Vietnamese cuisine has won me over completely. It was the main reason why I did this month-long trip, to really delve into the cuisine and come up with the best and most insightful food guides, starting with Hanoi.
I went on a few organized tours in Vietnam, including a motorbike tour in Saigon which I thought was pretty different from anything I had done to that point, until this shiny red Citroen 2CV pulled up in front of our hotel.
Most of the time, we visit wet markets during the day but thanks to A Chef’s Tour, I got to experience one of Hanoi’s biggest markets at the crack of dawn, when it’s at its liveliest. The difference in market activity between 5AM and 11AM is literally like night and day.
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.
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.
This tiny island nation no bigger than New York City is one of our favorite destinations for food. From its myriad hawker centers and heritage stalls to its Michelin-starred fine dining restaurants, there is so much good food to be had in Singapore.
When you think of countries with the best food, Thailand is one of the first places that comes to mind. Street food in Bangkok is …
Like many of its neighboring countries, there’s a clear Indian and Chinese influence to Burmese cuisine. There seem to be strong regional identities as well. Wikipedia’s list of Burmese dishes points to several dishes that are Shan-, Kachin-, or Rakhine-influenced, all of which are administrative regions within Myanmar.