A joke only a moderator can tell - c'mon, people, work with me here!

[orchid blossom]

You wouldn't know it to look at me, would ya?

In between my mom sends care packages of good cheese and Whitelaw wieners.

So New Zealand doesn't have any local fast food? I'm actually jealous. America has become horribly homogenized; the east coast looks like the west coast looks like the midwest. It's very frustrating if you travel, because you never discover anything new.

I could think of about 5 places in my little hometown right off the top of my head for good food that aren't chains. The individuality isn't gone, you just have to look a little harder.

 

[Hypersmurf]

So New Zealand doesn't have any local fast food?

Since Billy T's Hangi Takeaways and Georgie Pie died... not that I can think of.

Gosh, I'd actually forgotten about Georgie Pie until you asked that question

In case the term's not familiar, a 'hangi' is a Maori earth-oven, similar to what you might get in Hawaii or Samoa. Uh, lessee...

"The Maori tradition of Hangi food is New Zealand's most unique cuisine experience. A hangi is an earth oven heated with red hot stones. Mutton, pork, chicken, potatoes and kumara (sweet potato) are lowered into the oven in wire baskets, then covered with wet sheets and earth to keep in the steam. Hangi food has a delicate, smoky flavour."

So you're talking a whole lot of work to do it yourself... Billy T's provided the end result in a handy plastic takeaway box

Georgie Pie wasn't quite so obviously "Kiwi" in, uh, flavour - it was a very McDonald's-style chain, but instead of selling burgers, fries, and shakes, they sold pies, fries, and shakes. Steak pies, mince and cheese pies, chicken pies, seafood pies, apple pies, blackberry pies...

The rumour I've heard is that they used to underbid the dog food companies for the meat they used... but the pies were edible. About the same relationship to a real pie that a Big Mac has to a real burger, but what do you expect from a fast food chain?

Alas, both Billy T's and Georgie Pie are long gone, and we're left with McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC...

(Over Christmas, KFC finally started selling potato salad again! I used to love KFC potato salad, and they just stopped selling it here in about 1996. I was all excited... until it turned out that they're now using some sort of mustard dressing. It's horrid! It's not fair!)

-Hyp.

 

[DaveStebbins]

no In-n-Out

Insert your own lame joke here.

OK. I never heard of that one. What type of food do they specialize in (he asked in his best straight-man voice)?

 

[Hypersmurf]

America has become horribly homogenized; the east coast looks like the west coast looks like the midwest. It's very frustrating if you travel, because you never discover anything new.

Although when you're travelling internationally, it helps to know that you're likely to find something familiar.

I was in St Petersburg in 1997 with the New Zealand Taekwon-Do Team. Our hotel provided meals... but they were a/ not particularly appetising, and b/ not in great quantity. We didn't want to compete hungry... but we didn't want to go around experimenting with local restaurants and risk getting sick just before the competition.

When we discovered "'Carol's" (a McDonald's-style, American-looking burger chain) on Nevsky Prospekt, not too far from our hotel, it actually made quite a difference to team morale

In Buenos Aires in '99, we didn't have the same problem... we arrived a few days before most other teams, about a week prior to the start of competition, and found the official accommodation endorsed by the tournament organising committee. And it was, frankly, a dump.

We stayed there one night, and the next day our manager somehow talked a four-star hotel into a deal that worked out to, from memory, a total of $US100 more for two weeks' stay than we'd be paying at the officially-endorsed rats' nest. With access to the hotel gymnasium, free internet access in the lobby, much nicer rooms, and the hotel let us use the ballroom during the day for training sessions. And my god, the breakfasts... that morning we'd had a single medialuna (like a desscated croissant... blech!) and a pottle of orange juice provided at the rats' nest. At the Presidente... well, I'm pretty sure we got more than our hundred dollars' worth just from two weeks of breakfasts!

Our team manager was a horrible woman, and I loathe her still... but damn, she did a good deal that day!

But we had quite a few meals on that trip from "Ugi's", a pizza place not far from our original accommodation. They did one pizza - a large cheese, tomato, and basil. Ordering was pretty simple, even for those of us who didn't speak any Spanish - there's only one thing on the menu, so just hold up the right number of fingers! But they were good pizzas, and at $US2 for a large pizza, we could feed the whole team for about ten bucks...

-Hyp.

 

[barsoomcore]

Although when you're travelling internationally, it helps to know that you're likely to find something familiar.

I ate more McDonald's in three and a half years in Tokyo than I ever ate in all the rest of my life put together.

It's funny how "the taste of home" can sometimes be something you almost never ate at home.

Or chicken interruptus.

Er, what?

 

[Tallok]

But here in Oregon, we have Burgerville
which uses nice fresh local fruit for some really good milkshakes. Oh, not good, It's not blackberry season and I want a blackberry shake Oh well, I'll just have a big fat juicy chicken

 

[The_Universe]

I noticed that when I moved out here. No Godfather's Pizza, no Fazoli's, heck, I'd even be happy to see a Hot n' Now. And where are all the Country Kitchens and Perkins?

I swear, I only go home to Wisconsin to eat.

MMMMMM. Godfather's and Perkins. Moved from South Dakota to the Washington DC area...the absence of fried cheese here is chilling. Absolutely chilling. Do you guys have Culvers in Wisconsin? Gotta love those cheese curds, too!

Crap! Now I'm starved!

 

[orchid blossom]

MMMMMM. Godfather's and Perkins. Moved from South Dakota to the Washington DC area...the absence of fried cheese here is chilling. Absolutely chilling. Do you guys have Culvers in Wisconsin? Gotta love those cheese curds, too!

Crap! Now I'm starved!

We were just getting quite a few Culvers in Wisconsin when I moved. I don't know if they were doing all that well. In Green Bay I don't think so, since we already had Storheim's offering the same kinds of food, only much better.

The only kind of fried cheese I find here is mozzarella sticks. I was trying to explain breaded deep-fried cheese curds to people here, and I had to start with explaining what cheese curds are. Sheesh. The ignorance is staggering. I mean, I was in the second grade when we toured the cheese factory and saw how you get cheese curds.

I'm dying for a Lozza' Mozza' Calzone with potato wedges....

 

[MerakSpielman]

Strangely enough, I made myself some fried cheese last night, which my wife thought was really weird... What the hell is a curd, anyway?

Our local delicacy here in New Mexico is green chili. We put it on our hamburgers and pizzas, we make chili-con-queso with it, we put in on salads, and it's a staple ingredient in the local cuisine. All fast food places offer it. All pizza places offer it. All sandwich places (like Subway) offer it. Italian restaurants offer green chili alfredo pasta. After the harvest, you can buy it on street corners, fresh-roasted. It's an integral part of our culture and history.

But it seems that, outside of New Mexico, few people have heard of it. We go to Mexican restaurants (granted, they're Mexican, not New Mexican, and the difference is great enough to evoke great passion here) out-of-state, and all they have is some nasty "green sauce." They don't even know how to make a proper green chili sauce! If you go to a pizza joint and ask for a green chili and pepperoni pizza (my absolute favorite) and they look at you like you're insane. They think we must be talking about bell peppers. Hell no! We crave the burn-your-mouth-off spicyness. We want green chili, not bell peppers. We want the unique flavor. Not Jalipenos, either. Jalipenos aren't spicy enough, especially that pickled crap. If you're gonna eat jalapenos, at least have the guts to eat 'em raw.

I almost can't imagine living anywhere else, just because of this one vegetable.

 

[howandwhy99]

But here in Oregon, we have Burgerville
which uses nice fresh local fruit for some really good milkshakes. Oh, not good, It's not blackberry season and I want a blackberry shake Oh well, I'll just have a big fat juicy chicken

Back when I lived in Portland, we used to get the very best onion rings from there (I *think* that's the chain). It only lasted for a short while and when they were in season. But they were extremely good. People would just pull up to the busy drive-thru and get something like 5 orders of onion rings and sometimes nothing else.

MMm..