Nathan

yeah but isn't that mostly japanese food cooked for non-japanese people mostly by non-japanese people? 

 

Not sure that's the same thing.  Its like why Italian food in some heavily German part of the midwest is doomed to suck as well. And suck in a different way than how some people here define "red sauce" sucking.

of course.  and much of it isn't Japanese in the first place.  (see the flaming hibachi show places first invented in Minneapolis (or something like that))

To clarify, that was meant as a response to Sneakeater - I think that price/class better captures the "ethnic" v. "foreign" divide, e.g. with sushi/kaiseki/whatever that were not initially imported for mainstream restaurants. (Sorry, replying on the mobile UI doesn't really work.)

I guess the point of how much that applies to It-Am is questionable.

Taion has a point in that Italian/Irish/Chinese/Eastern European Jews initially came here as poor people (although they obviously didn't stay that way). Of course, they faced prejudice beyond merely their food.

It would be tough to figure out how to apportion this between poverty and being outside the North/Western European "mainstream". (Although it has to be noted that, except for that unfortunate episode in the '40s, the Japanese haven't been afflicted with this to the same extent. Which indicates that maybe it is initial group poverty. OTOH, there was never a mass Japanese immigration here like Italian/Irish/Chinese/Eastern European Jews.)

I agree with the general thrust of this but I'll note that "Japanese" food isn't the outlier you think it is.  (with a couple of recent city sophisticate exceptions) Japanese food is only expensive in NYC and California.  That's because "real" Japanese food is only available in those places.  99.9% of all "Japanese" restaurants in the U.S. are cheap and feature Chinese, Korean(!), Vietnamese or Mexican staffs. 

a friend of mine (with a quality palate) just ate there.  Said the antipasti were very good...and then the meal went meh.  ok pastas, chalky veal and lots of upselling.  and she hated the meatballs.

I didn't know I wasn't paying until about a third of the way into the meal.

so what did you have?

I think there is a tradition of refined Mex that isn't frenchified? No?

 

If Mex was "eurofied" it was Eurofied 400 years ago.

the first moles in Mexico were Spanish in origin.  It's always been a European cuisine (with ingredients subbed in).