Asklemmy

Indian food is amazing.

well barring that many of these ethnic restaurants might be serving things created in america. mexican, cuban, indian, pakistani, chinese, korean, japanese, thai, lithuanian, irish, english, french, italian, argentinian, greek, german, might be others but this is all I can think of. Honestly not sure what the falafel places are considered.

My favourite cuisines I've had which were not common ones you can just find on any high street here were mostly found during the height of covid when I was working quite a way from home but the hotel's restaurant was closed so I had to order delivery each night.

• Nigerian: Ordered this a few times, peppersoup, moin moin, draw soup, eba amongst the things I had. Soon after a West African section opened in my local supermarket so I could at least get some of the main ingredients to cook some at home.
• Ethiopian: Amazing, not tried cooking any yet, some ingredients seem hard to come by
• Afghan: Had a bunch of times as there was a restaurant in my town
• Sri Lankan: Love it, superficially similar to Indian food but I was surprised just how different it was and has become one of my favourites that I cook at home with regularity.

Wait, you thought Egyptian restaurants don’t exist? Especially for a melting pot like the US, I assume the opposite, that there is always a food place that serves a particular cuisine from somewhere in the world.

But to answer your question, and assuming by exotic, you mean anything that isn’t your standard fare American, European, Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Japanese food, then I’ve had:

• Ethiopian
• Thai
• Singaporean
• Filipino
• Taiwanese
• Iraqi
• Afghan
• Indian

I love Chinese food and will eat it almost daily.

I try to pick something I've never had before first my birthday meal every year. The best one was probably the Uzbek place. Everyone there kept trying to talk to me in Uzbek as we appeared to be the only native English speakers in the house, so I'll assume it was authentic.

All kinds of grilled meats, multiple types of breads, fancy sodas (tarragon was awesome!), sour cherry pierogies with whipped sour cream, stuffed pasta... They had some of everything with their own twist on it. I had plov, the national dish, which was a rice pilaf with grilled meat. Absolutely delicious.

I'd say the hardest cuisines to find here are anything African or anything Eastern European. For that though, the secret is keeping an eye out for church festivals. The Greek Orthodox Church has one that has African and Eastern European, the Polish shrine has a Polish festival, and the Coptic church had Egyptian.

I don't know how to answer "exotic". "Exotic" can easily slip into xenophobic territory.

Maybe I answer with a restaurant from a specific culture that I had never been exposed to before? In which case, Himalayan/Tibetan/Nepalese. I could eat momos every day. But I say that about every savory-wrapped-in-dough thing. Dumplings, empanadas, bierocks, meat pies, xian bing, piroshki, is there a culture that doesn't have some variation of that? And it's always good. If ever there is need for a flag to represent Humanity, it should be of a savory pie.

• Chinese
• Japanese
• Korean
• Vietnamese
• Malaysian
• North and South Indian
• Ethiopian
• Lebanese
• Greek
• Italian
• Mexican
• Caribbean
• some African (not sure the region)
• Swedish if you count what Ikea serves at their restaurants :)

Georgian should be more well known imo. Ethiopian is also a top choice, Guyanese and Peruvian are also pretty good. I've had lots but these are the most underrated I've found

I have eaten Romanian food , Polish food , Guatemalan food , Salvadorian food , most of the Latin American countries.

I’m in US… not sure I’d say fluent. “Exotic”…… Thai, Japanese, Indian, Vietnamese. And one time I got oxtail from a roadside food stand 30 years ago… one of my students was from Trinidad and his mom recommended it. But the food I had in Belgium was to die for. Food in Denmark was interesting too.

Is this something people track? What's considered "exotic?"