Ok I'll try to recreate the post. *sigh*

When you go to a restaurant that has food from another country, they often have food from different regions. Either the different samplings are ethnic/culture-based or just regional seasoning preferences. Those differences don't make the food any less Italian, Chinese or Indian.

If I were to go abroad and set up a decent (not gourmet with three carrots and swirl of sauce but not chain style) restaurant...

It would include foods from different regions, and for each meal.

For breakfast I would have to have the following: Grits, pancakes with maple syrup and bacon (not that thin-sliced stuff others call bacon), sausage and biscuits with gravy, and home fries. We would also have a melon and berry fruit salad served with a side of yogurt for those on a health kick, but please. You wouldn't go to an american restaurant if you were on a diet, let's be realistic here.

Beverages would be choice of 2 from the following: tomato juice, orange juice, cranberry juice, and coffee. There might be an old dusty tea bag in the back somewhere. If you really want tea, I could go dust it off for you. In this country, only women and hippies drink tea. Or people from California.

Lunch choices: soup (beef barley, chicken noodle, or minestrone), a cold or hot sandwich with a side of kettle-cooked chips (not french fries!), cold mayo-based salads like egg salad or tuna salad (sandwich fillings only), potato salad, or macaroni salad. Perhaps a small garden salad with hard boiled egg.

Mix and match, or take one from above. Lunch could also be a small portion of a dinner (except for steak).


Dinner:

If you have a lettuce-based salad, it comes first. Not with or after your meal, but we will offer you the choice anyway. If you want it as your meal we will offer you a larger portion of salad with some chicken (grilled or breaded and fried) with it. Maybe a hard-boiled egg and some cubed cheese.

Dinners would be samples from the following types of food.

Southern barbecue. Usually a piece of meat smothered with BBQ sauce and thrown on the grill, or simmered and pulled. With corn on the cob, salad and baked potato.

Hamburger served with fries. No other veggie present, unless you want to count the ketchup/catsup. Possible small salad with the burger.

Chicken or beef stew with biscuits. This did not originate in the states, but a lot of people eat it so it goes in the menu.

Philly cheese steak sandwich or spiedie served with sweet potato fries topped with a splash of honey butter.

Tex-mex stuff like chili and corn bread, possibly some nachos or red beans and rice as your appetizer instead of salad.

Steak cooked on the barbecue with baked potato and corn on the cobb. also served with the cold mayo based salads listed in the lunch section, and garden salad.

Gumbo, jambalaya, or some other spicey shrimp. I am not cajun so I have no idea what accompanies this stuff, but I would suspect other typical southern stuff like corn on the cob and/or biscuits or bread and butter since the origin is french. (help with this area please!)

Pizza, baked ziti, or lasagna. Served with salad and bread.

DESSERT menu:

Proper cheesecake drizzled with chocolate, caramel-brandy or strawberry sauce, brownie (squidgy NOT cakey) with vanilla ice cream, apple pie topped with vanilla ice cream, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, pineapple upside-down cake, and pecan pie. all of the above served with coffee.

I know I've forgotten so many things, but I think this sums it up nicely.