Food in Asia

Hong Kong is a gastronomic city in every way, offering a range of experiences from fine dining to street food, a lot of it at a very high level.

This Hong Kong food tour takes you to key spots in Kowloon like Mongkok and Sham Shui Po to give you the most authentic examples of Cantonese cuisine. There are no touristy stops on this tour. Each place has a long history and many of them are known only to locals.

Tom yum goong is a hot and sour shrimp soup generally touted as the dish that defines Thai cuisine. It’s derived from the Thai words “tom,” which refers to the boiling process, “yam,” a Thai spicy and sour salad, and “goong” for shrimp.

Phuket was once a port of call, routinely seeing traders from China, India, Malaysia, Persia, Arabia, Indonesia, and Portugal. Each of these traders brought with them spices, recipes, and cooking techniques that helped shape Phuket’s cuisine.

Soto is a traditional Indonesian soup made with different types of meat and vegetables. It’s consumed throughout Indonesia in many forms, its myriad variations named after the region where it’s from or the primary ingredient used.

Whenever we visit a new city, we try to experience as much of the local cuisine as we can. We rarely go to restaurants that serve non-local food so if that means having to ignore a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok in spite of its great reviews, then so be it. But Bali is different.

Based on what I’ve read, Bandung doesn’t have as strong a culinary identity. Most of their food is Sundanese in origin and they aren’t known for any particular dishes. With that said, they have become famous for giving dishes that originated in other parts of the country a unique Bandung twist.

Locavore is a modern European-Indonesian restaurant located in Ubud, Bali. As its name suggests, they’re all about using local products. About 95% of their ingredients are sourced from within the country, from the Balinese Kintamani coffee and hand-crafted sea salt to the pickled seaweed from Lombok to the beef short ribs from Malang, Java.

Nationalistic in his cooking approach, Chef Navarra is known for his playful and inventive takes on classic Filipino dishes like lugaw (rice porridge), relyenong pusit (stuffed squid), and pork bbq. His presentation may be contemporary but the dishes themselves – and ingredients used – are staunchly Filipino.

Singapore may be small, but it isn’t lacking in great food. Inch for inch, it’s one of the most delicious destinations we’ve been to so far. It’s defined by a wide spectrum of food choices ranging from cheap but legendary hawker stall meals to trendy envelope-pushing dining concepts.