Month: July 2017

6. Taiwanese Hotpot, Guantian district, Taiwan, 2015. Hotpot is where you add meat and vegetables to a boiling pot of broth, which can be savory or spicy. What made this meal special was it with Yanmei's friend Yaya who she hadn't seen for many years. It was also overcast and a bit rainy which makes hotpot more appealing.

7. Korean Bibimbap, DMZ, South Korea, 2015. This was on Yanmei's list, but not mine since I think we had better meals in Korea, but of course it is a classic Korean meal. This was the lunch we had on the DMZ tour. It was served at the cafeteria of the customs building near the Kaesong industrial complex, if I remember correctly. I think that makes it very authentic, if not as fancy as a Bibimbap you might get from a restaurant.

8. Vegetarian feast, Buddhist restaurant, Seoul, South Korea, 2015. This one was memorable because it was arranged by my friends David and Elizabeth, and it took place on Buddha's birthday. After the meal we went outside to the big Buddhist parade. There were a large variety of dishes served family style.

Korea was one of the best countries for having good food on our 2015 trip (as was Taiwan, for that matter).

9. Hiltl, Zurich Switzerland, 2015. Hiltl is a popular vegetarian buffet. Buffets are one of Yanmei's favorites because you can pick exactly what you like. It was not all you can eat, instead you paid based on the weight of your dish. Hiltl was not Swiss food, but they had a huge variety, probably 60+ dishes, from salads to Indian curry, Italian pasta, even American stuff like fries. We liked it so much we came back the next day to eat there again, which I think is the only time we repeated a restaurant during that trip.

10. Pasta, Grottaferrata Italy, 2015. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but it was in a small town south of Rome called Grottaferrata. We got there early, as I guess dinner tends to be later in the evening than we were used to, so initially we were the only ones there. I'm sure they've had tourists before, but they aren't as common as in Rome, and they seemed particularly enamored with Yanmei since she was Chinese. We got a three pasta sample plate and all three were delicious.

David

Yanmei suggested I make a post about our favorite or most memorable (in a good way) food experiences on our travels. She sent me her list. I'm going off memory so unfortunately I don't have all the restaurant details, but I'll note them when I can. Several of these have been mentioned in the previous posts. I'm going to go in chronological order.

1. Fish & Chips in the U.K. This was Yanmei's from 2007 before we met. My personal favorite fish & chips is from the Lord Elgin restaurant in Port Elgin, Canada, probably from 2014. From Yanmei: "When I was studied in the UK, the most impressive food I had was Fish and Chips. The fried fish is so crispy and the meat was so tender. On the last weekend of our study, several classmates got together and we went to a small restaurant to have this."

2. Indian curry. This was mentioned on Yanmei's list without a specific location, so I'm going to go with our road trip from 2012. For the four day Thanksgiving long weekend we decided to take a road trip down the California coast from the Bay Area to L.A. and San Diego with our friends Gao Jie and Jin Yi. The first day we took our time sightseeing along the scenic coast before finally arriving in Santa Barbara for the night. We wanted to have dinner, but realized it was Thanksgiving and everything would be closed. Eventually we found and Indian restaurant and ate there. I searched Yelp, and I think it was the Himalayan Kitchen. It was late and not too busy and I remember they started bringing us all these dishes we didn't order (in addition to what we did), I guess because they were about to close and didn't want to waste the food. To be honest it wasn't the best Indian style food I've had, but it was a memorable experience, so it makes the list.

3. Chinese street food, Beijing China, 2013.

Just kidding! I didn't eat any of those, but I did eat another street food called Jianbing, which is like a crepe with eggs and sauce folded in. It was quite delicious and only 2.5 yuan, which is about $0.40. It was also fun to watch them make it.

4. Chinese food again, Dinesty Dumpling House, Vancouver, Canada 2014. This was on our Vancouver to Toronto train trip. Prior to boarding the train we spent a day in Vancouver and ate at this restaurant. Our favorite dishes were pickled cucumbers for Yanmei which she said she hadn't had since she was a kid in China. I liked the onion pancakes.

5. Taiwanese vegetarian meal, Zhinan temple, Taipei, Taiwan, 2015. Somehow as we were exploring, Yanmei found out about a free vegetarian lunch that was offered at the Zhinan temple. That's two of the things she loves best: "vegetarian" and "free".

This was the path to the temple. Once we got there Yanmei had to ask around for where the lunch was. Finally we were directed down a narrow, almost hidden set of steps that I had to crouch to go down. You sat at a large round table with others (mostly elderly Asians) and the dishes were served family style.

It was pretty good, plus there was a beautiful view of the mountains. As is the custom, we made a donation to the temple after the meal.

I'll continue the list in part 2…