American food in Saudi

Food.....a yummy thing necessary to live!

I don't know what I was expecting when I left the States when it came to different tastes in food. I know at times I can be ignorant, but I'm not sure what all I was thinking when it came to food, I guess I expected to find all the things I'm used to seeing (ie: brands), half way across the world!!

Yeah, not the case!

Granted, the Panda does have some American brands I'm used to seeing,(I'm not sure if they are American....but you know what I mean) like Doritos, Blue Bonnett butter, and Philadelphia cream cheese! I was super excited to see the butter because that is what I used in the States. And being from the south (Yes Texas is considered the south) I do use butter a lot!

There is a restaurant on the compound. They have ok food. Their menu tries to cover a range of variety. They have breakfast items, like pancakes. Lunch items like a Chicken club sandwich. Dinner entrées like Pizza and desserts like carrot cake. In all honesty, I was expecting things to taste more American, and that is ignorant I know. There are many people here of all different backgrounds; people from Asia, Europe, and the States, as well as neighboring Middle Eastern countries.

Things I've eaten from the restaurant include a "Mexican grilled chicken sandwich" which only consisted of Jalapenos and tomatoes, lol! Pizza- which is super cheesy and delicious. A Taco "basket" aka Taco Salad- which was good, they mince their chicken rather than chop or grind it.

My husband ordered some Coke, and I was thinking it was imported from the States. Wrong! Saudi makes their own Coke. It has a peppery after-taste. Which made my chicken taco salad taste funky. Have you ever smelled something.....not necessarily bad, but then ate something and it tasted like something you've smelled before? Well Saudi has a certain smell to it, its not bad its just a certain humid, a little musky, dusty smell to it. Well when I tasted the coke, it tasted like Saudi Arabia. So that was something I wasn't interested in.

There is a 7-11 type convenient store on the compound which tends to be a little pricey at times, but that's expected. They have sodas there, which are the regular 12oz size, they sell Dr. Pepper, imported from the states, so that tastes the same. They also have Pepsi which I haven't tried yet.

When I first arrived, husband had bought some eggs and milk so that way we would have something to eat for breakfast. Well the milk tasted kinda funky, it could have been goats milk or something. When I looked at the expiration date on the bottle it was a couple months so I'm sure what kind of "whole milk" that was. Labels and signs here are in Arabic and English. So we have to read the labels real carefully and found "100% cows milk" and that tastes like what I'm used to!

This last weekend- speaking of which, the work week in Saudi is from Sunday to Thursday. Their weekend is Friday and Saturday. Schools use that schedule as well. So on Friday we went to a restaurant called "The Counter", with our friends. Jeddah, is full of stores like Prada, Coach, Gucci and DKNY. Its pretty interesting to see women here with their MK purses and designer shoes, but the city, so far from what I've seen, is run down. And the cars here........When in the States and people see a Lamborghini they are amazed. You come here and its like "oh I see that on a daily basis", its super common to see super nice cars here.

So back to going to The Counter- trying to find parking in front of the restaurant was difficult because like I said, everyone and their dog have a car so its packed. But it was nice outside, not too hot so walking was perfectly ok with me! The restaurant specialized in burgers. Really good burgers I might add! Our friends had raved about the milkshakes there so I was excited to try some. I had a Birthday Cake milkshake. Which tasted super sweet and exactly like a birthday cake!! The whole time I was eating I could feel my whole body tense, (because of the horrific driving here) and that will be another blog for another day. So once we got home, (we had taken the shake to go), I was able to relax and enjoy my burger and shake!

I'm really excited to try actual Saudi food like Lamb and camel. We are going to try and go this weekend to a place that cooks camel, i'll be sure to blog about that!! Stay tuned for more blogs..... until next time............