your finest hour

Considering I criticized the pick for that reason right when you picked it, I don't think it was too hard to figure out.

Okay, that was funny.

Whoops.

I was doing it from memory, because I'm posting from mobile browser and it's ****ing awful and tedious.

Spain would be #3 on that list.

And regarding the US:

1) we're far too dependent on chain restaurants and mass produced processed blandness to be anywhere near the top of any personal list I would make. Yes, there's amazing food here, but per capital amidst a sea of crap it absolutely doesn't compare to places like Japan where seasonality is hugely important even the food at ****ing 7/11 is made with care or Spain or Italy or whatever where any random corner bar is likely to be run by some grandpa who's been turning out delicious, simple food for forty years, or Thailand or Singapore where a premium is out on freshness and the perfection of flavors and people flock to street stalls from 6 am to 2 am, sometimes eating seven times a day, because good food and the enjoyment thereof is so important to their way of life

2) only 12 countries have been picked so far. They're all great. Being #12 is damn good and no insult.

Forgive the typos; it took 10 minutes to compose that post by mobile browser and I'm not ****ing taking a chance on the edit function

Leaving my job at the end of July, which is terrifying, to start a one-year grad program in Europe in September, which is probably really dumb, so I'm taking the opportunity to travel to SE Asia in August with my gf

Going to Hoi An, Vietnam; Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand; Luang Prabang, UNDRAFTED; Singapore; Penang, UNDRAFTED; and Lombok, Ubud, and Borobudur, UNDRAFTED.

Looking forward to eating everything.

Where at?

goddamn that sounds like a great trip, very jealous

Bologna in September through December; Hamburg in January through March; Aix-en-Provence in April through June; somewhere to finish my thesis (maybe Ljubljana or Split or wherever is quiet and pretty and tasty and reasonably cheap) for July and August.

I need to start looking more conscientiously for a place to stay in Bologna.

And yes, assuming my weekly class schedules aren't super-cruel (like, starting on Monday morning and ending on Friday evening, because attendance is apparently obligatory), I'm def going to go to Vilnius for a long weekend at some point. (You were the one who extolled its virtues, right?)

Cali has great food but what about "cali culture"

I'd rather go to e.g. a Mexican tent with cool cultural stuff I don't see in America than the cali booth in the America tent

It's gargantuan in US terms but pretty short by Euro/UK/Aussie standards, so I'll only be in each place for a few days at most. And it's the rainy season, so hopefully it doesn't pour constant buckets. But yeah, I'm super excited; I've never been any of those places before, and in light of not knowing what I'm doing for income for the rest of my life, didn't know when I'd have another chance to at least scratch the surface over there.

If you've been to any of those cities and have tips/thoughts/recommendations to share, post them in the Pub; I'd love to hear about it.

That sounds pretty exciting. Yeah, I thought Vilnius was perfect for a long weekend.

I did like how you factored in culture/music/etc as part of the overall food festival experience. A thumb on the scale if nothing else.

Speaking of which, people ARE allowed to chew gum in the Singapore tents. I don't know why you'd want to, given all the amazing food you'll be sampling, but you will not be removed from the premises or caned if you do.

No Tallinn?

What's the best month to visit? I'll definitely do it.

There is not best month really. Summer is prolly nicest.

Welp. It's on my list anyway.

Favorite writeups so far (non-me division ):

The well nameds are head and shoulders in front with their witty and evocative elaboration of the France pick (french tart was indeed A+; not sure how I missed it the first time around); does a great job capturing what's excellent about food in France

then probably Bloo (China), sugabat (Mexico), and Soah (Peru) in some order

The reason it's a poor pick is because people will be voting on which festival they'd like to attend for a limited amount of time, and half of the voters already have unlimited access to authentic American food. It's the same reason I expected Italy to fall a bit further. I'd rank it #1 strictly on merits of how good it is, but it's widely available and you can find authentic restaurants in many places if you look for them. The sweet spot is the countries with great food, but not quite so great that it's readily available in the places where the voters live. (I can't comment as much on China because I don't know how much difference there is between authentic Chinese food and what's available overseas.)

When I was in China last, I ate in a couple of restaurants where they used a chicken head as centrepiece of a chicken dish. My friends said it was something to do with freshness.

kokiri, I'm still looking forward to reading your fuller writeup on Japan, unless I've missed it

just thinking about Japanese food makes me want some yakitori and an overflowing sake cup

Good point, soah.

As for Chinese food, my understanding (bit limited because I am a vegetarian) is that Chinese Chinese food is not the same as the sort of fusion you get in Western countries. Similar to Indian food in India and British Indian food, which is very different.

And of course, that creates its own slight quibble. Who's making the food in this festival? When it comes to a huge country like China or India, do you really get to use all the cuisines of that nation PLUS all the Chinese food you're actually basing your judgement on, which is the fusiony stuff you eat at home?

The guidelines are that the food will be made by a team of cooks from the native country, preparing the food as it would be in their country.

If what's available in other countries is sufficiently different and/or popular enough to be associated with that country, then it could be available in that second country's tent. That's the argument that filthy has made for the American Chinese food, and I made the argument for Peruvian Chinese food. Voters can choose to accept or reject those arguments based on how reasonable they perceive them to be.

I assumed that we're limiting it to (the best) food from that country made by (the best) people from that country the (best) way they would make it in that country

so if someone were to pick UNDRAFTED COUNTRY WHERE BLOO LIVES, for example, then the version of Indian food prevalent in that country would absolutely be part of the palette from which that drafter could draw, if he wanted

ditto filthy and General Tso's chicken or other quintessentially Americanized Chinese dishes, if for some reason he felt like dying on that hill

hell, if it were any other way, then half of soah's cuisine from Peru wouldn't count, given the pervasive Chinese and Japanese influence there (mmmm lomo saltado) (mmmm mmmm tiradito)

which would be clearly wrong, because chifa is a distinctly Peruvian form of Chinese food and belongs squarely in the Peru section of the food festival rather than the China section

imo

damn my pony was just that little bit slow

i need to be more concise

This sounds correct.