Favorite"ethnic" food.

[Couchtr26]

I have a special place in my heart for Japanese cuisine, especially fresh sushi.

I will agree with that, I remember thinking it odd but fondly enjoyed it when there was a few Japanese restaurants that moved in near where I live.  However, Chinese tends to be my favorite.  Especially Bao. 

[Mofo Rising]

I live in Phoenix, which is large enough to have pretty much every cuisine you care to find. I'd also say that Mexican food has pretty much graduated from ethnic food to regular food for me.

If I had to pick an "ethnic" favorite, I'd probably go with Indian food, which has a unique style that is its own. Plus I love spicy food. Indian and Thai seem to be the only styles that seem to really go for it, though I really have to sweet-talk the waiters into letting the kitchen make it as hot as I want it.

indianasmith, maybe you haven't been exposed to good curry. I've had some amazing coconut curries from a local Thai restaurant.

[AndyC]

Probably eat more Italian than any other ethnic food. It's just so easy to boil up some pasta, make a tomato sauce, chop some onions, garlic, peppers, mushrooms, grate some cheese, brown some meat, etc. Doesn't have to be a complicated meal, but it's healthy and tastes great. Spaghetti, pizza, lasagna, chicken parmigiana. You can build so much on the same basic foundation of ingredients.

Also like Chinese, although mostly the Canadian version of it.

Cabbage rolls and pierogi are great. Growing up in an area that was primarily German and Mennonite, I got quite a taste for things like sausage, schnitzel, sauerkraut, summer sausage, etc.

I do like Indian food, and make a pretty good curry. Nothing like a nice curry with basmati rice, tandoori chicken, samosas, some potato and cauliflower, and flatbread.

When we lived in the city, there was an Egyptian restaurant we used to eat at maybe twice a month. Great buffet. Hummus, falafel, stuffed olives, feta cheese, salad, baclava. The great thing about Egyptian food is that it sort of combines Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking. Also love doner kebab. There was a diner in my hometown, owned by a Turk from Cyprus. He had a kebab machine shipped over from Turkey, prepared the meat from scratch, and used to give huge portions of it. You could get a great big pita, bursting with meat, tomato, lettuce, sauce. Took two hands and a lot of care to eat.

[The Burgomaster]

My dad's side of the family is Italian, so I grew up on ITALIAN FOOD and I still love it.  My wife is Brazilian and I'm a big fan of their barbecued meats seasoned with sea salt and garlic, with white rice and beans on the side.  So, BRAZILIAN FOOD is #2.  I'd say #3 is probably CHINESE FOOD (or what we refer to as Chinese food here in the U.S. - - much of it is really Polynesian food).  But I'll eat anything.  I enjoy GREEK, JAPANESE, GERMAN . . . you name it, I'll eat it.

[AndyC]

I completely forgot cuisine from the UK.

Love haggis, neeps and tatties, although I pretty much have to make it myself if I want it. And since I'd probably only be making it for myself, I don't do it often. Every fall I think about organizing a Robert Burns dinner in January, primarily as an excuse to eat haggis with people who don't make faces at it. Haven't done it yet, but maybe next January.

Also like steak and mushroom pies, steak and kidney pies, hot pots, chip butties, as well as fish and chips with mushy peas and a side of curry sauce. Only had black pudding on one or two occasions, but I liked it too. Like haggis, it's hard to come by around here, and Canadians tend to get squeamish about it.

[Flick James]

I live in Phoenix, which is large enough to have pretty much every cuisine you care to find. I'd also say that Mexican food has pretty much graduated from ethnic food to regular food for me.

If I had to pick an "ethnic" favorite, I'd probably go with Indian food, which has a unique style that is its own. Plus I love spicy food. Indian and Thai seem to be the only styles that seem to really go for it, though I really have to sweet-talk the waiters into letting the kitchen make it as hot as I want it.

indianasmith, maybe you haven't been exposed to good curry. I've had some amazing coconut curries from a local Thai restaurant.

Mofo, I had no idea you were a fellow Phoenix resident. Phoenix has no shortage of good restaurants.

As for me, I love just about every ethnic style, and I'm a pretty decent cook as well. I love asian from sushi to chinese to thai.

I also love mediterranean food of all types, especially Greek. Good greek lamb is amazing, plus I love feta cheese. Then there's gyros. Not the crap you find most places here, but the ones over in Greece, with the roasted lamb shaved right off the vertical rotisserie and put in a really good piece of flatbread with really good tzatziki sauce. When I was in the Navy on a port visit in Crete, I would get off the boat and start my day with a couple of gyros from this little corner spot right off the pier before facing the rest of the liberty day. Amazing.

Oh, and Armenian food is quite good, and one of those you don't see very often. The wife of the guitarist from one of my old bands was Armenian and used to cook for the band all the time and the food was great.

French food. Yes, fufu French food. However, what I'm taking about is more of the rustic country French food you'll find in the South of France. Oh, and Basque, which is similar to country French food but with a Spanish influence. There are central California towns like Bakersfield that have Basque communities and restaurants.

Okay, I could go all day. I'll stop here.

[Leah]

I live near a Chinese restaurant called 5 happiness, a Japanese restaurant called Ninja, a Thai place called Bangkok Thai, a Lebanese place called Lebanese Cafe, a Morocco restaurant called Morocco's, and finally a Vietnamese place called....I don't remember now

there's also a Greek place around here that serves probably the best Gyros I ever have eaten.

[Rev. Powell]

I tend to like it spicy.  My favorite national cuisines are

Thai
Indian
Mexican
Italian
Japanese
Greek

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

All of these sound excellent.  Aside from most organs I'll eat just about anything.  Theres an Eastern European restauant near me thats excellent and serves the best cabbage rolls, never ever have I craved cabbage before. 
-Ed

[Hammock Rider]

As in NOT tuna cassarole,mac and cheese or hot dogs.

Mine is Polish or Russian-both are very alike.
I am Norwegian by heritage-but you won't catch me eating ludafisk. I was raised around Polacks and Russians.

I love-

Glumpkis-aka pigs in a blanket aka stuffed cabbage.
Rice and meat in cabbage with tomato juce and spices-lotsa caraway seeds.


Pierogis-either stuffed with saurkraut  and ground beef(my favorite!) or goat cheese and mashed potatoes!


Blood sausage-sounds gross-dam good! made with rice (or barley) and -well-blood!
(And folks wonder why I'm a Bela fan!)



Also love homemade kielbasa (not the Ecchrich crap).
But-you can keep the pig ear/ saurkraut soup or  pickled pigs feet-yuck!

  I was raised on this stuff too RC and I love it, although I can't eat as much of it as I used to.   If you like blood sausage then give Duck Blood Soup( czarnina ) a try. It's actually pretty terrible. Here's a recipe though if you're curious....http://easteuropeanfood.about.com/od/polishsoups/r/czarnina.htm

[Trevor]

a Japanese restaurant called Ninja

That reminds me of that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode where the turtles go into a pizza place called Ninja Pizza and the manager welcomes them with the words "Welcome to Ninja Pizza: home of the nice slice!" 

[dean]

I am a big foodie, so everything goes.  That being said, I'm dating a half Indian, half American, and I have Lebanese relatives, live with a Malaysian and a Sri-Lankan, so its bound to come up eventually.  That and the city I live in has an incredible selection of food from any nation you wish to choose from.

We have a tendency to go spicy when talking about 'good food nights' and have a favourite place to go to when feeling adventurous, which is Szchecuan Dining [chinese] but so spicy it once gave one of our friends a bloody bowel movement [Its very VERY hot at this particular place]

I have to say though that the one area that is woefully underrepresented in my friendship group is Eastern European food, a fact I really should try and fix sometime soon.

So in sum, anything goes, I love it all. 

A group of friends and I started to organise a dinner night on a regular basis which involved people cooking food from their background [or just stuff they like].  My girlfriend made Rendang [delicious!] other friends made wontons and homemade dumplings [Extra delicious!] and my specialty was fresh baked fish [in this case snapper] with Tahini sauce and Labne dip with pita chips seasoned with lemon pepper.  Man those nights were great for food, as it was all homemade and delicious.  We really need another one...

I highly recommend people cook as much, as often and from as varied a locale as possible because there's some incredible food out there just waiting to be tasted.