Firstly, this is a matter of taste which is highly subjective. I like all kinds of foods/cuisines - healthy, spicy, even weird (I ate fried spiders in cambodia). My top 3 food rankings:
1. Japan
I traveled from Tokyo to Hokkaido and couldn’t stop eating the whole time. Seafood was fresh. Pastries and ice-cream in Hokkaido were fantastic. the beef (wagyu) was out of this world. The only thing I remember tasting bad was sushi from a dodgy conveyor belt restaurant at Shinjuku.
Dinner served to our room. The melon was incredibly sweet. Out of this world.
sashimi-don at the old Tsukiji market
2. Thailand
I overeat whenever I’m in Thailand because the foods are tasty and affordable. Salt-baked fish, BBQ chicken, papaya salad, beef noodles…I like the fish-sauce taste in Thai cuisine.
3. Korea
I liked how every meal comes with “ban-chan” - an assortment of kimchi and vegetable side dishes. Korean grill was great. I had makkgeoli with every meal. Tried the octopus sushi, the one where the tentacles are still moving when its served to you.
Seafood was fresh. If you don’t like spicy food and stews, you might not enjoy Korean cuisine because it seems to me that 50 - 60% of the cuisine has bean-paste /red pepper flake type of spice in it.
My very first meal in Korea at Seoul train station. Really spicy stews
Other countries outside of my top 3:
Australia: Beef ribs, and pork ribs. Ramen at Bondi, Sydney was fantastic. You can taste the freshness of the produce at supermarts like Coles and Woolsworth. There’s a well-established coffee culture here.
Vietnam: Vietnamese coffee and pho. Vietnamese food was really good. It would have been in my top 3 but I havent been back there for a long time.
Laos: Lao-tian sticky rice (the food is quite similar to Thailand)
Cambodia: Cambodian rice was tasty for some reason. Locals take pride that their rice are all organically grown
Beautiful padi fields in Cambodia
Village kitchen
Taiwan: there were really tasty foods - mee sua, fried chicken cutlet etc, but I found most of the foods too be too bland for me.
Indonesia / Malaysia: the cuisine is similar but Indonesia has greater variety. Everything is spicy “pedas” or overly sweet.
Bebek (duck) goreng and bandung… my meal in Bandung, Indonesia
France: Bread and pastries
Belgium: Beers
Amsterdam: Sweet pastries.
Pan-cakes and chilling in the sun somewhere in the Netherlands.
I enjoyed wine, beer, bread and cheeses in Europe but it was boring compared to Asia. To be fair, I didn’t eat at the restaurants much and there isn’t a street-food scene there, so I’m hoping I can go back there again.
Picture Source Wikipedia
Thanks for Reading
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