Question for non-Stateside readers

[neadods]

I'm looking for the name of that type of restaurant that serves fast, homestyle local food; it probably has a dish described or named "Mama's" or "Grandma's."

In America, it's the diner.
In Britain, the pub.
In France, the bistro.
In Italy, the trattoria.

What is it called in your neck of the world?

Comments

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Interesting - none of the milk bars in my area (Melbourne, inner northern suburbs) would have much food made on the premises other than sandwiches. I'd have gone with cafe, I think.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

I think it varies from place to place. In the larger cities I've lived in, they're more like corner stores, but when I lived in rural NSW, the local milk bar was also the fish and chips shop, and it also sold dim sims and chicken schnitzel and that sort of thing. I was going to say cafe originally, but where I am at the moment (Townsville, North Queensland), a cafe is a coffee shop/tea house and not all of them also have a decent meal selection.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

See, that would be a tea shop around here, if there was such a thing, which there isn't (we aren't a tea shop sort of suburb)!

When I lived in Adelaide, they called their milk bars delis, but basically they were somewhere between a milk bar and a fish and chip shop - sometimes they'd have pies and sausage rolls and sandwiches, sometimes fish and chips and burgers, sometimes just milk and icecreams and sweets and packets of chips. Nothing there that I'd expect to find at a deli in Melbourne, though.

But I've never lived anywhere rural, so that would be the difference.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

We have a few cafes here that just do coffee and other drinks, and some that do drinks plus cakes/biscuits/slices/sweets. Then there are the cafes that are almost small restaurants in that they have full menus. But both of those are completely different from the milk bars I knew when I lived in rural areas, or indeed the milk bars we have in Townsville, which are much more like small corner stores for the most part (though we have the fish and chip shop variant here too in some of the suburbs). "Deli" to me means a place that sells meats and cheeses and things.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

That's what I'd expect at a deli, too...