Some of mom's prime rib.
There’s no American food. There’s no Italian food either. When you go to Italy, you don’t eat Italian. Cucina Italiana includes Ligurian, Tuscan, Bolognese, Parmigiano and Veneto. You can also divide American food in a similar way. We have foods unique to cities like New Orleans, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Kansas City and Memphis.
The food in America is defined by the region it comes from. Part of that is due to the history of a city based on where its immigrants came from and whether it once was home to slaves. For instance, in many Midwestern cities like Cleveland, Milwaukee and Chicago, you’ll have a lot of Greek and Polish influenced foods because people from those countries came to those cities when they immigrated to the United States.
With such a rich melting pot of cultures, I find it very disappointing that when most of the world thinks of American food, they think about our franchises; McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, TGI Fridays, Tony Roma’s, Hard Rock Cafe and Hooters. In fact, unless you look hard enough when you travel abroad, those franchise restaurants are the only American foods you will find overseas.
Ben's Chili Bowl, Washington D.C.
Seriously, Tony Roma’s and TGI Fridays are what the world thinks when they think BBQ ribs? KFC is representing fried chicken? Alright Kansas City, Memphis and North Carolina, I’m going to need y’all to show the world what real BBQ is.
I can’t even get an authentic tasting Philly cheesesteak sandwich overseas unless I’m on a military base and they have a Charley’s steak. Wait, I said authentic. Charley’s taste like rubber when you’ve had the real thing.
I wish I could get to the bottom of this and understand why real regional leaning American restaurants are so hard to find overseas. Why isn’t there a Roscoe’s chicken n waffles in Hong Kong? Why can’t I get real fried chicken, greens and mac n cheese? What’s it going to take for someone to open a real Key Lime pie or NYC cheesecake bakery? Can a brother get his hands on some real jambalaya and shrimp etouffe?
Through some good Google search term research, I have been able to locate a few good restaurants in Japan that serve regional specialties. In the Roppongi ward of Tokyo, Bourbon Street restaurant cooks up some delicious cajun cuisine. Yokohama is home to Baird Bashamichi Taproom which is very good BBQ joint that cooks the meat low & slow like it should be.
A Thurman burger is a real American hamburger, not that crap you get at McDonalds.
Aside from the two restaurants I mentioned above, most Google searches for ‘American food Tokyo’ just lead me to hamburger joints and Hard Rock Cafe. If we bought the world moving pictures, jazz, rock n roll, hip hop, basketball, baseball and The Jersey Shore, then surely we can find a way to export all our great food rather than letting the franchises do it.
Crab cakes, Utz and Yuengling, that’s all I ask for. Someone open a Baltimore themed restaurant in Tokyo please. You can play episode of ‘The Wire’ all day.
Enjoying fresh Maryland blue crab.
In your travels, have you found any great American style restaurants?
