I like variety. One thing I really treasure is access to foods of all stripes: Indian, Thai, Venezuelan, Italian, Ethiopian, etc.
I live near Boston, and if you're from there, or New York, or even places like Madison or Minneapolis, I think you can understand what I'm talking about.
I'm visiting a pretty reddish state this week, and I'm in a fairly large city somewhere west of the Mississippi. I won't say where so as not to embarrass the town.
It's got a very nice pedestrian mall downtown, and so I headed there hoping to sample some good food. Maybe some good ethnic food, maybe something truly representative of the place I'm in. Man, was I in for a shock.
Do you get the same feeling I do when you see someone with a T-shirt like "Hard Rock Cafe – Singapore"? Do you think, "You went all the way to frickin' Singapore, and the crown jewel of your trip was having a burger at a place you could have gone anywhere in the U.S.? What the hell is wrong with you?"
Well, evidently I'm in a Blue-State food bubble, because let me tell you, this is the mentality that rules here. This mall is over a mile long, and from one end to the other it is NOTHING but utterly indistinguishable chain restaurants. It's like you need to have the imprimatur of the big, colorful, easy-to-recognize sign declaring "BURGERS – STEAKS – SEAFOOD" with a name like Tipsy McStagger's or you will go out of business very quickly.
Even the places that deign to provide something slightly different have to dumb it down. The only two spots that had something other than right-up-the-middle fare were ostensibly Japanese and Cajun places. Now, normally I'd be all for either of those types of food, but here, the names of the places – and I am not making this up – are Tokyo Joe's and Gumbo's. And they look all big and chainy just like the rest of them. How can you even tell which one you're in? God forbid they be something that isn't instantly recognizable as being under the aegis of big, plastic America. Why don't they all simply become TGI Friday's and just get it over with already? But it must be a comforting umbrella for Americans. The places are packed from 10 AM to midnight every day.
I went down there for lunch today and did about the only thing I could. I ordered a bratwurst from a guy with a rolling cart. His was the only establishment I could find that had any air of authenticity about it.
But I have to ask, is this the norm? Are all the red and reddish states like this? No wonder they fear anything that seems foreign. The closest they get to a cultural experience is having a margarita at a "Mexican" restaurant, the kind with fajitas and a nice big-screen TV. Maybe with whoever last won American Idol playing on the jukebox.