In many ways, Cluj is not unique. In some ways, however, it is.
Here you can get all kinds of food from all over the world. I haven’t tried the Cluj hotdogs (why would you, when you can get “mici?”) Well, I tried a korean-style cheesy corn-dog here, and that was delicious. Probably not very nutricious, I mean, cheese has nutrients, but it’s high in fat, but it tasted good.
You can get hotdogs in Cluj, however. But many of the foods that chains were famous for across the ocean are not here in the European edition.
Take Taco Bell, for instance. Game addicts in America know what I’m talking about when I say a side of mexican rice or a side of refried beans. Put those together in Colorado or Arizona, and you have a meal. Not as good as authentic Mexican food south of the border, but a nice “Tex-Mex” alternative that might be a shorter journey if you don’t live by the border.
But what about Taco Bell in Europe? It’s not the same. The portion sizes of most dishes are smaller, yes, but many dishes aren’t even here.
And I was so excited to see a Popeye’s chicken in Cluj. But guess what. My favorite thing about it was never the chicken. It was the “biscuits.” American buscuits, not the forsecuri cookies that Brits call biscuits. Smothered in gravy, or simply with a slice of melted butter, they are not exactly healthy. But they do taste wonderful. And, they are not on the menu.
There were other things on the menu. The cole slaw was there. But not the corn, not the biscuits, not the things I used to get excited about. Even the kinds of chicken I used to eat, I didn’t see that. I can’t tell you if what they have tastes good or not because there was nothing on the menu I wanted. (I was curious about the coleslaw, but one doesn’t eat coleslaw on its own.)
It’s not just American food that disappoints. Take a few foreign language classes, and you’ll hear teacher say how they learned to cook when they moved here.
But some things are done right. I have had good falafel here. Of course, I’m I never lived in Greece or Turkey, so perhaps my standards for falafel aren’t as high, but I think the falafel wasn’t awful.
I like most of the Asian food I tried here. Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai… again, I cannot compare it to the original. I occasionally read Manga, and I used to have a roommate from Vietnam, but if I was parachuted in a random Asian country, blindfolded and made to try the food, I probably wouldn’t know where I was. (Although I would hope that it was Vietnam. My old roommate had a great sense of humor, maybe he has funny relatives.)
Burger King here seems most similar to the other side of the ocean. I mean, burgers are burgers, right? Well, not exactly. But it does taste the most similar.
The pizza here seems American style (it’s more American than Italian) but something is missing. It’s not like those little pizzarea branches that put on too much cheese. And guess what? People here put ketchup on pizza! That’s like, also a parody of Americans.
You can get the hard Italian cheeses at the supermarkets in Cluj, and there are most of the ingredients for making your own pizza. For the Dominoes pizza kind of crowd, it’s fine. But for those of us who call ourselves foodies, there are no pizza places in Cluj. There are pizza delivery places that are convenient for parties, and match your soda and potato chips, but no real dine-in pizza restaurants.
That said, if you like delivery pizza, they do it well. I just prefer sit-down pizza.
You’ll find more burger joints here than in most American cities. Burger this, burger that. There’s even a place called Klaussenburger, for the German language for a resident of Cluj. And there are delivery-only vegetarian burger places. It was actually pretty good. Tasting, we didn’t test the nutrician. And the fries there were also pretty cool.
I strongly recommend trying the Romanian style food while here. Authentic Romanian food is delicious. Not the sarmale, but the papanasi, the salads, the soups, the mici, the sides and main dishes that don’t have english equivalents. The streetfood is translated but not correctly. Is a covrig a pretzel or a bagel? It could be either, both, or neither. And Clujeans know how to cook mushrooms.
So, don’t be too disappointed that Popeye’s doesn’t have the traditional southern-style biscuits. There are plenty of other things to eat.
Now, the next task is to find a good job, so we can save up enough for a plane ticket to Mexico, and then perhaps cross the border and see if America’s Popeye’s still have those biscuits. If they don’t, I’m sure someone does.