Countries are categorized by how well their cuisines are represented locally:
Prime cuisine
Prime cuisines refer to countries whose cuisines are extremely well-represented, due to large populations of people who at one time immigrated from these countries. The existence of many prime cuisines in Los Angeles reflects its role as a hub for immigrants from Latin America and Asia.
Common cuisine
Common cuisines refer to countries whose cuisines are well-represented, though fall short of prime cuisines and are perhaps better represented in other U.S. cities. In Los Angeles, it is not difficult to find Italian food, but for obvious historical reasons the overall diversity and quality of such offerings falls short of the Chinese food that can be found in Los Angeles as well as the Italian food that can be found on the East Coast.
Rare cuisine
Rare cuisines refer to countries whose cuisines can be found in only a handful of locations. The borderline between common and rare is a very fuzzy one, and the decision to place a country in one category versus another is sometimes arbitrary. In Los Angeles, Italian is clearly a common cuisine, but is Moroccan?
Unique restaurant
Unique restaurants are, well, unique to the city. In some cases, dishes from a country may be available elsewhere, but I will still consider the restaurant unique if it is clearly superior to other options. For example, a few restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley have some Burmese dishes, but it would be doing one’s self a great disservice to miss the excellent Golden Triangle restaurant in Whittier.
Dish(es) available
These countries are not represented by a restaurant but one or a few dishes representing the country’s cuisine are available. This is often the case with restaurants representing neighboring countries that have related cuisines. In Los Angeles, food from Scandinavia can be found at the Nordic Fox, while difficult-to-come-by dishes from eastern, western, and southern regions of Africa are served at Ngoma.
Available in state
A few countries have cuisines that are nowhere to be found in the city but are a short trip away. Not surprisingly, most of these come from immigrant populations that settled at one time in other cities. Outside of greater Los Angeles, Dutch food is plentiful outside of Santa Barbara in Solvang (Dutch for “sunny field”), Somalian food can be found in the tiny district of San Diego known as Little Mogadishu, and the delicious curries of Fiji are available in the even tinier district outside of Oakland aptly named Little Fiji.
Not available
As you might suspect, some countries do not have their cuisines represented anywhere close to the city. This could be for a variety of reasons, including the lack of existence of a distinct cuisine for the country (e.g. the official website of the doubly landlocked tax haven of Liechtenstein makes no mention of food that foodmagellan can find among the pages promoting its culture). Of course, “not available” may be a misapplied designation resulting from poor scholarship on the part of foodmagellan’s vast network of interns.