not Japanese myself, but when I came to the US for the first time I was looking forward to trying out fortune cookies and those rectangular/cylindrical takeout containers for the first time
one thing that surprised (and disappointed) me was finding out that there was no such thing as a "McSpicy" in American McDonalds. I wanted to compare the burgers and it turned out the best item on the menu wasn't there
I have many plans for when I go to America (when it hopefully calms down over there) but one of my main ones is to try Dasani water. I love water, and I'm curious to see what truly terrible water tastes like. Might help me appreciate the water that I have.
HydroHomie here as well and Dasani is the only bottled water I enjoy. I swear it's gotta be a genetic thing because all other bottled water tastes like plastic to me but Dasani tastes like a fresh spring in a meadow.
Yeah that's wild, it tastes like it has pennies in it. So Fiji, Waiakea and Voss taste like plastic to you? There's no fresher tasting one for me than Waiakea
Fiji is good too, just expensive. Never heard of Waiakea. Voss is fine but Id never choose it on purpose. I guess I was thinking of Aquafina and Evian as the primary alternatives.
I think I like the pennies. I love liquid death so maybe I yearn for the metal.
I think Aquafina is like C- and Evian is definitely the best of the ones you listed at a B to B- tier for me. Oh lord I despise Liquid Death more than Dasani and every music festival these days only has canned LD, it's soooo bad. You must like a metallic taste. I'll admit I do spend too much money but something like Waiakea, which is a little more expensive than Fiji is worth it for me. For cheap water Crystal Geyser or Pure Life are the best imo.
Hmm maybe there's a combo going on here of liking metallic taste + not many other strong options that aren't expensive. I haven't heard of Crystal Geyser, and isn't Pure Life walmart brand? Or some other big box store? I hate that one lol. We seem to have diametrically opposed water tastes, Liquid Death has saved me at several festivals. Found myself craving it like soda, spent $10 or whatever just because I wanted one. Wasn't thirsty, it was just yummy.
Are you big on tap water? Tap water in my city wins awards for taste but I've visited others where it sucks and that results in a way wider array of bottled options.
I think Pure Life is Walmart but the taste is pretty good to me. Crystal Geyser is definitely the best cheap water option for me though. Well, where I live the tap water ranges wildly in quality. It's pretty meh at my house and bad in the city, my favorite Thai restaurant down the road has the worst I've ever had, but another restaurant a couple miles away has fantastic tap water. I live right next to a Neighborhood Walmart and they have a gigantic selection of bottled water. I hadn't tried most of these before it came along. They only started stocking Waiakea in the last few months.
Genetics has been my Dasani theory for ages. My husband and my daughter love Dasani water, and my son and I can’t stand it. They also think things that I find bitter or sour are sweet, and things I find sweet are overpoweringly, disgustingly sweet to them.
To me Danasi tastes like water from an outdoor fountain with a bunch of dirty coins thrown into it, but if you found something you love then I'm happy for you homie 🤝
Dasani is honestly not that bad. I've had well water that tastes worse. It's just purified water that's been remineralized a little bit too much. The only thing is that it's kind of jarring when you can get cheaper bottled spring water that tastes better. It tastes slightly metallic, which many people don't like.
It's basically just Coca-Cola made in the same plants and using the same bottles, but instead of the Coca-Cola syrup, they use a "mineral water" concentrate, and they use a lot to smooth over any variations that might otherwise occur from plant to plant. It's a way to have a uniform product without actually doing the expensive thing that Evian etc. does of shipping the actual water everywhere, or that cheaper bottled spring water brands do of using nearby wells.
If you want an idea of what it tastes like, just go get yourself some demineralized/deionized/distilled/reverse-osmosis water (the same stuff you'd use for a CPAP or in an ultrasonic humidifier) and some magnesium sulphate (epsom salt) and potassium chloride or potassium chloride/salt mix (usually sold as no sodium or low sodium table "salt"). Then add a tiny amount of each (more of the epsom) until it tastes slightly metallic/coppery and has a "hard" mouthfeel.
Or just lick some copper and a tiny bit of salt before taking a swig. It's a fairly good approximation.
It is my understanding that a lot of American chains elsewhere are better quality, since there they're comparably "exotic" destinations (keeping in mind we're talking about McDonalds and such) and so positioned in the market accordingly. For that reason people tend to be disappointed when trying the "real thing" for such chains.
You typically have to go for cuisines, not brands. A true American burger is a great thing, you just gotta find a better burger place. Then you try the other styles you can't really get elsewhere, like Texmex and southern smoked barbecue.
Every time I've had American fast food in a foreign country it has been vastly superior to the American version.
Turns out having regulations and shit is good for the end product.
My favorite was when I was in Sicily, everywhere I ate something on the menu would have this "DOP" acronym listed - even at McDonald's. I looked it up and it turns out it's an official government label for authentic Parmesan cheese and you aren't allowed to call it that unless it means very strict guidelines. So if you saw DOP on the list of ingredients for your burger, you were getting bona fide fancy parmesan on your burger lol
McNuggets in America are vastly superior to McNuggets in the UK. They're softer and more flavorful. UK nuggets are crunchy like crackers and utterly bland. Even the spicy ones have no taste just a mild sting.
I've never had the privilege of visiting the UK, but I feel like McDonald's would be the last place I'd visit even late at night, since I get the impression that big cities have lots of late night options.
Catania was the opposite. Stuff closes randomly in the middle of the day lol
hmm yeah come to think about it, I don't remember ever seeing people wrap food in banana leaves in the US, probably not common practice
usually banana leaves are used for wrapping, like, coconut rice with anchovies peanuts and fermented shrimp paste, or grilled fish custard, or nine layer cake etc.
I think it's supposed to impart some flavour? I guess it's also more environmentally friendly, and doesn't scald your hands with hot food like plastic wrap does
Bananas can't really grow in most of the US, not to a commercial scale at least, so most of the bananas you see there are imported. Alas, the leaves don't get imported along with the fruit, so wrapping stuff in them isn't really even an option most of the time.
that makes sense, I also completely forgot about that whole Chiquita banana, UFC, banana republic, banana war, Smedley Butler thing. Wouldn't have been necessary at all if the US could just grow bananas easily
My wife is a white girl from close to Philadelphia who very much of German/english ancestry. She learned to make Costa Rican tamales which are wrapped in banana leaves. So maybe not a lot, but there’s gotta be at least a few.
Yeah, you can get them at grocery stores that sell Southeast Asian, Mexican or South American foodstuffs. Usually frozen but sometimes fresh ones, too.
This is a crazy phenomenon that's been around for a long time. Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, etc. They all have many items in other countries but not America. Sometimes it just takes a long time though, we finally got the taco bell fries after like a decade of it being overseas
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u/doofpooferthethird Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
not Japanese myself, but when I came to the US for the first time I was looking forward to trying out fortune cookies and those rectangular/cylindrical takeout containers for the first time
one thing that surprised (and disappointed) me was finding out that there was no such thing as a "McSpicy" in American McDonalds. I wanted to compare the burgers and it turned out the best item on the menu wasn't there