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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

I'm not so sure that's the answer. I imagine I could start myself at a random block in Manhattan and I'd possibly need to go at least some moderate distance to find a Japanese restaurant. And I'm sure that would be the case even in relatively large dense heartland cities.

How far are you going to have to go in Tokyo if you're craving Mexican? And is there even a decent Mexican restaurant in Tokyo? (I'm guessing the answer might be yes but not many.)

On the other hand, I understand KFC is very popular in Japan which happens to be one of my favorite US fast foods if I really need to choose.

Some types of fast food appeal to me more than others. I'm actually not much of a cold bento box fan in general; I usually end up picking at them at conferences. But I like a lot of Japanese food generally.

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There is a lot of foreign food in Tokyo, and it tends to be very good. Italian food that's as good as anything I've had in New York, croissants as good as anything I've had in Paris, etc. I've never looked for Mexican specifically, but I had great Latin food at a completely random place I happened to duck into.

I don't think it's just a matter of density. Folks in Tokyo, like folks in New York but perhaps even more so, are willing to try a variety of foods and care about doing them authentically.

The problem with Manhattan in particular is that by and large the Japanese-American population is not on the east coast.

To have decent restaurants from a certain ethnicity, you do need some significant population of that ethnicity, and at least some of those people who are lower or lower-middle-class. Having moved to Seattle from New York, the Chinese food here is much worse; Seattle has a large population of Chinese people, but the vast majority of those are college-educated and working at tech companies, and are not a likely demographic for opening or running restaurants.

Except Thai food! The Thai government has a strong program of funding American fast-food startups by Thai citizens

Tokyo is a bit mixed with exotic foods: Thai, Chinese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, US American yay; pretty much anything else meh.

Edit: Oh and I forgot Korean, but only because it’s so ingrained I wouldn’t consider it exotic, so Chinese was maybe a bit odd on that list because the same holds.

How big of an umbrella is "Chinese food" in Japan? In China, you'd identify a restaurant by the province that its food is characteristic of -- Xinjiang food, Hunan food, Hong Kong food, etc. Those are all very different from each other. (There are more generic options too, of course.)

I really like some Xinjiang and Hunan dishes, but they're next to impossible to find in the US despite "Chinese" food ostensibly being common.

Not as granular for sure, but there‘s a somewhat nice selection of dumpling places, diners, Chinese style Ramen, Szechuan food either in authentic form (rare) or in Japan-adapted (mostly Mapo-Dofu, Chili Shrimp). Then you get the expensive „imperial“ Chinese places and Fire-Pots. Never been to China but I can’t imagine a better selection outside of its home.

Been to many restaurants in China over the years, I really find it hit or miss there honestly. The best Chinese food I've ever had has always been in the states, Hong Kong, and taiwan. Partially because the latter 2 have a larger and longer standing foreign influence, meaning you have a unique spin off of Chinese food.

>How far are you going to have to go in Tokyo if you're craving Mexican? And is there even a decent Mexican restaurant in Tokyo? (I'm guessing the answer might be yes but not many.)

You'd be surprised.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurants-g298184-c29-Tokyo_To...

Not that surprising although I'd reserve the "decent" adjective until I tried them given that I find few enough on the US East Coast better than passable.

Lots of them are good restaurants. Not exactly authentic but personally I prefer non-authentic Mexican food.

Tokyo has insane amount of good restaurants.

I've been to chiles, not surprised to see that on the top of the list.

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