Senegal have fresher, spicier food while the deep Sahel has less variety.
Whoever said “Chinese food” is outright crazy. While you will get some stuff you probably don’t want to eat (chicken’s feet and the like), the food is some of the freshest, most varied, cheapest and most artfully prepared in the world. In the South-West, the food will be very spicy. If you can get used to the heat, it is very, very, very good. I ate like a queen every single night in China, and could never get enough. Homemade bacon with garlic shoots, spicy cucumber salad, warm comforting scrambled eggs with tomato, red-hot spicy beef stew, Chinese sauerkraut, kung pow chicken, delicious lightly fried greens, sweet-and-sour eggplant fritters filled with spicy pork, spicy hash browns…mmmm, I’d give anything to eat like that again!
Filippino food is damn good- wake up to a breakfast of grilled fish served with pork-fried rice and vinegar-y tomato salad, have some pancit and a portuguese sausage for lunch, eat some lumpia (basically, eggrolls) and halo halo (basically the best shave ice ever) for a snack and then enjoy more delicious seafood with stir-fried greens for dinner and abundant tropical fruit for dessert. It’s generally simple food, but hearty and fresh.
Posho! 
There’s nothing like a peanut stew with yams and chicken, though. I agree about the fruit. In Uganda, the pineapple was like the sweetest sugar you can imagine, the small bananas were wonderful, and of course the passionfruit juice is nearly orgasmic.
If you are allergic to mushrooms, bivalves [clams mussels oysters] palm/tropical products/coconut and dislike dried fish/seriously oily fish[mackeral]/tiny fish served whole you are screwed … unless you have a native speaker who is also fluent in english to manage the eating and drinking experience. If I tried to pull a Tony Bourdain or Andrew Zimmer I would be dead within a week without someone to make sure I didn’t snarf down an allergen.
Some time ago I stumbled on this Wikipedia entry for Mr. Bigg’s, a Nigerian fast food chain. Surprisingly, the food described actually sounded pretty good. But from the scant info I found online, apparently the quality control there is fairly bad.
Me, I’m planning on opening a Rhodesian restaurant. They bring you a giant platter of roasted meat, bread, vegetables, fruit, etc…then they take it away. And kill you.
I was once at a barn dance in rural England with an English friend of mine. We and some other folks got into a UK/US discussion. My friend, who was living in the US at the time, opined that “The US isn’t so bad, but the food is awful!”
The other couple piped up with, “Oh, you think so? The food is one of the main reasons we go there!”
They then began rattling off all their favorite American cuisines and delicacies. After a while, it started to sound like Bubba’s “shrimp” mantra in Forrest Gump. I swear they were actually salivating.
It was fun watching my friend’s face fall. 
I am not a picky eater, at all, in any way, shape or form. I usually love ethnic cuisines or at least I can something to love, but after dining at that highly recommended Ethiopian restaurant in Adams Morgan in DC that my daughter’s hipster friends told her she just had to try, I must confess that I am not a fan of Ethiopian cooking.
Woof…not a liker of that cuisine.
Sorry. I meant “litany”, of course. I’m very sleepy, you see.
I’ve gotten up close and personal with balut. The Filipinos around said that they did, in fact, like it, but you’re right, it mostly seemed like a dare for everyone else.
I did not try it. I’m a vegetarian and after getting a good look, I decided that it was not something I could eat.
ETA: BTW, I adore Ethiopian food. I am baffled at all of the negative posts about it. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t like Ethiopian food.
Fasika or the Red Sea? They serve ambrosia, food fit for gods.
Plus they always ask for your banking details.
We have some Ethiopian restaurants in Bangkok, and the food is very tasty. I know there are some in Dallas, because back in Texas a friend from there really liked them.
As for Chinese food, my most interesting experience was in Changchun, China, capital of Jilin province bordering North Korea. It was a business trip, and there was a small group of us. We decided to ask about local fare and were directed to a restaurant that specialized in insects and lesser-known animal forms. Not a million miles removed from what you could find in northeastern Thailand actually. Apparently this restaurant made use of foods that the locals managed to scrounge up during the lean days of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution and played it up. It was actually very popular, and with not that many white boys coming our way (there were some Thais in our group, too), some of the waitresses wanted their photos taken with me. As for the food, I have to admit the small scorpions were darned tasty. Buttery tasting. I could see kicking back with a bowl of those and watching a movie. The silkworms, on the other hand, we pretty awful.