fast food psychogeography

sufi

lala
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Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Something that's not really been touched on is that afaict the role of the 'authentically ethnic' restaurant in an immigrant / ex pat community is a bit more complex and interesting than just "it provides really good authentic curry to people who know what really good authentic curry tastes like and want to eat it but don't want to cook", might be worth discussing.

There seem to be a bunch of functions, some overlapping some not -
  • basic functional grub for people who can't cook and want something fairly familiar
  • essentially an ex-pat social club where you can get something to eat
  • somewhere that does stuff that's fancier or more complicated than you can cook at home
  • more upwardly mobile place for eg more cosmopolitan youths

Would be fascinating (and tasty) to do some actual research on this rather than anecdotal evidence and speculation. But in the absence of that, lets have some anecdotal evidence and speculation...
 

zhao

there are no accidents
^^ interesting.

there is a thai place next to Jumbos Clown Room on Hollywood blvd. where thai bands sometimes play and the place becomes a huge party for thai youths. but that was an exception...

we used to sometimes venture to the "no whites" parts of LA (south of Pico) and go to the real Mexican restaurants where the food was great but didn't really feel much of an "ex pat community" but more just like Mexico itself: they just picked up and moved it to Cali. same for the Real Chinatown an hour East, or the Real Little India an hour South East. and that's the way it was in LA: if you want any authentic food you mostly had to drive away from the city centre...

in Berlin it would be SO easy to make a killing with any kind of decent authentic restaurant. there are a few exceptions but most "ethnic" food here is unbelievably bad. i had Nachos where the cheese was not even melted, but sitting on top of the tortilla chips like a cold piece of plastic. all the Chinese dives serve food drowned in this mucus like goo.

in Poland last week i had the most amazing fast food. place looked like a Polish MacDonalds but the Gulash was straight out someone's granma's kitchen. and it was like 2 euros. i looked around and the schnitzel and steak and other things looked real good too. not sure if that was just luck or if that chain is just good or if it's all like that in Poland...
 
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