What is a food that you are very picky about?

I'll chime in with water.

There's so many different flavors of water. Just trying tap water in random places is such a different experience. Although I only specifically remember the worst. What the fuck was that bitter thing in Budapest.
As for mineral waters, I definitely go for Budiš in a glass bottle, chilled.

Burgers, sandwiches, kebaps, etc. Stay away with your stupid sauces. I want to taste the ingredients, not the sauce. No, not even your super fancy handmade burger sauce. The stupid thing about sauces is that you can't even take them off when you don't like them. They're sticky and smooth and get everywhere.

cheesecake. PLAIN CHEESECAKE ONLY. absolutely no bullshit on or in my cheesecake.

I'm lactose intolerant now too so if I'm gonna eat cheesecake it better be world class lol

I see this from two different perspectives:

1. There are some ingredients I just don't like the taste of. But, in some recipes and if prepared properly, I'm fine with them. Green beans are an example. I don't like them. But creamy green bean casseroles are fine and vegetable soup with green beans is totally acceptable.
2. Then there are things like desserts that I'm picky about because if I'm going to screw up my metabolism and caloric intake for the day, it better damn well be worth it. I'm not going to waste my time on a substandard sugar and/or fat filled treat. I'm going to skip on that dry cake, jello salad, faux ice cream, fake chocolate sludge, etc.

Chocolate. I absolutely adore chocolate, but only good chocolate. I've sought out and nibbled on hundreds of different bars and blends. Anything under 70% dark just doesn't do it for me. I've melted down chocolate bars and mixed in baking chocolate and reset it so it would be darker.

Whitman's? Russel Stover? Hershey? Reeses? Miss me with that please.

If you get the chance to try a single origin Ecuadorian dark chocolate it's amazing, complex, fruity and floral. All of the pretentious stuff people describe about wine is genuinely there in chocolate.

Icecream — I can't have a lot, so I only have it when I know it's highest quality.

Any kind of sandwich, burger, taco, hotdog, etc. that is too overstuffed to pick up and eat pisses me off. If its open face or whatever and you're eating it with a fork that's fine but if its not then I need to actually be able to eat it without food going everywhere when I pick it up. Giant burgers you can't pick up or fit in your mouth are especially stupid and I hate them.

Tomatoes for me, always trying to buy the more expensive/on the vine tomatoes to get more flavour, the basic ones are just too watery and flavourless for me.

Pizza. I came to realize when I first started traveling that being from Connecticut and having easy access to extremely good New Haven, Greek, and New York style pizza is a luxury. It's my favorite food. Whenever I travel, I make sure to try the area's so-called "best" pizza for at least one of my meals. It is seriously pathetic what some regions consider good pizza.

Sushi/nigiri.

I do not screw around with low quality or bad meats, especially fish meat. I had enough fresh fish when I lived in Japan to know what it's supposed to look and smell like, and if the nigiri I'm served smells any bit off I'm simply not eating it.

If your fish smells like fish, it's gone bad. Most types of fish if properly preserved should smell somewhat like clean seawater, with some variation by species

Edit: Also, if the rice looks dry or doesn't adhere properly, I assume the kitchen has no idea what they're doing and won't eat it

I have unreasonable high standards for Mexican foods and their derivatives (TexMex, CaliMex, Burritos de Gringos, Jalisco, etc.)

Nothing, really. If I'm picky about something, I usually just won't eat it.

I don't like skins on sausage or pulp in beverages.

Bagels. They MUST be toasted and topped with butter ONLY. It’s not that I don’t like cream cheese, it’s that I vastly prefer the taste of butter.

Of course, this all gets thrown out the window if we’re talking about some kind of bagel sandwich. Then whatever I like gets thrown on that thing, and toasting is optional.

American BBQ. There're a lot of regional flavors and differences but most of them are bad in my opinion. Memphis dry rubs and Kansas City molasses sauces are my 2 favorites

Cheez-its. Generic brand cheese crackers just don't cut it.

Coffee. I'm not a regular consumer as I don't find many modes that cater to my snobbery.

I only like the Italian, one sip ristretto. Very well made, thick and nutty. Unfortunately outside of Italy this is incredibly hard to come by.

So I basically never drink coffee. Without an expensive machine in not able to make it at home (I tried all ristretto options for Nespresso, but they don't cut it).

There's only a couple of coffee bars that I trust to serve me good coffee... It's infuriating as coffee culture is global, yet there's almost nowhere where my taste buds are satisfied.

Lobster, scallops and squid need to be cooked just right otherwise they tend to be rubbery.

Uni - when it's ultra fresh from a high quality sushi restaurant it can be mouthwateringly delicious, but if it's not just cracked open a minute ago then it quickly starts to taste like sewage

Coleslaw. Mayonnaise has no business here, vinegar slaw or nothing.

I'm very picky when it comes to pickles. I don't like the taste of standard dill pickles, only garlic dill pickles. I have only found two brands that make them the way I like them.

I am a coffee snob, will skip it unless it's good.

Wine, I don't like it enough to like bad wine so good wine or nothing, I am fine with just water.

Cheese puffs - I thought I didn't like them at all until I worked at the health food store, they had these white cheddar cheese puffs made of food, real cheese, corn, salt. Those are so good! I never, ever eat Cheetos they are gross, but those white cheddar puffs are good.

Mollusks and crustaceans. I can eat fish, in any dish, that's perfectly fine.

Anything that I cook well myself.

I eat vegetarian most of the time. On the few occasions I eat meat it has to be top tier. Anything from fish to poultry to meat has to be organic and handled with respect

Carbonara.

I've been served this dish with peas, with onions and with cream.
I can forgive the bacon if it's really good bacon, as guanciale/pancetta can be hard to get here, but for gods sake don't ruin it with anything else.

I rarely order it when out because so many places just serve a generic dish with bacon and ham without mentioning it, and I am not being the snob that asks what they use.