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Coffee - and I love the taste of coffee, but the smell of freshly ground coffee is heaven!

those sugared nuts that they sell on the street in nyc

I wholeheartedly agree about chestnuts. Roasted chicken when it's cooked by somebody who is convinced that poultry should be cooked to death - it still smells good, but is too dry and impossible to eat. Also, sometimes freshly baked goods smell much better than they taste (well, freshly baked goods do have a tendency to smell really, really good). I've had an experience with biscuits in somebody's kitchen that smelt like heaven but tasted absolutely horrible. Sigh. I think foods that smell better than they taste disappoint even more than foods that look better than they taste.

I agree with SSMom--even though I love coffee, it does smell better than it tastes. Sometimes I wish that things tasted like they smelled, but then durians would be in serious trouble.

cornbread.. love the smell when it's baking, don't care for the taste.. same goes with onions that are sauteed or grilled....love the smell, party-dud in my mouth... maybe in a couple of years, my palate will agree with my nose..

coffee, split pea soup, powdered doughnuts and my daughter, sous chef #1, says crayons. "When your a kid, crayons and markers smell soooo good but they taste horrible!"

Coffee seems to be a common one - and although I love the taste of coffee, the smell is even better. I usually think pumpkin pie falls into this category too, although I have had a few amazing pies.

all kidding aside, kfc, cinnabon and jalapenos.

Fruit can often be a let-down; smells delicious, and tastes of... nothing. Because of this, on those rare occasions that I actually get my hands on fantastic fruit, I can seriously make a serious pig of myself.

I'm a bit surprised about the reactions to coffee and chestnuts, but that's probably because I've had both, often, since I was very little (yes, I WAS a wired little kid, and my neighbours--the givers of coffee, a substance completely prohibited by my parents until I was in my teens--were insane). Heavy sugaring (the sort normally acceptable only to the palette of a toddler) may partly explain my feelings about the flavour of coffee. But chestnuts... I don't know. I've HAD ones that were dry, but usually they are slightly moist. Perhaps different chestnuts are sent to the US, or they may be processed in some way to prevent their becoming vectors for residual chestnut blight spores?

My husband always says the tacos at Taco Bell smell great but he knows they don't taste the way they smell. He is sure they are made with onions.( he can't eat onions they make him physically ill even if he doesn't know they were in the food.)

auntie annie's pretzels at the mall! It smells so good when walking by the stand, but doesn't deliver on taste. Or perhaps it's just too guilty to enjoy that freshly baked pretzel dunked in butter right after it's out of the oven ..

Movie popcorn.

A roux -- especially one made with butter instead of oil.

I was making one for a gumbo once, with oil, and my neighbor came in and snuck a spoonful for a taste before I could stop him. Of course, with only flour and oil, the taste is AWFUL! "But it smelled so good!" he whined!

Gin. I love the smell of gin but I find the tast horrific.

Staying with the beverage theme ...flavored coffee. I love the heady sweet smell combined with the nutty coffee aroma but the taste is terrible. What a waste of coffee beans.

I'll jump on the coffee bandwagon -- I love it and drink 2-3 cups daily, but it definitely smells way, WAY better than it tastes.

Me too on the bacon vote. I love to smell bacon cooking, but usually eat only one slice, if any at all (unless I'm making BLTs). Actually, I feel that way about most cured meats (sausage, ham, etc.).

Donuts. I find them incredibly disappointing, and only eat them about once a year, tops. I'm perfectly content to stand in a donut shop and breathe in the wonderful aromas. Then I leave. Empty-handed.

Chocolate. I really enjoy a small piece of super high-quality dark chocolate now and then (preferably Valrhona). But the smell definitely far exceeds the flavor for me.

Menudo. Sniff, sniff. MMMmmmm... Slurp, slurp. Blech!

@Dee.......I was stupified about the roasting chestnuts also. I thought the SMELL was nauseating and couldn't wait to get away from it. It kind of ruined NYC at Christmas for me, because it made me sick.

i totally agree about fruit. there is nothing worse than a sweet, delicious perfectly ripe-pear-scented pear that, when bitten into, is unripened and bland. [sigh] i hate that so much.

Turkey. Maybe I just think it's gross because I'm not an American. Maybe I think it's gross because at least 50% of thanksgivings there winds up being a dry, disgusting bird on the table. Roasting turkeys smell great. Then in the end, it just tastes like turkey.
Along that vein, how about fatty duck or goose? Smells good, but every mouthful is full of greasy fat chunks. No thanks.
How about unseasoned hamburger meat? Fry it up and it smells tasty but it actually tastes totally gross.
How about the reverse? Milk smells gross but tastes just fine.