Saturday, August 11, 2007
Best travel dining
While not all that much of a gourmand, like anyone else I enjoy eating. My favorite memories of food on the road combine memorable locales with tasty repasts. Here are my top five.
Dessert in St. Maarten
There was a humble and disarmingly charming little French cafe just down the street from our resort with its typically passable buffet fare. All we had was a single plate of something dense with chocolate and a couple of coffees, but with the exquisite presentation it seemed almost a shame to consume it.
location
Tomatoes, basil and mozzarella in Rio
After making the not-to-be-missed sunset visit to Pão de Açúcar, we took the cable car down to look for some grub. There was an establishment right on the beach, but we were scared off by signs which seemed to indicate that it was some kind of military facility. A passing tourist assured us that we could eat there, so we walked in and got a table on the patio. The gibbous moon rising over the water and a miracle of geology looming overhead made it a magical evening. We had a plate of sliced tomatoes topped with slices of mozzarella, basil and olive oil, a dish that helped cure me of a childhood hatred of tomato.
Later, we had pizza on the balcony of a casual restaurant in the Botafogo Praia shopping mall, by nearby Botafogo Beach. It was tasty enough, and the view over the water with Sugarloaf Mountain in the distance was like something out of a dream.
location
Marriott Grand Marquis
Not particularly exotic, but I was quite taken in by the hotel's dizzingly cavernous lobby and the view from the top floor revolving lounge, where I had some cocktail or other.
[Edit]
Midye Dolma in Istanbul
I neglected a favorite memory, more relevant to this post than some fancy hotel. On an early visit to Istanbul, we took a ferry across the Bosphorus and I stepped into Asia. My first act on that continent was to walk up to one of many guys selling stuffed mussels. The pictures in this recipe make my mouth water. These are the ingredients:
large mussels
olive oil
dried onion
rice
dried mint
tomato paste
dill
a sugar cube
salt and pepper
hot water
The vendor would grab a mussel, scissor half of the shell around to serve as a spoon and squeeze a lemon half over the morsel inside. His practiced hand was just efficient enough to keep up with the two of us greedily shoveling bivalves down like candy. When we were finally satisfied, we asked to settle up but the guy had apparently neglected to keep count. We had to tot up the shells in our trash bag to calculate the bill, which in those days was in the millions but worth every lira.
Tossa del Mar hotel balcony lunch
This economical DIY snack from the grocery store across the street was more enjoyable than any expensive meal I've had.
low-res approximate location
Any old beef in Buenos Aires
My standard order at any restaurant is whatever comes in chicken without bones. I made that mistake on our first day in Argentina, but after tasting my wife's lomo, I didn't order anything but beef for the rest of the trip. Wherever we went we got a slab of red meat the size of a boot sole for the equivalent of a few dollars, the meat tasty enough to tempt a vegan.
location of a sidewalk restaurant on the corner of Córdoba and Florida that we happened to visit twice.
Dessert in St. Maarten
There was a humble and disarmingly charming little French cafe just down the street from our resort with its typically passable buffet fare. All we had was a single plate of something dense with chocolate and a couple of coffees, but with the exquisite presentation it seemed almost a shame to consume it.
location
Tomatoes, basil and mozzarella in Rio
After making the not-to-be-missed sunset visit to Pão de Açúcar, we took the cable car down to look for some grub. There was an establishment right on the beach, but we were scared off by signs which seemed to indicate that it was some kind of military facility. A passing tourist assured us that we could eat there, so we walked in and got a table on the patio. The gibbous moon rising over the water and a miracle of geology looming overhead made it a magical evening. We had a plate of sliced tomatoes topped with slices of mozzarella, basil and olive oil, a dish that helped cure me of a childhood hatred of tomato.
Later, we had pizza on the balcony of a casual restaurant in the Botafogo Praia shopping mall, by nearby Botafogo Beach. It was tasty enough, and the view over the water with Sugarloaf Mountain in the distance was like something out of a dream.
location
Not particularly exotic, but I was quite taken in by the hotel's dizzingly cavernous lobby and the view from the top floor revolving lounge, where I had some cocktail or other.
[Edit]
Midye Dolma in Istanbul
I neglected a favorite memory, more relevant to this post than some fancy hotel. On an early visit to Istanbul, we took a ferry across the Bosphorus and I stepped into Asia. My first act on that continent was to walk up to one of many guys selling stuffed mussels. The pictures in this recipe make my mouth water. These are the ingredients:
large mussels
olive oil
dried onion
rice
dried mint
tomato paste
dill
a sugar cube
salt and pepper
hot water
The vendor would grab a mussel, scissor half of the shell around to serve as a spoon and squeeze a lemon half over the morsel inside. His practiced hand was just efficient enough to keep up with the two of us greedily shoveling bivalves down like candy. When we were finally satisfied, we asked to settle up but the guy had apparently neglected to keep count. We had to tot up the shells in our trash bag to calculate the bill, which in those days was in the millions but worth every lira.
Tossa del Mar hotel balcony lunch
This economical DIY snack from the grocery store across the street was more enjoyable than any expensive meal I've had.
low-res approximate location
Any old beef in Buenos Aires
My standard order at any restaurant is whatever comes in chicken without bones. I made that mistake on our first day in Argentina, but after tasting my wife's lomo, I didn't order anything but beef for the rest of the trip. Wherever we went we got a slab of red meat the size of a boot sole for the equivalent of a few dollars, the meat tasty enough to tempt a vegan.
location of a sidewalk restaurant on the corner of Córdoba and Florida that we happened to visit twice.
