I absolutely get what you are saying mate, and I respect you defending it.
American food, or those you mention...are not really American or even unique to America, we have much much better Apple pies and other deserts in the UK, the best deserts I had in New York and Florida, where from an Italian bakery or French cafe, with french/Italian speaking people.
Tex-Mex, ok...its a fusion, and is good, but I would rather eat real Mexican food anyway, and BBQ is Spanish, and the best BBQ food I have ever had is in the Caribbean.
Lobster rolls....massive in the Netherlands...and seafood in general is much better in Spain & France.
The Pizza, was ok. The street cheep $1 ones are good because they don't pretend to be anything other than a quick bite. But the Chicago style....or the hyped up NY more bar type, is just nothing special....the ingredients is so poor, bad sauce, cheese weak and greasy....and if you get any meat on it....its process crap....I was in Milan at the weekend....and they are not even well known for Pizza, but it just blows any pizza from the USA out of the water, just down to the quality of the few ingredients alone....creating 5 different variation and adding 22 toppings doesn't make it any better.
Went for Hot dogs at Grays papays, and many street places....its just the same as the tinned crap we get in England, and the hot dog rolls are sweet and fake tasting. The mass amount of toppings are just to mask all the low quality.
Philly cheese steak, that was decent....but its crap meat cuts....with mass amounts of cheese and grease again....with poor bread.
Bagels...jesus H.....they are just bagels, and nothing special at all.. The salmon was really good at 1 more traditional Jewish spot I went....but the cream cheese was terrible and loaded with pickled stuff...agaon obviously to mask the poor quality cheese. The breakfast one the wife had a couple of times was disgusting...poor poor quality.
The best meal I had, was a steak from an Irish Bar - Which was exactly as I get form my local restaurant in Bolton, and Nobu - But thats Japanese and we have them in London.
Pasta was good, but still nothing even close to what you get in Italy....as its so full of butter and cheese....AGAIN to mask the actualy quality.
Now....all that said....I LOOOOOVE New York, and cant wait to go back, its much better than I ever thought, loved the hustle & busle, and the people we met where brilliant.
It did feel a little like London in many aspect, and I love London too.
EDIT : Burgers.....7th Street Burger and few others - Meh...its just a burger, the same as we get here, and had a great one in Milan. The better burger I had again was in an Irish bar, by an Irish chef.
yes, my wife loves Fanta, and was almost sick.
