[tafda]

You need a immigrant community large enough to be cooking for their own palate. Los Angeles, for example, has a population of ~30K Thai, ~180K Japanese, and ~5M Mexican origin (numbers from Pew).

Plenty of options in LA for northern, Isaan, central and southern Thai between Western Ave and Thai Town, and pretty good ramen, soba, and sushi in Sawtelle, Little Tokyo or Torrance. Perhaps not best in the world, but not at all catering to American tastes and could rank above average in the origin country.

[GuardianCaveman]

I spent time in Korea and with Koreans in the US and they've told me that food in Koreatown in L.A. is better than Seoul.

[tayo42]

The food can exist, but you need to really search it out. That is different then if we had a strong food culture, this food wouldn't be hidden away in ethnic ghettos.

[tafda]

Sure, good example of that is r 3.4 out of 5 on the Japanese restaurant review site Tabelog is miles better as a signal of good food than any number of 5 star yelp reviews in the US.

My larger point was that LA and NYC (and specific communities in other cities —SF, Houston, etc) have a subculture that celebrates true renditions of various cuisines as cooked by an self-sustaining immigrant community large enough to not require external validation by Americans lacking in food culture to stay in business. You have to get lucky in most of the rest of the states.