World's best and worst cuisines

In your opinion?

From my own journeys I would say Italy, Israel, Greece and Turkey has the best cuisines. However I get the impression that it is China or Japan that has the best.

Ghana is by far the worst I have experienced. It can barely be described as cuisine as they have so few dishes, and it's fermented maze. Yuck.

Sweden is pretty dull when it comes to food but miles better than Ghana.

Best I've had? Italian. Never get tired of it. In particular, I have a life-long love for pasta. I used to hate ravioli when I lived in England, until I went to Italy to try their ricotta cheese and spinach ravioli. It was delicious.

Worst I've had? Russian. Brings a whole new meaning to the word "tasteless."

BEST:INDIAN NON VEG CUISINE

WORST: INDIAN VEG CUISINE

@indzman: what about paneer?

@themajormayor: mmm exception mmm?

I'm a vegetarian. As such, I am very limited in regional cusines. I also only can talk about cusines ate a lot from. No point in basing my opinion on mongolian or thai based on my few visits to the same restaurant.

I'm from Switzerland and really love the cuisine here. We have a lot of stuff with cheese and our cheese is fantastic. Fondue, Raclette, Älpler Makkeroni, Röschti with eggs and cheese, all that stuff is just awesome.

Other cuisines I like are Mexican, Italian and Japanese.

Cuisines I don't like are indian, the african foods they had in Mauritius (no idea what exactly it was), greek and Spain (I do like Paella though).

Cuisines I enjoyed: Mexican/ Kashmiri and southern Indian/ German/ Japanese/ Lebanese/ Moroccan

Cuisines that were 'meh': Filipeno/ Turkmen/ Brazilian and Zimbabwean

Genuine Mexican food is probably some of the best; amazing combination of spices, generally requires a lot of labor (which is why you always see grandmas spending all day cooking!), rich historical heritage, and so forth. People think "Oh, tacos, burritos, and beans!" but it is so, so, so much more than that.

Conversely, I really like the Anglo-ified Indian food better than genuine Indian food. There's a really happy middle ground that some Indian restaurants find where they meet Western customers, but also pay tribute to their Indian roots by being as true to them to a point without going all the way there.

I really like French food, too; not talking the fancy stuff, but real french food; steak frites, coq au vin, foie gras, pot au feu, duck confit, beef bourguignon...oooooooh and the pastries and desserts. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but there's something about flaky pastries filled with yummy cream that just...MMMMMMMMMMMMM!

I cannot imagine being a vegetarian and not liking Indian food. I was vegan for like a year (just for kicks/health...actually felt pretty good!) and 60% of my diet was Indian food I cooked. Indian food is, whether by design or coincidence, like 80% vegetarian (or so it seems).

More power to you, though, for making it work.

Hmmm maybe that is why...

french

@mrbojangles25: Oh I'm not saying there isn't much of a choice, I just don't like it. Sure there are some exceptions like Paneer or Samosas I do enjoy, but most of it just doesn't fit my taste. Can't really explain it. I have trie dit a lot of times (since I am a vegeterian), several times in the EU in different countries, directly from an indian co-worker and in Mauritius which is mainly inhabited by indian people. I just can't enjoy it.

Good old American unhealthy foods, (im from UK) but I love there foods you shouldn't eat.

Also really like Greek Food

Like: BBQ

Dislike: Blandness (Can't think of anything, really)

Chinese food is good, but you can also get slop too. Cheap slop, though. It's all a bit oily too and gets samey when you get it every day. Also, I cannot stomach their fried junk and noodles for breakfast. Save me.

An American told me he eats McDs Muffins for breakfast. I said isn't that basically chocolate cake. He said, no it's healthier.

Hmm....Italian and Mexican are pretty good. Haven't had much French but liked what I had. Enjoyed Oktoberfest so German is okay. Like some Chinese and Japanese....

Worst ........British.

The best? Fried and deep-fried Japanese food. Worst? Northern Euro food. Mediterranean cooking seems good though.

Best: Italian, Chinese, Japanese

Worst: None yet

Best: Chinese - Taiwan/HK/Singapore, Malay, Indo, Thai, Indian, & Japanese,

Worst: Anything with stinky blue vein cheese. :P

Best: Vietnamese, Japanese and close behind Mexican and Italian.

Worst, well "meh" is a better word: British, French, Russian.

I can't choose a best (I love food), but Filipino is one I've never been able to ever truly enjoy all that much.

I identified the other foods in the photo below. The very top left is called pancit which is sliced vegetables with chopped chicken and pork mixed with thin rice noodles. whenever my wife brings a tray to work/potluck, it never lasts long. Below it is PH spaghetti. I'm not a big fan of it because it's sweet. The round bowl contains some kind of spicy pork dish cooked by someone else. The tray with the chopped green onions and spinach (top right) is actually Korean bulgogi (beef strips are underneath the greens). The tray left of it is a PH dish made up of chopped pork and organ meats. I'm not a big fan of it either.

Now that's better. :O

I don't have many Filipino friends that cook authentic cultural food, so I'm going by restaurants in the area... which is odd, considering we have a huge Filipino community here in Winnipeg, just not a great restaurant selection.

The ingredients for some authentic PH dishes are hard to find such as unripe tamarind which gives a unique sourness to some foods. The majority of PH dishes you would see are those that make use of locally available ingredients such as soy sauce and salt. I avoid those if I can. ;) Most of them are also designed to be poured over steamed rice. I don't eat that much rice either.

There is definitely a big Chinese and Spanish influence on PH cuisine. Soon, Korean influence will also be profound if the immigration of many Koreans to the Philippines continues.

Thanks, good to know. I love food, so I'm always willing to try new things (just not balut or anything like that ... ._.)

Italian is derived from Chinese.

Lo Mein --> Spaghetti

Dumpling --> Ravioli

@SolidSnake35: gotta love American food, 5000 calories for breakfast if you get pancakes and syrup.

I'd get diabetes in a week if I moved there

A week???

Clearly you haven't thought that through...

More like 2 days.

American food is just a meshing of other ethnicity's. Also.............try deep fried everything like the UK and tell me that's healthy.

The PH have their own specialty foods (aka delicacies) like balut. It's not so bad. It's just a boiled duck egg with a fully-developed chick inside. ;) I prefer it over say, the silkworm pupae of the Koreans. ;)

Yup. Sometimes we just mix and match among them.

For example, one of my favorites: spicy Korean kimchi and meat loaf over steamed rice. ;)

Fish and chips mmm.

Best: Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese

Worst: French, American, Canadian

Edit: I like Indian too, but it's expensive to get decent Indian around here.

@appariti0n: french? Wtf??

Singapore is the best, it's a fusion of the best from all Asian dishes.

Worst is probably any African with exception of South African.

Mexican food is one of my guilty pleasures. Chimichangas and chili relleno all day, keep your damn tacos.

But Mediterranean dishes are right up there, too. I actually like a lot of middle eastern foods, lamb dishes in particular (gyros, mmm...). However, you can keep your falafels and anything else chickpea.

One thing I do not go for is pasta. It's not that it tastes gross, some of it is quite good, it just fills me up too quickly but doesn't sate me for very long at all. If I have spaghetti at someones house I know I'm not going to finish the plate and am going to have to eat again when I get home.

My problem with Asian foods is the sauces even in small amounts tend to overpower the dish. I can handle something like unagi or a stir-fry dish for a change of pace from time to time, it's not something I could make a regular part of my diet.

But hands-down the worst food has to be the Gaelic/British dishes. Colcannon, haggis, blood pudding, bangers and mash...man, you poor sods just make do with what you have, don't you?

@foxhound_fox: why ? Too spicy ? Too "hot" ?

I can't say this one is better than that one, one thing is for sure, I hate being served "picante fvck you" food, not that I don't like picante, but I like it when I want it and in the level I'm comfortable and that applies to all cuisines. I can't say I don't like if I havent't tried it, I live in Mexico and I don't like many typical dishes like "mole" & "pozole", I can't stand what it's pretty much a basic mexican food: corn tortilla.

I'm just a plain hot dogs, hamburgers, sandwiches kinda guy.

People here seem to be knocking on British cuisine pretty hard, and I all can say is... ...well, yeah, it's pretty bad. That said, there are some stuff I did enjoy: fish'n'chips, crumpets, kippers and Yorkshire pudding. Also, a lot of "Indian" dishes eaten there are actually British inventions, and they're quite nice.

I've done the British, Scottish, Irish touristy thing. As much as I loved the culture, architecture, landscape and history, the food was...well, I couldn't wait to get back home.

And isn't fish 'n chips pretty much universal except for the name? I can go down to Long John Silvers right now and get a basket of fish and fries.

And crumpets are gross. It's like eating a moist sponge.

@br0kenrabbit:

Well, I lived there. I suppose just got used to it.

Nope, fish and chips is definitely a British invention. I checked. And it's not really the same; real British fish and chips is sold from locally-owned takeaway shops, not some soulless commercial restaurant chain, and the chips are always thickly cut.

YMMV, I guess. I personally liked to toast it until "golden" then melt butter on it.

Love hot food (eating my wife's homemade jambalaya right now). It's just the flavour structure of the food I guess. It reminds me a lot of "Americanized" Chinese food, very sweet.

My wife's first attempt at making meat buns (a few years ago). Awesome snack. Of all the food she can make, meat buns are my favorite. Too bad she doesn't like to add chopped boiled egg with the meat filling.

taste is subjective

i love european cuisines but i hate asian

French Canadian.

Don't say anything bad about Chinese plumb sauce with duck. You will get modded and a warning.

Best: Italian, Mexican, or Japanese

Worst: British

chinese oyster egg, and carrot cake.

Spanish cuisine is one of the Mediterranean cuisines. But, it is unique in its own right, just as Italian and Turkish cuisine are.

Spanish food such as empanada is already part of Philippine cuisine. But, I haven't seen the Philippine equivalent of Spanish seafood paella. Very appetizing.

Not the same, mate. These restaurant chains tend to make everything neat and tidily proportioned and cooked just enough. Fish'n'chips from local shops have a "rough and ready" style that gives it character, befitting of its working class origins. It's not just food, it's a British (and New Zealand) cultural institution.