Brits and their American cousins

PoS said:

Having been there a few times I'm sorry but I can't agree with that statement. American cuisine is more varied and superior.

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My experience has been the reverse, so we'll call it a draw.

Gathomas88 said:

Eh. I dunno. I actually really liked the German food I had when I visited. It was basically all fried meat and potatoes, with noodles, various forms of savory rich gravy, and thick dark beer to wash it all down.

Right after a Southern boy's heart, truth be told. :mrgreen:

French food was alright. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had the slightest clue what to order, however. All the menus were in French, and no one spoke enough English to explain what a good choice would be.

Eh. At least the wine was top notch. Lol

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I had trouble in northern France, when our hotel had something like cold fish for breakfast. Ick. I thought I was going to throw up. Well, that was from way too much French wine, beer, and whatever else those guys kept buying for us the night before, and cold fish for breakfast. No way. Not a good start to that day!

My friend and I ate breakfast at this tiny hotel one Saturday morning, in Western Germany by the Rhine. Anyway, I loved their breakfasts of shaved meats, cheeses, spreads, different hearty breads, coffee and tea, and a hard boiled egg in a tiny little egg cup. Well, we were eating the breads and stuff, and then I grabbed my egg and she grabbed hers. Without thinking both of us started tapping them gently on our plates, and peeled them, talking away like everything was normal.

It wasn't.

Suddenly I see the old ladies pouring out of the kitchen with stern faces glaring at us. Looking around the small, homely dinning room, there were two German middle aged business looking men, with their newspapers folded down to stare at us over their glasses. Two old German women at another table looking at us like we just skinned a cat. Seriously, it was like the scene in a tavern in the Old West. The steam stopped drifting off the cups of coffee and tea. The air got very still. The smoke stopped rising from one guy's cigarette. It was like all of Germany was staring at me and my friend while we peeled our eggs. Finally, this old frau from the kitchen walked up and gruffly asked us if anything was wrong with breakfast. We smiled and said it was great, but she was staring at the egg shells on my plate with a most distasteful look!

I had no idea they cut their eggs with a tiny knife, and ate them out of the shell with the tiny spoon. No clue. I thought they were going to throw us into the alley.

Manc Skipper said:

My experience has been the reverse, so we'll call it a draw.

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Never been to the UK. When I went to Germany, however, what I noticed most about the restaurants is that there really weren't any. The occasional beergarden (or Subway/McDonalds in an urban area) aside, respectable mid-range food was actually kind of hard to find.

There really wasn't much in the way of "steak houses," "family," or "chain" restaurants, largely because there weren't many large retail centers for them to cluster around.

Paris, at the very least, could be relied upon to have a cafe around every other corner.

Beaudreaux said:

It has been my personal observation, that the Brits are in a perpetual contest with the Germans to see who can create the most recipes that are devoid of taste.

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That actually, by now, applies to neither.

But I agree that in the sticks of both it very much can and often still does.

You'll find a load of German restaurants in places like London though, barely ever "English cuisine" in Germany.

The irony being that neither is justified in its label, the Bavarian stuff you get in Britain not representing Germany overall, and the absent English cooking suffering from old prejudices being immortal.

Gathomas88 said:

Never been to the UK. When I went to Germany, however, what I noticed most about the restaurants is that there really weren't any. The occasional beergarden (or Subway/McDonalds in an urban area) aside, respectable mid-range food was actually kind of hard to find.

There really wasn't much in the way of "steak houses," "family," or "chain" restaurants, largely because there weren't many large retail centers for them to cluster around.

Paris, at the very least, could be relied upon to have a cafe around every other corner.

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I found that if you go just outside the main gate of a US military base or post in England or Germany, you can find a pub that serves food as well, or as you said, a biergarten that also serves food - like the one just outside Ramstein's main gate and to the right.

Gathomas88 said:

Never been to the UK. When I went to Germany, however, what I noticed most about the restaurants is that there really weren't any. The occasional beergarden (or Subway/McDonalds in an urban area) aside, respectable mid-range food was actually kind of hard to find.

There really wasn't much in the way of "steak houses," "family," or "chain" restaurants, largely because there weren't many large retail centers for them to cluster around.

Paris, at the very least, could be relied upon to have a cafe around every other corner.

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You should have tried Berlin.

The trouble elsewhere is that "Deutsche Küche" for eating out has become practically obsolete. The German goes to the Italian, the Greek, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Lebanese, the French of course and a multitude of others.

Eating "foreign" was a rage already in my time there and, from what I hear, the decline of actually German restaurants has been untrammelled ever since.

Beaudreaux said:

I found that if you go just outside the main gate of a US military base or post in England or Germany, you can find a pub that serves food as well, or as you said, a biergarten that also serves food - like the one just outside Ramstein's main gate and to the right.

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We ate at a lot of pubs and Gasthof (or was it Gasthaus?), I don't remember what they were called, but the food was always good. I liked the little schnitzel sandwiches or the meat, cheese, and cucumber sandwiches at the small stands at train stations, too. Oh, and doner stands! That was so delicious! Except one time when I didn't know the guy already put this spicy pepper in my doner, and I added more. Way too hot!

"nearly everyone is better educated than we are."

:roll: Welp, I got into this with a good heart to read interesting things and I get a piece of crap thrown at me. Oh well.

Luftwaffe said:

"nearly everyone is better educated than we are."

:roll: Welp, I got into this with a good heart to read interesting things and I get a piece of crap thrown at me. Oh well.

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You will be okay. People here throw crap at me everyday. This is a fun thread about Europe and the UK!

To pick at one item, Britain has a naval tradition that puts steering in cars on the same side as the starboard side (the stearing side) indicates on water travelling vessels world wide even today. Hence they also drive the roads on the side most conducive to the position of the steering wheel.

Countries like Thailand or Japan (to name just two) seem to have seen the sense of that. Neither were ever part of "the empire".

Rumors have it though that when Thailand wanted to get in with cool crowd, they briefly changed the system to driving on the left. So as to not make the transition too drastic they applied it initially only to buses so that everyone could get used to it in stages.:mrgreen:

By virtue of the resulting melee it was soon scrapped.

Not that it makes any difference, as anyone who has tried to weave thru Bangkok traffic will confirm.

Luftwaffe said:

"nearly everyone is better educated than we are."

:roll: Welp, I got into this with a good heart to read interesting things and I get a piece of crap thrown at me. Oh well.

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Just so you don't lose practice, EVERYbody is better educated than people in the US.:2razz:

:mrgreen:

Alyssa T. said:

You will be okay. People here throw crap at me everyday. This is a fun thread about Europe and the UK!

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Luftwaffe's ego is invincible, he was joking.

Chagos said:

To pick at one item, Britain has a naval tradition that puts steering in cars on the same side as the starboard side (the stearing side) indicates on water travelling vessels world wide even today. Hence they also drive the roads on the side most conducive to the position of the steering wheel.

Countries like Thailand or Japan (to name just two) seem to have seen the sense of that. Neither were ever part of "the empire".

Rumors have it though that when Thailand wanted to get in with cool crowd, they briefly changed the system to driving on the left. So as to not make the transition too drastic they applied it initially only to buses so that everyone could get used to it in stages.:mrgreen:

By virtue of the resulting melee it was soon scrapped.

Not that it makes any difference, as anyone who has tried to weave thru Bangkok traffic will confirm.

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That is so funny. I hope nobody got hurt. I have a friend who went to South Korea and he says the driving over there was insane.

I found it difficult crossing the street in Dublin, because I always looked the wrong way first. Not a big problem in the daytime, when there were more cars and people, but at night when my friends and I would stumble out of a pub...

Probably almost got hit by a car every night I was there, all for looking the wrong way first. An Irish friend pointed out to us that they had signs there to warn those of us from North America and the Continent, so we wouldn't end up as a hood ornament for the Irish! Such nice people over there.

Chagos said:

You should have tried Berlin.

The trouble elsewhere is that "Deutsche Küche" for eating out has become practically obsolete. The German goes to the Italian, the Greek, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Lebanese, the French of course and a multitude of others.

Eating "foreign" was a rage already in my time there and, from what I hear, the decline of actually German restaurants has been untrammelled ever since.

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LOL. Yeah... I definitely noticed that.

I asked several of my cab drivers to take me to "good German restaurants," and pretty much all of them failed to do so. They'd drop me off at Subway, or an Irish Pub. I was only able to get actual German food a grand total of three times the whole trip; once after blundering into a biergarten near Heidelberg castle completely by accident, once at the Paulaner tent at Octoberfest in Munich, and once at Frankfurt airport on my way out.

Frankly, however, even apart from that, it just didn't seem like the Germans were all that into "eating out" as a general cultural concept. Non-German restaurants were few and far between as well.

Granted, I didn't make it to Berlin, or the truly huge cities. However, even a small American city will usually have more variety than I saw while I was out and about.

Charleston, for example, is only moderately largely than Heidelberg. You can get everything from Indian to German food here, in addition to literally dozens of varieties of American food.

Chagos said:

Luftwaffe's ego is invincible, he was joking.

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Yeah, I was trying to joke too. It doesn't seem to work well in a forum, though.

Alyssa T. said:

Yeah, I was trying to joke too. It doesn't seem to work well in a forum, though.

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That's what icons are for.

Unless you use sarcasm, irony being a bit too much right-over-the- head for some.

Chagos said:

That's what icons are for.

Unless you use sarcasm, irony being a bit too much right-over-the- head for some.

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That's a good point. I never think of it, but I should.

Gathomas88 said:

LOL. Yeah... I definitely noticed that.

I asked several of my cab drivers to take me to "good German restaurants," and pretty much all of them failed to do so. They'd drop me off at Subway, or an Irish Pub. I was only able to get actual German food a grand total of three times the whole trip; once after blundering into a biergarten near Heidelberg castle completely by accident, once at the Paulaner tent at Octoberfest in Munich, and once at Frankfurt airport on my way out.

Frankly, however, even apart from that, it just didn't seem like the Germans were all that into "eating out" as a general cultural concept. Non-German restaurants were few and far between as well.

Granted, I didn't make it to Berlin, or the truly huge cities. However, even a small American city will usually have more variety than I saw while I was out and about.

Charleston, for example, is only moderately largely than Heidelberg. You can get everything from Indian to German food here, in addition to literally dozens of varieties of American food.

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Yeah, I remember "traversing" the South. Weight I gained wasn't due to just having been behind the wheel.

Chagos said:

Yeah, I remember "traversing" the South. Weight I gained wasn't due to just having been behind the wheel.

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Yessir! We try to make sure we have at least one St. Louis style rib house and one Texas style steak house for each major population concentration down here. :mrgreen:

Yeeeeehaaawww!



:lamo

Another one (to pick at) is the bathroom light being a string hanging from the ceiling. That is of course the switch cord (one pull "on", second pull "out"). Standard safety regulation so you can't touch anything electric with wet hands while standing in a puddle, the latter being a must with shower curtains.:mrgreen:

The alternative would of course be to have the light switch outside altogether (customary with most but not all "continentals"), but what do you do when you're already soaked and suddenly decide you'd prefer to shower in the dark?:lamo:lamo

Gathomas88 said:

Yessir! We try to make sure we have at least one St. Louis style rib house and one Texas style steak house for each major population concentration down here. :mrgreen:

Yeeeeehaaawww!

:lamo

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A nice southern place opened up near us. Needless to say, I've just implemented a stricter diet/workout routine, that stuff is ADDICTING.

Luftwaffe said:

A nice southern place opened up near us. Needless to say, I've just implemented a stricter diet/workout routine, that stuff is ADDICTING.

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Tell me about it! I've been hitting the gym five days a week for almost a year now, and I've got my cardio up enough that I can run two miles in 14:30.

Still can't get rid of these damn love handles. :lamo

Gathomas88 said:

Tell me about it! I've been hitting the gym five days a week for almost a year now, and I've got my cardio up enough that I can run two miles in 14:30.

Still can't get rid of these damn love handles. :lamo

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Are you supposed to get rid of love handles by running? I thought you were supposed to work them off?

Never mind. That is a conversation for a totally different thread topic.

Alyssa T. said:

Are you supposed to get rid of love handles by running? I thought you were supposed to work them off?

Never mind. That is a conversation for a totally different thread topic.

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I'm lifting, doing core, and running.

I'm in the Army, so all three are kind of important.

Manc Skipper said:

My experience has been the reverse, so we'll call it a draw.

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Eating in McDonalds while you were in the US doesnt count. :2razz:

Brit cuisine is pretty much limited to pies, curry (which is good only because youve got a sizable Indian minority) and fish and chips (which is easy to make by any culture). You people actually serve canned beans with your eggs for breakfast! Canned beans! :lol:

Gathomas88 said:

Tell me about it! I've been hitting the gym five days a week for almost a year now, and I've got my cardio up enough that I can run two miles in 14:30.

Still can't get rid of these damn love handles. :lamo

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You have to diet in addition to exercise, thats why...