Is it fair to say that big foodie cities like NYC/LA/SF also happen to differ radically from the rest of the nation in their attitude and expectations of food quality?
Foodie cities have amazing options, but they're different from the ubiquitous excellent food the French have.
Foodie cities have great farmers markets, but in much of France that's just ordinary in any town. Foodie cities have a wider diversity of ethnic restaurants than French towns, but in the towns every restaurant is always solidly great. There's just no room for Olive Garden.
I don't mean to get all utopian. I've had some so so food in France. But you can get great wines in every convenience store, for shockingly little money. The French really do care about food way more than Americans do. Those Americans who try are seen as being kind of weird.
This is just so untrue. There's tons of fast food restaurants all across Europe. There's a McDonalds in most historic city centers in Europe, and often a Burger King and a KFC as well. You picked Olive Garden as an example, and it's correct that they don't have any franchise locations in Europe, but there's plenty of American fast food (and fast casual to some extent) in Europe from other brands.
They just have mostly the bottom of the barrel stuff, the stuff you find everywhere (Mcdonalds, KFC etc.). France even lost BK from 97 to 2012. I recall seeing only like 1 BK location in all of Paris back in 2015.
The US section is significantly larger than any other country. Having lived in Paris, the French are missing out on a ton of amazing fast food options.
I picked Olive Garden because I know that they have fast food, and it's pretty popular.
What they don't have is that sit down casual niche, of deeply mediocre and inexpensive food. It's filled with trattorias and bistros, which make the food in house. It's slower and pricier and smaller portions, but the food is made with more care and they feel that deeply.
" In a recent survey of French restaurants, more than a third fessed up that they serve industrially prepared, and often frozen, food. Fast-food outlets, mind you, weren't even included in that poll, which was conducted by Synhorcat, a French restaurant trade group. "
A friend from rural France visited me in Seattle a few years ago, and we went to a farmers’ market. I explained that the market was only open on weekends. He seemed genuinely confused and asked “where do people get their food the rest of the week?”
But Olive Garden has all you can eat pasta....I like all you can eat even though I probably don't eat enough to get my moneys worth, its the thought that counts. :/
One thing I hate about Paris is that everything is closed up pretty early. I'm forced to buy stuff from those convenience stores run by middle eastern folks.
I lived in Phoenix for 18 years and New York for nearly 8 now, and I really don’t think it’s radical. You can find decent food from most world cuisines in Phoenix. In New York you can find 100 examples of each of them, as well as some less common ones. But it’s not fundamentally different.
