My annual visit to New York and Aspen in the US always brings me smack gob up against some cultural differences between things in France and the US:
In America, couples typically order different dishes while in France, couples, especially more elderly ones, order exactly the same thing.
In the US hot restaurants take no reservations (and love people waiting up to 2.5 hours) whereas in France they do.
In the United States, Europeans think restaurants and railway cars are telephone booths and shout into their cell-phones whereas in France they exit the resto or car to talk.
In France, fusion cuisine means French-Asian whereas trendy US ones merge American with South American and Indian/Pakistani trends.
In France, wine lists are almost exclusively of French wines whereas in the US many carry Southern Hemisphere imports.
In both countries, the addition of formerly little known herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits, especially from Japan, to "traditional" salads and other dishes, is rampant.
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