FOOD GUIDES

Madrid has its share of iconic dishes like cochinillo and bocadillo de calamares, but more than any one dish, what I enjoyed most about this city was its diversity of food experiences.

With all the delicious food you can have in this city, the one dish that perhaps best represents San Sebastian food is the humble pintxo. Similar to tapas, it refers to a family of small bar snacks that are typically skewered onto a piece of bread with a toothpick.

We love Kyoto. It’s our favorite city in Japan. Tokyo and Osaka are incredible cities but Kyoto has everything we love most about this country – culture, atmosphere, history, and of course, great Japanese food.

Sushi is my absolute favorite Japanese food in the world so I welcomed the opportunity to have sushi as much as I could in Kanazawa. It was fresh, available everywhere, and relatively cheap compared to other cities in Japan.

With delicious dishes like Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, anago meshi, and the juiciest and plumpest oysters tempting you at every turn, it isn’t hard to see why Hiroshima is a favorite food destination for many Japanese.

I went on a food tour in Kyoto and according to my guide, when Japanese people travel for food, they usually go to one of three cities – Nagoya, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka. This was surprising to me because I had always assumed it would be Osaka or Tokyo, not a less visited city like Fukuoka.

There’s a lot to love about Lisbon. It’s a beautiful city with a passion for the arts and terrific food. In fact, so good is the food in Lisbon that National Geographic readers declared it the world’s top foodie hotspot in 2019.

In spite of its overwhelmingly gothic and neoclassical architecture, Budapest is an incredibly hip and trendy city. It’s forward thinking in its approach to art and design and much of that creativity seems to have carried over into its food.

I don’t have much experience with Czech food but one thing seems clear, roasted meat dishes heavy on gravies, starches, and root vegetables figure prominently in Czech cuisine. It’s the type of food you’d expect from countries that experience harsh winters.

I ate my way through Sapa, Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, Saigon, and the Mekong Delta with the goal of writing a Vietnamese food guide that showcased the best and most interesting dishes this country had to offer. This list of 45 is what I’ve come up with.