30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community

Oh, food is an amazing thing. Yes, of course it's one of the basic necessities of life. Food contains nutrients - substances essential for us. But it can also be a very effective medicine to cure sadness!

There are people who are really obsessed with food, and I mean in a good way. They love cooking, trying new recipes, experimenting, analyzing nutrition values and so on, but there are also folks who don’t really care. However, all of us have some cuisines, types of food or specific meals that we enjoy the most and could eat every day without stopping. But there are also things that we can’t understand why others enjoy as much as they do as it’s not even tasty to us!

Somebody asked in one of the Reddit communities to share cuisines that they believe are overrated. Here, you can find 30 answers that are not all necessarily “standard” cuisines but people don’t find them impressive.

More info: Reddit

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Fancy cupcakes. Every ‘designer’ cupcake I’ve had has been incredibly dry. I just don’t get why they charge $5-$10 per serving, but the quality of the cake is below a Walmart sheet cake.

ThoseArentCarrots , Silvia Trigo Report

Final score:

164points

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Sonja 1 year ago

That's true and as a baker I can tell you why. You can't get that impeccable, perfect and artistic look with grannies recipes. They aren't stable enough. A tasty, moist cake would crumble and break if you tried to make it look like Harry Potter's right sock standing up or a unicorn's booty. You can't whip a standard buttercream frosting into the shape of Yoda's toothbrush. You need recipes that are more stable and more malleable to create something that looks like that. That's going to take away from the taste. Those cakes and frostings are mostly sugar. They bake dry and crumbly because that's more stable if you stack it and the frosting is usually just butter or cream cheese with tons of sugar. If you're lucky some freeze dried, powdered strawberries. Because adding strawberry puree means you'll get somewhat softer cream that you can't dress on looking like roses. It won't give you those sharp edges you need to form the petals.

143points

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Not really a cuisine per se, but ‘shock food’

You know those giant milkshakes with whole slices of cake and candy on top, or quadruple cheeseburgers with so much cheese it’s running everywhere. It’s just not practical/tasty and really only exists to get a cool picture

viillanelles , Anna Tukhfatullina Food Photographer/Stylist Report

Final score:

143points

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LizzieBoredom 1 year ago

McDiabetes.

35points

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community The damn banana-flavoured food and cherry-flavoured food.

Banana is delicious but banana-flavoured stuff tastes so fake and weird.

Cherry-flavoured food just tastes like chemicals and cough drops.

Zealousideal-View142 , Mike Mozart Report

Final score:

139points

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User# 6 1 year ago

The reason banana flavouring tastes so wierd is because you're used to the Cavendish banana and the flavouring is based on the (now nearly extinct) Gros Michel banana.Or so I'm told. Sadly, I've never had a Gros Michel banana.

58points

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Gold-flaked cuisine

bushbeanbuddy , Tara Winstead Report

Final score:

132points

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Sami-Jo Ross 1 year ago

Literally just there for people to waste money. "I'm so much richer than you peasants, my food is coated in pure gold!"

38points

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Salt bae….

I-am-kevin-irving-35 Report

Final score:

127points

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LH25 1 year ago

I agree. I don't need my seasoning to include bouncing off someone's forearm.

41points

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Deconstructed anything.

glennok added:

I once ordered deconstructed salmon cream cheese bagel from a diner, it was 5 dollars more. Was literally just all the ingredients for the regular bagel spread out on a plate. Never again.

wilsonbl5150 , alleksana Report

Final score:

113points

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R Dennis 1 year ago

I order deconstructed food all the time... at the grocery store...

8points

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Steak. I call it the steak cult. For the life of me, I cannot understand it.

Don't get me wrong - I like a good steak. I eat it relatively often. It is sometimes exactly what I'm craving. And there's absolutely a difference between a good steak and a bad steak.

But the steak cult is way beyond that - people fetishize it as the 'best' meal you could ever have. On a menu, they'll be willing to pay double or triple the price for any other main dish, just because it's steak. They fall for every silly, cheap marketing trick in the book (Oh this one isn't just Angus, it's BLACK Angus beef - that'll be 30% more expensive; this one here is 5 million hour aged Wagyu beef and the cow was slightly cross-eyed - I'm afraid you'll have to remortgage your house to afford this prime slice of meat).

It's dumb. On an objective level, the complexity that goes into cooking a steak is far less than a really good risotto. The flavours are less complex, and you can simply do less; it's less innovative, and less overall impressive.

It's also completely decoupled from supply and demand - a saffron risotto should cost significantly more than just about any steak - saffron is actually rare, whereas cows are everywhere, and there's no shortage of even the 'prime' beef cows.

Plus then all of the fetishization around how you 'insult the chef and the meat' if you order it any other way than medium-rare....

Agh the whole thing is just infuriating. It's so wrapped up in last-century ideas of meat being rare and precious, and the more meat you ate the richer you were.

But I just want to shake people and say - do you really think that the $130 steak you just bought is four times better than any pasta dish or coq-au-vin or sushi or paella or pizza you've ever had? Seriously?

Ad_Captandum_Vulgus , Kasumi Loffler Report

Final score:

113points

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ShaZam Beaubien 1 year ago

sorry, I lost focus. For some reason, I am still picturing cross-eyed cows bumping into each other and I'm giggling 🙄

116points

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Expensive Italian, a 30 dollar pasta is straight robbery

Opening_Fly135 , Klaus Nielsen Report

Final score:

109points

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Mila Preradović 1 year ago

Been to Italy recently, had the best spaghetti with clams in my entire life. 17€. Borderline expensive but worth it.

18points

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community The most expensive dishes. “Yeah, man these diamonds sautéed in truffle oil and emerald dust are good, but do you have a cheeseburger?”

gmen_forever , Antony Trivet Report

Final score:

103points

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Mad Dragon 1 year ago

Cheeseburger FTW!

15points

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#10

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Any of the artsy-fartsy stuff where they care more about appearance than taste

MpVpRb , Mariam Antadze Report

Final score:

101points

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Betsy Ray 1 year ago

You eat with your eyes, too. This is pretty. Nice after a meal.

2points

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#11

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Any foam or mousse from a Michelin star restaurant.

Pigeon foam. Wtf did I just pay $200 to eat?

sofarleftigotmyguns , Ville Oksanen Report

Final score:

85points

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LizzieBoredom 1 year ago

Pigeon Foam. A little known city in Tennessee.

36points

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#12

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community “Something for everyone” restaurants. Anywhere where the menu has a ridiculously extensive offering. If I’m flipping multiple pages and not even halfway, I just know everything is about to taste questionable.

low_power_mode , Terje Sollie Report

Final score:

80points

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ShaZam Beaubien 1 year ago

Cheesecake Factory ... the longest menu I have ever looked at

6points

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#13

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community isn’t a cuisine, but ranch. everybody rants and raves about it, i even had a friend who put ranch on grapes. some ppl put it on EVERYTHING, which is fine because it’s not bad i guess? but idk i just never got the hype, i’m not the biggest fan of it lol

GalaxySnipz13 , Willis Lam Report

Final score:

79points

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DippityDooDerp 1 year ago

Ranch is only good for fresh veggies and seasoned fries.

25points

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#14

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Lobster. It’s fine, it’s just not really worth it’s cost imo. I also like eating it in things rather than by itself. The lobster rolls I had in Maine were much better than lobster straight up.

Edit: yes, as many have said, crab is delicious and the superior choice by a mile

babythrottlepop , Mike Mozart Report

Final score:

68points

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Sami-Jo Ross 1 year ago

Lobster used to be considered peasant food. Still wanna know how we went from that to overpriced sea bug.

6points

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#15

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community cake.

ignoring coffee and booze, it'd have to be cake. people care more about how it looks and photographs than how it taste. it has it's own reality show.

snakefeet_0 , Ken's Oven Report

Final score:

66points

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Donkey boi 1 year ago

I care more about the taste of a cake. The appearance means nothing to me.

41points

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#16

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant was s**t. It genuinely made me question everything I’ve seen him criticize and wonder “does this guy just have horrible taste?”

leeroy525 , Matheus Bertelli Report

Final score:

55points

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Amy Taylor 1 year ago

I had an amazing meal at one of his Vegas restaurants. And I’m picky as hell, lol

26points

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#17

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community kid cuisine. The brownie usually comes out hard as a rock and the mac and cheese is watery

soobold , Lisa Fotios Report

Final score:

44points

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ShaZam Beaubien 1 year ago

and everyone is having a wonderful time!

17points

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#18

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community American Italian. It’s heavy and repetitive.

unbannabledan , Budgeron Bach Report

Final score:

40points

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ShaZam Beaubien 1 year ago

yes, yes it is ... but it's delicious

43points

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#19

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Insanely unhealthy Southern food.

As a life long resident of the South, a ton of popular Southern food is mediocre meat that is breaded and deep fried. The primary flavor is fried breading. Given astronomical rate lifestyle-related disease in the South, elevating food that is both super unhealthy and also uninspiringly flavored is just mindbogglingly.

There is some truly delicious and inspired Southern food, and some of that is healthy or at least ok in small quantities. However, most of what I hear people talking about as "great" Southern food is boring and super bad for you if eaten on a regular basis.

Excellent_Condition , @joefoodie Report

Final score:

29points

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Elle Lian 1 year ago

My grandma ate all this southern food every single day of her life. So did her family. My grandma passed at 97. Her brother was 93. My grandpa was the young one to die at 83. The majority of the elderly people I knew passed around the age of 85-90. Their diet was mainly casseroles, biscuits and gravy, and potatoes cut up and fried so heavy you could rub them on a sheet of paper and see through it. However, their life wasn’t sedentary. Even into advanced age, they farmed, took care of grandchildren (and greats), and helped in the community.

46points

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#20

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community The Dutch are so crazy about their meat croquettes and frikandellel, but it's just frozen meat that has been mashed together.

Fl1p1 , Eduardo Soares Report

Final score:

26points

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User# 6 1 year ago (edited)

Yup, it's deep fried junk food with 'meat' of questionable origin. My favourite is an 'eierbal', a hard boiled egg inside a battered curry ragout. Eating one probably takes years off your life, but it is gorgeous.

20points

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#21

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Our family has been restaurant investors for 40 years. High end French cuisine using offal or organ meats.

These dishes are pushed because the costs of these types of meats are very low and produce a huge profit margin. Also, the lack of experience with guests cooking these types of dishes for themselves mean very few patrons complain about authenticity. Usually a chef will throw his/her twist in the menu.

Most customers can tell the difference between a great pizza and a mediocre one. They'll remember a great steak - but a restaurant may be paying huge premiums to fly that Waygu in from Japan or for your Flintstone tomahawk. Whereas, a local butcher shop will gladly unload offal and such with glee due to low demand. You'd be surprised as to how little we paid for cow brains for example.

rayrayrayray , Rachel Claire Report

Final score:

25points

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Auntriarch 1 year ago

It's bloody annoying. Used to be able to get trotters and cheeks etc for next to nothing, then chefs started on them and they're expensive now

22points

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#22

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community "Free from" everything. B***h, I only have celiac. Before I got my diagnosis, I ate steak medicinally (I was severely anemic). Give me all the dairies and meatstuffs.

Absolutely overrated cuisine-type thing that I still love anyway? Mixology. Give me the intricate cocktail that requires table side presentation, and I'm a happy girl. I don't drink much (see above re: celiac, I was a beer drinker), so I'm down with one stupidly expensive cocktail at a nice dinner.

kategoad , Andrea Nguyen Report

Final score:

25points

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Huddo's sister 1 year ago (edited)

Well I get frustrated that it is so hard to get both dairy (or lactose) free and gluten free. Everything is either one or the other. That's not even taking into account my other intollerances! EDIT: I should say this is the situation in Australia

20points

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#23

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Fusion food. Overpriced and overrated and only occasionally done well

ministarfallen , Syed Muhammad Afifi Report

Final score:

24points

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crowspectre (he/they) 1 year ago

There's a place I love that's an Indian flavours/food and American-style burgers place and it's probably some of the best food I've ever had, other than like cheap gyros or actual Indian food.

4points

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#24

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Chilean sea bass. Just awful.

atlantis1021 Report

Final score:

7points

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Spellflinger 1 year ago

Fancy name for Patagonian toothfish - guess you can charge more if it sounds fancy.

15points

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#25

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community French. It's considered super fancy, but every time I've ever seen it, it looks disgusting and sounds like it only tastes good because of everything drowning in butter.

Akiram , ROMAN ODINTSOV Report

Final score:

-22points

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Ace 1 year ago

Sounds like you've never actually tried it though. And presumably you're talking about American French, which probably (based on the two or three times I've experienced it) bears as little resemblance to what we get in France as your pizza does to what you'd find on the streets of Naples.

68points

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#26

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community British food

Deadpool2715 , Thomas Timlen Report

Final score:

-27points

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User# 6 1 year ago (edited)

If anything, British food is underrated. A cooked breakfast, shepherds pie, chicken tika masala, lancaster hotpot, toad in the hole... some of the best food I ever had.

95points

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#27

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Korean BBQ- If I wanted to cook my meal...I would just stay home & save my money

Substantial_Cold2385 , Markus Winkler Report

Final score:

-36points

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LH25 1 year ago

I kind of like this idea. I don't have to do the shopping, prep and clean up and can cook my food how I like it. I also like the interactive aspect.

42points

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#28

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Sushi. It’s very pretty and I like the conveyor belt they sometimes use(more foods should have this), but those are by far the best parts.

no_need_really , Diego Pontes Report

Final score:

-42points

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Highwaytozen 1 year ago

I could eat sushi morning, noon and night. My cat is named Sushi, but that is unrelated, as I have so far resisted eating my cat.

69points

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#29

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Mexican… it’s all beans, cheese, rice and tortillas presented in different ways

zerob_directv , Sarah Stierch Report

Final score:

-96points

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Ba-Na-Na 1 year ago

No, no it’s not. OP has never experienced the culture

85points

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#30

30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community Greek cuisine. It’s just a bland version of Turkish food, but anything to do with Middle Eastern people is scary to some white people, so Greek food is highly overrated while Turkish and other Middle Eastern food is very underrated.

Osetiya , Ania Mendrek Report

Final score:

-116points

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Donkey boi 1 year ago (edited)

I don't think Greek is anything like Turkish food! 1 or 2 things are similar (if not inspired by) in concept, but execution is different. I'll probably get attacked for this but... I found Turkish food to be much the same throughout the country, the same few flavours on everything. In Greece, each island specialises in something, and the mainland serves a dish to accompany any emotion. 'Middle Eastern food' is ridiculous term! The food in each country is completely different. I loved the food in Iran, wasn't that keen in Egypt, Jordan surprised me (They know olives better than anyone!). Israeli seems to take a bit from everywhere, creating some kind of middle eastern super tapas.

59points

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What do you think ?

These were pretty normal until people just starting outright admitting that they're too white and American to even give foreign cuisine a chance.

13points

Monique Rosewood 1 year ago

Those are a specific shade of white lol. A lot of us like foreign cuisine.

3points

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Cyndielouwhoo 1 year ago

Don't blame all Americans for that...I love foreign cuisine if it's done right.

D. Pitbull 1 year ago

Reminds me of this guy I knew who was just... outright rude about ANYthing ANYone ate that wasn't straight up "PB&J". Everything was suspicious... or gross ... Like... dude, being narrow-minded doesn't make you some sort of gourmand.

Leo Domitrix 1 year ago

Since many Americans live in cities or regions that are awash in global cuisines that meet the standards of natives of the countries in question, and are hugely popular with the "white and American"? I think maybe the assumption needs to be re-assessed. My UK in-laws won't even touch paella.

A lot of these are really good and the people are just picky. Like, Greek and Mexican food. Really? Both of those are amazing.

5points

DBear 1 year ago

Girl Scout cookies. Overpriced dollar store quality snacks.

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30 Foods That Are Not As Good As The Hype May Make You Believe, According To Folks In This Online Community

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