My gut feeling (and a reason I posted this), is that a certain percentage (present company excluded, of course) of people who say they prefer Italian pizza are fibbing. I think some people's real motivation is the enjoyment of telling their friends they've experienced something more and/or better than them, and have been places others have not.

When people said "Italy has the best pizza" throughout my childhood, they successfully made me jealous and made me want to try Italian pizza. When I got there, the food was utter disappoinment (the coffee, desserts & pastries on the other hand, were primo!).

Our joke (actually true in our opinion) was the best pizza we had in Europe, was in London (I hear more heads exploding). We tried a different pizza or pasta restaurant every single meal in Italy in search of something we liked. Funny enough, the first thing we did when we got home was to order pickup from Pizza Hut on the way home from the airport.

I honestly am still waiting to experience cuisine that makes me long to return to that country. I'd love to go to Rome to see the sites, but not to a pizzeria. I'd love to sit in a Parisian cafe again, but can take or leave the bistro. Amman, Beirut & Cairo have their own pluses, but I can get the same or better Mediterannean food around the corner. I have just about always found something I like as much or better near home. We don't invent a whole lot of worthwhile culture, but we're great at importing the best of it.

Another example: I spent 4 months over two years in Lima and Cuzco, Peru. The best Peruvian restaurant I've been to, not shockingly, is in Miami. And I have family in Lima that took me to some really nice places.

The only thing I've ever partaken abroad that I wish we had in the U.S. was a blended mango drink I had in Cairo. It literally was pure blended mango chilled and poured in a glass, and cost less than $1 US. Prohibitively expensive drink for most Egyptians ... for me it was amazing. I'd love to have that again.

And FWIW, I enjoyed pizza in Naples more than the pizza in Rome, but neither is enjoyable to me as Papa John's. Or a New York slice (yum), or a deep dish Chicago pizza (drool).

They're practically different foods. Although the presentation (inside a cardboard box or on a paper plate) and atmosphere may be lacking, it's not that illogical to prefer the food itself.

I'm all about holes in the wall. I don't go anywhere else when traveling.

Yes, they are completely different foods. The Italian pizza has a totally different base and will seldom be absolutely dripping with toppings. In the US, the pizza became all about the toppings � the more the better. So much so that the abses had to be changed to allow them to support all the toppings, and in the case of Chicago Pizza Pie, the bases had to have walls to hold all the toppings.

One can argue about which is better, but that�s just down to individual taste. But they are not the same product.

Italy does not have the best pizza. Napoli, and some of the surrounding towns, even including Capri, has the best pizza. Anyone who has spent time there knows this instinctively without having to be prompted. Northern Italian pizza really isn't that great IMHO.

Chicago however, has the best deep dish pizza. Of course it was invented there.

I've really been enjoying this thread but I am wondering about something. Many posters have indicated that they feel some food, say Chinese, is better is China than in SF or LA. I'm generalizing because I am not familiar with the different types of Chinese cuisine. When I was in high school I dated a guy who was from Hong Kong. His dad was a cook/chef both in Honk Kong and California. He finally got the money together to open his own restaurant. Now I couldn't tell you if it was good or bad food because I don't care much for Chinese food but why would his restaurant immediately be considered inferior because it was in LA and not China. At least that is the message I am picking up from some of the posts.

That�s a fair point Yukira. I think the sceptics amongst us would wonder whether his menu and ingredients would remain unchanged for long � or whether he might find that the clientele started to look for slightly different flavours, etc.

In the UK where we have lots of Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants, you find that Bangladeshi restaurants will also have an Indian menu; that Indian restaurants will have dishes from all over India that would never be on the same menu in India; and that most of the sauces are far wetter than in India. In fact, the Tikka Massala was invented because customers in the West Midlands found tikka meats too dry and wanted them served with a sauce. Probably also the UK versions of curries have way more chilli in them as a particular type of customer likes to prove his macho credentials by eating fiercely hot curries. So, in order to survive in the UK market, Indian and Bangladeshi cooks have to change their menus.

I think that this is a pretty accurate statement with regard to most things.

Mr H I think that makes sense. There are few places here in Eugene that serve anything even remotely similar to the Mexican food we used to get from the taco stands when I was growing up. It seems most places have adapted to what they think the clientele wants and there is little variation from place to place. I think some of the places we went in LA were closer to what you would find in Mexico, or at least those portions of Mexico that were close to the border because I think that is probably where many of their customers came from.

In most cases, it's all about the ingredients. The stuff you can buy cheap in Hong Kong, may be too expensive to obtain in LA. So they use substitutes. Also, sometimes extremely restrictive local health laws force the recipe to change.

When this topic comes up, I always refer people to Manana in Geneva. IMHO the best example of Mexican food in Europe, even if it is run by Paraguayans! But the point is clear. If you want the best Mexican food, go to Mexico. Or to be more exact, if you want Baja, go to Baja. If you want Yucatan, go to the Yucatan. If you want Veracruz cuisine, go there.

I'm with you, and I really did find Napolese and Capresian pizza was better than Roman.

Similarly IMHO is listening to Bach or Beethoven a better experience when performed on "authentic" instruments and in rooms the "right" size? I don't think they're mutually exclusive. As to food, I've enjoyed "interpretations" of pizza in quite a few different places, including Napoli. Is the classic pizza margherita my favorite pizza? Not necessarily.

I'll still agree with the OP to the extent that in at least some parts of the U.S. (and Canada), fortunately including our neighborhood, there's an incredible variety of national cuisines to enjoy and to whet our appetite for more travel to compare their version to "the original."

I think that is a good assessment of the broader picture. I have had all of one pizza in Italy, and it wasnt Naples. It was good, but certainly not as good as Una Pizza Napolitano in NY (RIP to that great place by the way) or others in NY. But the thread title did not imply that there were a few places in one country better than another. Most pizza in the US is utter crap. Slop on toast for lack of a better term.

Most food in the US is mediocre, made with crap, semi-real ingredients and loaded with fat and salt to cover the taste. Sure, there are lots of exceptions, it is a big country. But the routine crap that dominates the food landscape here (big box chains and the like) is far inferior to the food landscape in most countries. Even the quality of food in grocery stores seems higher in places like the UK, Japan and France. Those countries have a higher food awareness and expectation than in the US. They are much more likely to use local, fresh ingredients and to care about how it is made and presented. Even at little places.

Interestingly, for those who think I am being condescending, in reading this thread I remember the last time I got into this argument with someone, which was in "real life", sitting at a dinner table. This individual opined that food in the US was better than food in France. I told him that he was "crazy" and suggested that there was something wrong with him. He didnt say I was being condescending, but rather just laughed. We argued about it for quite a while. I was probably unable to convince him that he was wrong. You are in good company with him, being that he is a Nobel Prize winner, but you are still both wrong

Which is exactly why you need to find the ethnic restaurants that cater to their own ethnic groups (Or as you pointed out, have separate menu's). You can find them if you look in the right places - I've had friends tell me that restaurants I take them to (or that they taken me to) are just as good as back home.

Granted you miss the atmosphere by a long shot (at least in DC where all the great ethnic joints are in strip malls - no joke!), it still helps fill the void ;-)

The recommended way to go. Ordering may be difficult as there may be no to very little English (all the "good" stuff is in the native language), but you may find helpful waiters or a helpful patron from a neighboring table.

re: strip malls. I remember Toronto has hundreds of Cantonese restaurants all in strip malls. The average quality of those restaurants are very high too.