Quote:
Originally Posted by Illithid Dude
Los Angeles has a couple for sure.
We got Kogi Korean Tacos
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One of the reasons why LA is my second favourite American city (after NY) - and maybe the most exciting city in the US to eat in - is that chefs from all over are not afraid to experiment with non-European cuisines and call it their own. I find that Angelenos are less afraid of being labeled as "cultural appropriators" than people in other cities.
Toronto, where I live, is very ethnically diverse (this has been beaten into the ground on this forum, and I don't think it needs repeating). But Torontonians, and Canadians, in general, are too enamoured with cultural "authenticity". A Chinese dish cooked with local ingredients is still "a Chinese dish". The price they have paid is that they cannot advance any semblance of local culture because the development of a culture is, by its nature, a syncretic coming together of other, existing cultures. Sometimes it has to be "appropriated". The next generation won't care - they'll actually have something that's their own to celebrate.
Luckily, in the past 5 years, this ice has been starting to crack and Toronto is probably the most exciting it has ever been because of it. But it'll be a while before we have a cookbook as spectacular as, say, New Orleans, despite the fact that over half of our population came from somewhere else.