Originally Posted by
scubadiver
I once remarked to my dinner companions that I'd just spent a week in Istanbul, but the best Donner Kebab I'd ever had whas right there in Nizam's restaurant in Vienna VA. Old Nizam Oskar, the owner overheard, and proceeded to give us a run-down on just why he could out-do in Virginia the chefs in his native Turkey. It came down to availability and variety.
Doner Kebap was created in Berlin (at least the common fast food style is), it's a German-Turkish food not Turkish. Similarly Chicken Tikka Masala is more a UK dish than it is an Indian dish. I'm not surprised to find that the best versions of those dishes are to be found outside of the homeland
I'd agree with the above that America has the best America-XXX food. Outside of Thai-town in LA the Thai places in the US seem to have the same subset of wet curries and not the broad range of foods found in Thailand. Most "Indian" food in the US is Mughal/Punjabi with the exception of places with lots of software engineers
. With the exception of a few Chinatowns the menus are always Chinese-American. This produces a very American uniformity in menus
