Reply to Switzerland

Forum Index » Travel Discussion

Reply to "Switzerland"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The Swiss have only one kind of food - starch (bread or potatoes) with melted cheese. They are very clever though and have convinced the world that there is actually a "cuisine" behind this.

Basically, you can have fondue - melt the cheese, stick the starch in yourself. Or Raclette - melt the cheese and pour it over the starch. Or croute au fromage: melt the cheese on top of the starch in the oven. Finally, if you manage to get near to Savvoy, you can have tartiflette - cheese and starch in a dish, baked-melted in the oven. The origins of all these dishes is in Switzerland frugal mountainous rural poverty, long gone but some of the habits have stayed.

Unless you drink fruit juice or wine with these "delicacies", you will be immensely constipated. Also, you must eat the cold sausages and hams and the green salad with MSG-loaded white dressing that are served alongside to assist your digestion (basically to make your bowels irritated and slippery). If you avoid all this and just drink cold water with the cheese dish, you are setting yourself up for a hospital visit where you will make intimate friends with a rubber hose.

$40 for 2 at McDonalds sounds about right. Also, ethnic food in Switzerland (Indian, Chinese, etc.) is an exotic specialty, usually bad, and very expensive.

As the old joke goes: "Q:Where is the best restaurant in Switzerland? A:In France."

There are exceptions and locals and expats know where these are and do post on trip advisor. But keep your expectations really low.[/quote]

I'm in Switzerland 6-8x per year for work and this is all very, very true  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

That said, the Swiss have amazing beef. Some of the best in world. You'd be a fool to not eat a grilled steak, a fancy cheeseburger, or steak tartare at a nice restaurant. Cattle farming is Swizterland's most prized and protected industry, even above banking.

Fortunately, I'm often in Basel where they have more German and French influences in cooking. Plus the FR-CH-DE border runs right through town, so the lower prices bleed across the border.[/quote]

My sister lives in Geneva and I visit her frequently.  The French side is very different than the German side.  Locals don't eat Fondue or Raclette except in the winter - and even then, not that often.  Only tourists eat it off season.  But true that food choices are very limited - and the vegetarian who is on a tight budget would do much better in Italy (I'm Italian so have I know both countries well).  Salads border on $25.00 each in Switzerland.  Food is just super expensive in Switzerland.

But yes, beef eaters will be very happy in Geneva eating entrecote - the ubiquitous steaks served everywhere.  Very good quality and well-prepared.

That said, I agree with pp who said ethnic restaurants are bad and overpriced (have had Thai and Indian on many occasions), but Italian food is very good in Switzerland.  Pizza and pastas are our usual go-to food when we want to eat out.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics