Where: restaurants.

Moving to foreign countries is hard in so many ways. One of the hardest parts is food. In America, if you go to a restaurant or bar, take a few minutes to look around to see what people are eating. I mean really closely and carefully. Chances are you will see potatoes, cheeses or eggs from almost any table. Or maybe you will see one of them from any person’s menu. So, today, I would like to share some of the scenarios with you so that you can have some ideas what you will go thourgh if you have to order any food in America.

1. Let’s say you order from a brunch place : Many of the menus would have eggs. The followings are the different types of eggs you can order. (scrambled, over-easy, over-hard, sunny-side up) My favourate is sunny-side up. What is yours?

2. Let’s say you order a burger from a bar : They might ask you whether if you like cheese or not. If your answer is yes, then “What kind of cheese do you want?” is the next question you would get. These are the most common cheeses you will see in American bars or restaurants. (American, Swiss, Cheddar and Provolone) Sometimes, I ask the server “What do you have?” to make sure I order one they have at the moment. My favourate is Provolone. What is yours? Oh, they also ask about your meat like “How would you like your berger?” Then it is actually the same thing when you order steaks. (Well done, medium well done, medium, medium rare or rare)

3. And, if you order any main menu in restaurants, there is usually a side. And it is mostly potato. Of course, they will ask you! Now, you should get the pattern! They will ask you like, “What kind of potato would you like?” There are french fries, home style fries, mashed potato or baked potato with sour cream. (Am I missing something?) 

If you order french fries separately as like an appetizer, they might also ask you, “Do you want cheese with it?” Then, if you say “Yes I do”, sometimes, they also ask you, “Do you want it to be on top of the fries or separate?” What? Still did not get it? They will ask you forever!

There is also sweet potato fries!! Yummy!

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen in America if there is no cheese and potato. It will be a chaos.

Oh…. I almost forgot. These days hot (spicy) food is getting famous in the U.S. So, if you go to any of Asian restaurants, they will ask you the spicy level. The question is “How spicy do you want?” It is a scale of 1 to 10. (1 is the mildest and 10 is the hottest!)

I thought about the reason of this continuous questions and selection process for ordering food. I think it is because of the culture and history of the U.S. America is the country of freedom. People love to choose and would like to have the freedom of selection. Let’s suppose that if you go to a restaurant and every menu has fixed ingredients. Thus, if get to pick only a food from the menu! I am pretty sure that restaurant will fail in America. Well, but this is only my opinion. I am curious about your thoughts on this.