Does Japan have the worst food in the developed world?

food eater wrote:

I recently got back from my first visit to Japan (10 days in Tokyo for work followed by a few weeks of visiting old friends and tourism during the holidays) and was pretty amazed by how hard it was to find decent things to eat.

I had always heard about how good and healthy the Japanese diet was, but when following my local hosts or friends around it was rare to come across foods that didn't have pretty overwhelming quantities of salt, fat, or sugar. Even when I sought it out, it was also pretty rare to find anything with much spice (especially heat), and even the well reviewed Korean and Chinese places I tried seemed to have their flavors pretty toned down. Western food was also very bizarre, with staples like cheese and bread somehow being even worse versions of the stuff you typically get at US or UK supermarkets. The curry also seems to have been inspired by the worst versions of the dish you can find in the UK instead of the delicious varieties you find across the rest of east Asia.

My personal evaluation for the foods in the countries I've visited:

A+: USA (almost entirely due to their good access to international cuisines in big cities)

A: Italy, Turkey, Mexico, London (for similar reasons to the US).

A-: Hong Kong, Egypt, Canada (similar to US, but noticeably worse).

B: Germany.

B-: France, Switzerland.

C: Hungary.

C-: Japan.

D: Rural parts of the US and UK.

I also have an extremely high opinion of Indian/Pakastani food, although have never made it out to either region.

face these facts like it or not wrote:

"ethnic" food is subject to these undeniable FACTS:

1. it is never what you eat in a RESTAURANT. That's not the country's real food. It's some professional chef's interpretation of it, usually to impress foreigners. Ever wonder why most restaurants are about foreign food? The con doesn't work on the natives.

2. spices came into use to stop food from spoiling, or to cover the terrible taste of bad food. food that needs spices to be good is inherently bad.

3. the people eat what you find in the grocery store. There you will find the staple and the appropriate accessories.

4. The staple should be both high quality and easily prepared. Japan's staple, rice, is neither, and they can't even maintain their own supply of it, instead importing it. Italy's staple, durum semolina wheat, is processed and dried for long-term storage, very low quality. Russia's staple is lots of meat, dairy and small loaves of very fresh bread.

food eater wrote:

I recently got back from my first visit to Japan (10 days in Tokyo for work followed by a few weeks of visiting old friends and tourism during the holidays) and was pretty amazed by how hard it was to find decent things to eat.

I had always heard about how good and healthy the Japanese diet was, but when following my local hosts or friends around it was rare to come across foods that didn't have pretty overwhelming quantities of salt, fat, or sugar. Even when I sought it out, it was also pretty rare to find anything with much spice (especially heat), and even the well reviewed Korean and Chinese places I tried seemed to have their flavors pretty toned down. Western food was also very bizarre, with staples like cheese and bread somehow being even worse versions of the stuff you typically get at US or UK supermarkets. The curry also seems to have been inspired by the worst versions of the dish you can find in the UK instead of the delicious varieties you find across the rest of east Asia.

My personal evaluation for the foods in the countries I've visited:

A+: USA (almost entirely due to their good access to international cuisines in big cities)

A: Italy, Turkey, Mexico, London (for similar reasons to the US).

A-: Hong Kong, Egypt, Canada (similar to US, but noticeably worse).

B: Germany.

B-: France, Switzerland.

C: Hungary.

C-: Japan.

D: Rural parts of the US and UK.

I also have an extremely high opinion of Indian/Pakastani food, although have never made it out to either region.

food eater wrote:

I recently got back from my first visit to Japan (10 days in Tokyo for work followed by a few weeks of visiting old friends and tourism during the holidays) and was pretty amazed by how hard it was to find decent things to eat.

I had always heard about how good and healthy the Japanese diet was, but when following my local hosts or friends around it was rare to come across foods that didn't have pretty overwhelming quantities of salt, fat, or sugar. Even when I sought it out, it was also pretty rare to find anything with much spice (especially heat), and even the well reviewed Korean and Chinese places I tried seemed to have their flavors pretty toned down. Western food was also very bizarre, with staples like cheese and bread somehow being even worse versions of the stuff you typically get at US or UK supermarkets. The curry also seems to have been inspired by the worst versions of the dish you can find in the UK instead of the delicious varieties you find across the rest of east Asia.

My personal evaluation for the foods in the countries I've visited:

A+: USA (almost entirely due to their good access to international cuisines in big cities)

A: Italy, Turkey, Mexico, London (for similar reasons to the US).

A-: Hong Kong, Egypt, Canada (similar to US, but noticeably worse).

B: Germany.

B-: France, Switzerland.

C: Hungary.

C-: Japan.

D: Rural parts of the US and UK.

I also have an extremely high opinion of Indian/Pakastani food, although have never made it out to either region.