Cuisines from around the world!

[barnhart]

It's good chicken, but I still prefer Popeyes.

[Joy]

For authentic ethnic cuisine, your state may have an annual international festival featuring many countries and their foods. I love to visit and chat with folks from different countries and try the ethnic dishes that I'm not familiar with.

One dish I especially like after having it in Indiana, is an Ethiopian large, round bread with dollops of different legumes. Curry is another favorite, and now I make it the Indian way myself. South African braai (similar to our barbecue, is very flavorful.

[Ken]

I often wondered... what do people from outside the United States crave when they visit/move here?

Please don't tell me Shady Maple. Or McDonalds.

Guatemalans crave Pollo Campero which was a very popular spicy fried chicken chain in Guatemala when I was working there in the 1980s. People were so obsessed with it that they would bring big boxes of it home on the airlines on flights back to Miami and Los Angeles from Guatemala City. Eventually the Guatemalan expat community in the US grew so large that they eventually decided to open one north in Los Angeles. A decade later they are having such success that their are plans for 300+ new restaurants across the US: https://us.campero.com/our-story



It's not really that different from Chic fil-A or Popeyes and is a new entry into the chicken sandwich conversation. Except that the chicken has more of a Latino spice mix rather than Cajun and you can get Central American sides like rice and beans, fried plantains, fried yucca and flan for desert.

So worth a try if there is one in your area and you are into fried chicken or chicken sandwiches.

Whenever I've had to do layovers in San Salvador or Guatemala City on my way to the States, I've always noticed the large bags of Pollo Campero as people's carry-ons

Yep, they were getting so many complaints of stinking up aircraft with the smell of spicy fried chicken that they actually developed a plastic-sealed carry-on pack for customers taking their chicken back to the states that wouldn't leak the odors. Now with Pollo Campero spreading out across the US in all the areas where lots of Central American immigrants live that isn't so important anymore. There are probably a dozen outlets in LA alone and more on the way.

[Josh]

When acutally in Guatemala, you can go enjoy authentic Guatemalan-Mexican food here:

[Ken]

Actually the McDonalds in Guatemala are vastly better than any McDonalds you find in the US