Upstate NY beats out Minnesota in the bland food category, all they have is buffalo sauce w/ bleu cheese. Most of the restaurants I go to don’t even salt the food, at least Campbell’s cream of mushroom is packed full of sodium. Sponge candy is bland, they used to produce brown beans that everyone acknowledged needed to have ingredients added to give them flavor, and even the hotdogs have a weird texture because they’re ground so fine and not smoked. Don’t even get me started on salt potatoes or garbage plates.
Just going off visuals here, oven roasted potato, macaroni salad with a dash of paprika, yellow onion and extra mayo, with maybe some mozzarella cheese sprinkled on top and then melted under some unseasoned hamburger.
Depends on what you mean by upstate, anything between NYC and Albany tends to still be good but go north or west of Albany and it’s gonna get as bad as you said
Well yeah obviously Albany food is going to be good. They invented steamed hams.
I don’t spend much time in the Hudson valley, but I can assume proximity to the coast would improve the quality. I think it’s overall an issue with restaurants not using much butter or salt due to folks being more health conscious. Food like chicken riggies and spiedies are generally something I enjoy but only if I make it myself and add those rich ingredients.
