I went to a western restaurant in Japan that was “stereotypical USA” themed and there was mainly kitschy shit all over the place like advertising memorabilia (stuff m&m character statues) and of course american flag themed stuff (but iirc no actual flag)
It was a long time ago but I remember the menu was like burgers, hotdogs, mac and cheese, etc and the food was super mid. Main thing I do remember was the mac and cheese was 100% kraft dinner which was so disappointing. the burger was also weak which is inexcusable because japan has serious burger game
Burgers come from Hamburg, Germany, hot dogs come from Frankfurt, Germany, macaroni and cheese come from Rome, Italy.
yeah no shit, america is a melting pot and it’s food culture is an amalgamation of foods from other cultures
And frankly some aspects of most of those are spurious. The origin of the hamburger is debatable mainly because before america it was (probably) just a mince patty served with sauce, much closer to what japan serves as hambagu/ハンバーグ. It likely wasn’t until it came through shipping ports to america that it was served on bread, ground instead of minced (though this was likely a function of the era), and eventually over time evolved to the modern version of what we consider a “hamburger”
Mac and cheese actually goes back to medieval england and was closer to a lasagna. The extruded version is also probably england, or possibly france. Unless you’re simply attributing dried pasta, which is probably an italian invention, but may be arabic
Frankfurter is german but the modern hotdog is american and debatably the idea of serving it in a bun is an american invention, which again goes back to the hamburger and the insanity of prior to america people struggle to combine meat and bread
In closing I bet you’re fun at parties. Also while america sucks at so many things we definitely make the best burgers in the world, hands down
Totally agree with you
The Hamburger they’re referring to is a Hamburg steak, which is a grilled and gravy-topped plate version of Steak Tartar, a rare beef dish that’s a French version of … a Tartar chopped beef dish. It’s all versions of something else and they change each time. The American change to grilling, buns, and a handheld version isn’t any less than the German or French, IMHO
Same for “Frankfurters”, they’re pork, lamb intestine, boiled, and only served on a plate. But American hot dogs historically are kosher beef, spiced more heavily, are typically grilled, and absolutely are served on specialized buns developed for them.
This is typical for American food inventions, a rejection of any updates or improvements.
If it was a chain and had free refills at a drink bar, it might have been Johnathon’s https://www.skylark.co.jp/en/jonathan/menu/index.html
There are a bunch of other one-off places as well.
No it was a small hole in the wall place in (I think) kyoto that had a single employee and like 4 tables. The walls were literally covered in Americana shit but heavy on the advertising slant (which is pretty definitive of american culture tbh)
It did have drink bar though, though not nearly as much selection what you’d see at a family diner type place or karaoke
Honestly, that kinda sounds like the average American diner experience. Not bad, not good, just okay. Granted, a small hole-in-the-wall or independent diner that’s been around forever will almost certainly be better; but when it comes to your average American diner (like IHOP, Denny’s, etc) that sounds about right.
Bruh I love IHOP more than one should. I love getting pancakes at midnight.
Yes but it’s actually a Mexican guy dressed in a pilgrim costume.
lol with Free Bird playing in the background. Reminds me of when Khan became a redneck on King of the Hill.
No sir, the proper song is Sweet Home Alabama. It’s our real anthem.
Tennessee has entered the chat.
As long as Tennessee brings whiskey, I’m listening!
Tennessee can keep their Whiskey. Kentucky has got us covered.
But is anyone bringing real whisky? The good stuff I mean.
Louisiana: [bursts through the door Kramer-style holding several handles of rum and bourbon]
This is an outstanding idea.
Unless it would be inside the restaurant.
Or better yet, please ship authentic texmex anywhere outside of the us thanks. I am dying.
That’s really the only thing keeping me in the south.
You can get good Texmex pretty much anywhere with with a hispanic population. Won’t be as cheap as the South but still. There’s a couple spots near me in the PNW that set up sketchy pop-ups on the sidewalk after dark but they got dope tacos al pastor and they are always busy.
Yeah, I would totally do this if it paid well. I love grilling
Honestly, that sounds like some refreshing fun. Have the cook with a big grill out front, and putting in the order is just chatting with them.
“Hey, bud, you want a burger, hot dog, steak, or some of this brisket I been smoking since this morning? Want something to drink? There’s beer and soda in the cooler, or we got tap water. The little cooler has juice for the little’uns.”
And then have a cashier keep track of what they had, conveyor-belt sushi style. The cook chats with whoever is standing around drinking a beer with them (and is drinking beers or soda or whatever all shift), and everything gets served on paper plates. And the tables are all those wooden picnic tables with cheap plastic tablecloths.
And those who are eating there are encouraged to stand around and chat with other people as well (if they want). Just make the whole thing like a backyard barbecue with your neighbor Hank.
And hire nothing but retired men and women working part time as the cooks. Nothing but grill daddies and mommies, working just for some extra cash and the fun of barbecuing. I would take that job when I retired in an instant.
Edit: better yet, make it habachi-style, where there’s a grill daddy/mommy for every group or two, set up like a park barbecue. I love this and want to go to one or work at one now.
Shut up and take my investment money.
(Please note I have no investment money.)
My new retirement plan is to open that joint here in the States.
I want to open it overseas! Export some actual American culture.
I also want to have special football nights where we put the game on and do snack food appetizers. Pigs in a blanket, a couple crackpots of little smokies, chips and dip. There’s a big sign out front that says when we offer tea we mean southern style sweet tea, so please ask for unsweetened if that’s what you want!
So many ways this could be done right.
I don’t know of any restaurant here that does that, but sometimes bars and such throw parties for their regulars, and they’re kinda like that. A few grill, there’s drinks, people talk and hang out, etc.
I would take that job when I retired in an instant
You won’t have to get a job when you retire if you have this kind of good ideas
For some context, I am in the military and will be retiring in five years at the age of 47. So I won’t need to work, but I want to find fun work that I want to do after. I think I’m the type that will wither and die within a year of retiring from any work. I’m not self-motivated enough to create work for myself, and I need to be doing something or I’ll sleep 18 hours a day and feel useless the rest of the time. I need a schedule, and I need someone else to make it.
I went to a bar like this in Brooklyn. It was decorated like the outside of a trailer park, complete with little trailers that were dining booths. There were strings of lights for ambient lighting and the tables had camping lamps.
The rest of the furniture was lawn chairs and folding tables, and they served hot dogs and hamburgers and potato salad, standard picnic fare.
that actually sounds really good, and I don’t even like that typical assortment of food. Just put me in the right environment and I’ll eat thousands of pounds of it
There’s a place similar in Providence, RI. Ogie’s Trailer Park.
Honestly that sounds pretty fun.
And super Brooklyn. “Let’s cosplay as the poors!”
You’ll never live like common people
You’ll never do what common people do.
You’ll never fail like common people.
It was very relaxing for a bar in Brooklyn. Not even any TVs in it.
They could have had some broken tvs!
A 52" rear projection TV propped up on bricks.
Topped with an assortment of empty natty light cans, a bong, and a funko pop of that guy with the crossbow from the walking dead.
Need to have another, smaller, tv on top of it. Bottom one has picture, top one has audio. Gotta have em on the same channel to watch anything
Edit: can’t forget the coat hanger antenna!
I would do this, just give me a pack of smokes and drinks and ill cook ya whatever you want (and im not even american!)
Have the full experience with Accent and flags. It might sell.
I tell you hwut.
I think the full experience would be children running around with the dirtiest faces you’ve ever seen.
Your uncle getting in trouble with the park ranger for feeding the seagulls again.
One of your cousins brought their new girlfriend to the event and are for some reason fighting in the parking lot
Your aunt brought her Rottweiler who barks and snaps at all the families passing by
I grew up in Florida
I grew up in Texas. Needs more dominos and spades, and pawpaw needs to pray over the food.
I ain’t religious but I ain’t telling pawpaw not to pray over the food.
And people say there’s no such thing as American culture…
I was dragged to a country western bar in Japan so, it’s not impossible?
There was (maybe still is?) a lesbian country and western bar in West Hollywood, CA.
Went in by mistake once.
Columbus, OH had a gay western bar one that turned into the goth club by the time I first went there.
In Tokyo? Country House? If so, I’ve been, heh.
I’d love to go to a bar like that in Japan purely to judge the authenticity.
I went to one in a small town in Japan years ago. It was actually really adorable, the owner LOVED that I was from California
I feel like it might be confusing when I tell them I’m from Ohio 🤣
They have authentic American food all over the world.
It’s called McDonalds and its authenticity highly processed and commercialised. Even prepared by children to give it that true American experience.
There is plenty of American born and bred food without reducing us to hur dur McDonalds
MERKA BAAAHD
I literally emigrated because it’s so bad and I don’t talk like this. If you want to talk shit on America I’m right there with you, but if you’re going to pretend our food sucks you’re not invited to the cookup.
Where do you live now and how did you manage to escape? Asking for a friend.
Honestly just born a dual citizen, hardest part has been keeping my US job and calling in to west coast businesses in my evenings.
As for the destination, just the UK. Been here three years now, and still just barely getting used to it. I didn’t fit in in America either so I might as well not fit in somewhere better.
If you’ve got a college degree you can pretty easily teach English in Japan for peanuts (though still more than the minimum wage offered in 20 US states).
How does one teach English in English? Sorry if it’s a dumb question.
America is a big place. There’s some good food, but a lot of the food people eat does suck. The entire midwest or god forbid you live in one of those highway stops where your only options are fast food chains or a fast-casual chain.
McDonalds, Starbucks, and Dominoes exist because people buy that shit.
You know you can cook for your self, right? And cook outs and potlucks still exist.
So do independent restaurants. Even small towns and rural areas have them. They exist because people go there.
Listen to this stupid clown talk.
not for this guy. You want authentic American food? Leave your house at 8pm, Google “restaurant”, find a small diner.
Go in, order breakfast, two eggs, sausage patties, a southern biscuit, gravy, and get a pancake while you’re there.
You’ll leave feeling like someone hugged you and everything will be ok, and all you wanted to do was eat breakfast.
Are you crying?
Hug it out, man. Come here. It’s ok.
breakfast at 8pm?!
Don’t mock one of my favorite meals. Breakfast for dinner is amazing, and I will die on that hill.
“sure thing, 'sug!”
…you asking for her number too, right?
Ya, next question
If your normal diet consists of healthy food like many Japanese diets do, eating authentic American food is NOT a good idea, especially southern food. I say this from experience.
healthy food like many Japanese diets do
Wanna explain what that is? Because obesity is on the rise here and people day-to-day are just eating konbini (convenience store) pre-packaged stuff laden with fried food and instant noodles.
Meals that aren’t stuffed with butter and sugar. Even the stuff at 7-eleven or Lawson is far healthier than a lot of American food.
There’s still a fair bit of sugar in everything. I think trans-fats are also still in use here unless that changed recently.
It would surprise me little if there was at least one, given how well KFC does overseas.
I like this a lot better than the standard American [insert meme here] where everybody has like 5 guns. Such a tired trope.
Indeed, it has been done many times, but there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon. like their school shootings
Completely stopping school shootings, probably not, but it seems likely that some may be getting redirected to the C-suite.
I always wonder how culturally authentic these gimmicky restaurants are. Like realistically hardly anybody in America grills food in the backyard. I do it maybe 3x/year and only in the summer. I’ve seen my dad multiple times grill with snow on the ground, but he was an outlier.
I think it depends on the region of America. I grill a lot in the back yard and so do a lot of friends and family.
Exactly, it’s regional cooking not “American” cooking. A Texas bbq is different from a Chicago or Oakland bbq, and some people insist theirs is the only “real” kind.
BBQ varies by region, but burgers are burgers for the most part. The only real difference is usually what type of ground beef they decide to use, and if they press the meat down or not.
Aside from that, I don’t think a burger in TX is gonna be much different than a burger in NYC or a burger in CA
I guess it’s not the backyard, but grilling at tailgating is super common.
I live in Canada and I bbq’ed dinner a couple days ago. We didn’t eat outside, of course, since it’s -10, but grilling is still a go-to method of cooking.
Like realistically hardly anybody in America grills food in the backyard.
Not so sure about that, grilling is a regular and widespread thing where I live in the US.
American living in Japan here and I grill weekly on my Weber over charcoal. When I lived in Texas, we grilled whenever we could, basically. In the midwest, my grandparents had a Jenair for when the weather was bad and grilled at least once a week. They were rich, though, so there’s that.
No, they do KFC
Fanciest KFC I’ve ever been to was in Kampala, Uganda
Ah i see you stayed in hotel kampala as well.
One of the subtler jokes in Arrested Development is Little Briton having an “American-style” restaurant where the whole plate is covered in fries.
Hey, as an American I’d totally order that.
Well, there is this guy
I like the idea, but why the fuck is Hank cooking on a charcoal bbq? Does he want to taste the heat and not the meat?!?
If I didn’t want to taste the meat I’d just cook the meat on a pan
He’s even smiling. My guy sells propane.
This is from Season 3 Episode 19 where Peggy makes a video for the Dallas Cowboys by cobbling together old home movies to show them the personality of the people of Arlen. Presumably, this footage is from before Hank’s hatred for charcoal began—I’m going to take a wild guess and say he became more evangelical about propane when he became a lead.
In the early seasons he grilled on charcoal. Also they sell propane grills that use charcoal, this isn’t actually a conflict, it was more an affectation.
Why would someone want a propane grill that uses charcoal?
Charcoal flavor with propane convenience. I’ve definitely seen gas grills with some sort of insert where you can put charcoal or mesquite.
God I wish
