England

If you're gonna "well actually" at least be accurate. It's Mozambique. But highly associated with Portugal from colonial rule. If you go to Portugal you'll find peri peri chicken fucking everywhere. And it's amazing. Very rare you get food with actual spice in Europe. It's like calabrian chili in Italy and peri peri. That's it.

Chris said:

I went to Porto and there was zero Peri Peri Chicken, instead they had this abomination Steak, Ham & Cheese Sandwich covered in soup and topped with a sausage and a fried egg.

Francesinha - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

It's the worst dish I've ever eaten.

So we have better Mozambique spiced Portugese imported South African owned chicken in the UK than Portugal's second city.

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Yeah that dish is a fucking mess. What a drunk college kid abomination of a dish.

Trip was awesome. Thanks for the ideas and info.

Ended up doing London for about 5.5 days with tours out to Bath/Windsor/Stonehenge/Cotswalds and did all the typical tourist stuff inside London proper: Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St Paul's, Chelsea game, Buckingham Palace, British Museum, Harrods, Westminster Abbey, Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens, Cavalry Museum, Churchill War Rooms, Double-decker bus around the city etc. Missed the Shard since it was pouring the day we had our tickets and we woke up late and decided to skip it (had it on the London Pass, so didn't 'lose money' on it). Weather was pretty good other than that day with just some mild rain.

Then we took a train up to Edinburgh and spent a few days there plus a day trip out to Alnwick Castle (probably the coolest thing we did) and a couple little villages. Edinburgh was a great, compact city that we did pretty much everything we wanted in as well. Headed down to York and did a day there, which was plenty, though did didn't get out to drive around the dales, which would have been fun.

Ended with another day in London before flying back to the US. Food was not good even going to highly rated/recommended restaurants. Best meal was an Italian restaurant in Edinburgh and second was...Five Guys on our last day in London because we were sick of bad food.

Food wise, I thought the UK was meat pies and stews for local fare?

Beef Wellington? Steak and Ale pie? Cottage and Shepard's Pie? Cornish Pastry?

In the US we have Irish Stew at a lot of Pub type restaurants, made with a stout beer and lamb with a side of soda bread. I figured there was some British Isle stews of similar flavor all around the islands.

Yeah British pub food is the absolute worst.

Chris said:

"Irish" Pubs is just branding, all Pubs are pretty much the same across the British Isles. It's just beef stew, like maybe they put Guinness in it to make it more Irish, everywhere has a slightly different recipie and it all tastes the same.

I feel like Americans specifically seek out local dishes when actual British people hardly ever eat that stuff, we don't really have "English" resturants, you are going to cheap pubs and ordering the microwave food that's designed for drunk people getting ready for a night out, or going to cheap cafes and having sandwiches.

Go to Pubs for drinking and Resturants for eating.

As a tourist choose a cuisine, like Italian or Japanese or whatever, and find a well reviewed place on trip advisor. Locals go to the big chain resturants that sell specific nationality food like Bella Italia, Nandos, Pho or Chiqitos etc

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Yeah, we only did 1 pub during our 11 days and it was enough. The rest we got through recommendations (confirmed with good reviews) and then just looking at places with 4.5+ stars on Google, TA etc. There was one good breakfast place in London with a variety of pancakes etc that I forgot. We ended up doing Pret-a-Manger a lot for breakfast, which was good value and decent food for the most part. Also had a really good Thai place in Edinburgh in addition to the amazing Italian restaurant. Tried Nando's once and one entree was awful and one was good. Overall food was like a 5/10 with only 4-5 places that were really good, not counting Pret.

Chris said:

"Irish" Pubs is just branding, all Pubs are pretty much the same across the British Isles. It's just beef stew, like maybe they put Guinness in it to make it more Irish, everywhere has a slightly different recipie and it all tastes the same.

I feel like Americans specifically seek out local dishes when actual British people hardly ever eat that stuff, we don't really have "English" resturants, you are going to cheap pubs and ordering the microwave food that's designed for drunk people getting ready for a night out, or going to cheap cafes and having sandwiches.

Go to Pubs for drinking and Resturants for eating.

As a tourist choose a cuisine, like Italian or Japanese or whatever, and find a well reviewed place on trip advisor. Locals go to the big chain resturants that sell specific nationality food like Bella Italia, Nandos, Pho or Chiqitos etc

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Pubs, in the midwest US at least, are a bit different, in that a decent amount of them try to have good food too. Food draws in business from 5pm to 9pm, then bar business takes over after that. These are the hole-in-the-wall gems.

Strangely enough though, the best Irish Stew I have ever had was in a Naples, Florida restaurant.

Once I moved to Texas, I only eat at Texmex, BBQ, Italian, or steak places (mostly), so dunno how the pub/bar food is here. The college bar hopping scene didn't have food...that I remember. I tried to stick with house parties and not over pay bar prices though.

Afaik, what makes the stew "Irish" is the use of lamb instead of beef; like the difference between Cottage and Shepard's pie.

I enjoy British pubs for the drinking culture. When the weather doesn't suck everyone just stands on the street and socializes. Something about a big ass pint of cask ale from some dark and grimy place is appealing to me. But yeah, don't eat at them.

Chris said:

Most do that here, there's just no way to tell how much they are trying with the food and you WILL be getting chips.

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When it comes to "home cooked meals," but leaning more to the special occasions side, what are some good dishes that you/your family members (Gran/Mother/Wife) cook for family gatherings in the isles, that you like/look forward to?

I'd imagine the big one is a Sunday roast. Slices of Chicken/Lamb/Beef/Pork with Yorkshire puddings, Sage and Onion stuffing, carrots, greens (broad beans/peas/broccoli/cabbage), fluffy roast potatoes, mash potatoes, cauliflower cheese and lots of gravy made from a stock and drippings.

Chris said:

Sunday Roast. Basically thanksgiving dinner but every week?

Chicken/Steak Pie with Mashed Potatoes and Green Vegatables.

Seems like everyone can cook Italian food in England to the point that I never go to Italian Resturants and don't look forward to it because it's so basic to me. Even I can make a Bolognaise Sauce.

Like most people I prefer anglicised Indian Curries.

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Ah, those are popular options here as well, outside of the curries. Indian food is becoming more popular though. I would guess Americanized Mexican (tacos/burritos) holds the same spot that UK curries do.

I also love a good Chuck/shoulder roasts with vegetables (taters, carrots, & onions) and it's a popular meal, at least among the families I know (maybe not every week, but fairly often).

Chicken/beef pies are generally listed as "pot pies" here, although I think many Americans cheap out and buy the frozen ones instead of making their own. Every store I have ever been in carries a wide selection of the frozen ones.

Hutchy said:

I'd imagine the big one is a Sunday roast. Slices of Chicken/Lamb/Beef/Pork with Yorkshire puddings, Sage and Onion stuffing, carrots, greens (broad beans/peas/broccoli/cabbage), fluffy roast potatoes, mash potatoes, cauliflower cheese and lots of gravy made from a stock and drippings.

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Fluffy potatoes look amazing and one of these days I am going to try Yorkshire pudding. It is one thing you hear about from the UK but have only seen offered in maybe two restaurants (and thought it was really a pudding, like butterscotch, or some such, at the time).

Chris said:

Yorkshire Puddings are specifically a Sunday Roast side only. They are just flour/eggs/milk in a cupcake baking tray, it's baked batter you can make yourself. You need to fill them up with chicken/beef gravy otherwise it's just dry and not amazing, not sure if american gravy is different though.

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Gravy looks the same, if you want to go through the bother of making it. Since it's just adding a bunch of calories to the pot roast, we usually skip it and use the juice more like Au Jus for the potatoes when mashed into the plate with the fork. That's only our family though, as I am sure there are plenty of people that make up the gravy every time.

The recipe for Yorkshire on Serious Eats looks pretty large to fill full of gravy too, like the bread-to-gravy ratio would be off. Although I'm not sure it would be much different than the gravy-to-bread ratio of Biscuits and (white) Gravy (something equivalent to US biscuits don't seem to exist in the UK (scones, but not really. Yorkshire Pudding also looks like the savory form of Dutch Baby (German) Pancakes, which I make every so often and are super easy.