Get Even More Visitors To Your Blog, Upgrade To A Business Listing >>

Best Meals Around the World We Ate Last Year

While roaming around the world we make a concerted effort to try the regional specialties of everywhere we travel around. It’s an absolute treat to be able to try locally prepared food with local ingredients in their native land, as they’re intended to be.

We run a weekly series on a Facebook Page to highlight our favorite, most interesting, and most iconic dish that we chow on each week. With 52 #FoodieFridays and many, many more meals in between, we’ve paused to take a look back at the best meals we at around the world last year.

Having eaten our way through over twenty countries in 2018, we’ve decided to only include one dish per country. Otherwise, we fear that this list would be composed almost exclusively of Italian and Mexican cuisine, as those are some of our favorite foods.

But we want to inspire foodie travel ideas from all around the world! If you’re familiar with our style of travel then you already know we like to seek out some of the best values around the globe. So you’ll see that naturally reflected in this recap, with no high-end selections on the list.

Instead, you’ll find price points ranging from $2-$24, demonstrating the affordability of eating well around the world.

We’ve listed these meals in order of when they were eaten (not best to worst). And from South Korea to Mexico, there were many outstanding meals along the journey.

Yet not all locations quite made the cut to our tastes. Singapore’s hawker stalls were fun to peruse, but when eating the citystate’s famed chicken rice, we didn’t quite get the tepid, bland chicken with gelled skin. Pho seems to be all the rage, but while in Vietnam we found the pho was phorgettable (pardon the pun) when put up against the other outstanding soups in the region.

And while we did absolutely adore that Greek salad in Crete and loved London’s fish & chips with mushy peas, it’s difficult for us to say they shined brightly enough to stand out as a best meal of the year.

So what were some of the best meals around the world?

Without further ado, the following are the top 9 that stood out to us most during the past year of roaming.

1) Bibimbap – South Korea

There is a lot of interesting cuisine to eat throughout Korea, which is always served with a side of kimchi (fermented veggies). From Korean barbeque to amazing ginseng chicken soup, we debated among the best Korea has to offer. Yet ultimately we’ve landed on bibimbap as our favorite dish in South Korea and one of the best meals of the year.

Bibimbap consists of a deep bowl of rice that is topped by a variety of vibrant vegetables, beef, and egg to form the five primary colors of Korean food: white, yellow, green, red, and black.

The name bibimbap essentially translates to “mixed rice,” which is exactly what you do once that sizzling bowl hits the table. It’s almost a shame to destroy the carefully constructed presentation. But when mixed, all of the different flavors and textures meld together so nicely.

Bibimbap can be found throughout Korea and there are endless variations and regional versions to the dish. The city of Jeonju is one of the most famous cities for bibimbap and many people travel to this city specifically with the bibimbap as motivation.

Among the different variations, our favorite is dolsol style, which is served in a scalding hot stone bowl that’s been coated with sesame oil. The contents continue to cook as you eat it and the best part is the crispy bits of rice that stick to the bottom of the bowl, which are even more flavorful having soaked up all the delicious toppings that once laid on top.

If you go

Where: 전주 비빔밥 한국집 Han Kook Jib “Korean House” in Jeonju, South Korea

Cost: ₩11,000 (~$10) for a bowl of bibimbap

2) Peking Duck – China

We found the local cuisine in China to be very hit-or-miss for our tastes. Yet when it hit, it hit big. And Peking Duck now goes down as one of our favorite meals of all time.

Beijing Peking Duck is served with flare, as it comes carved by the chef right at your table.

In artful form, he slices through the seasoned roast duck separating the tender succulent meat from the thin crispy skin.

And, really, Peking Duck is all about that crispy skin!

Peking duck is served with many condiments. Those skin pieces are dipped in garlic and granulated sugar. That just seems so wrong, but it ultimately tastes so right.

Meanwhile, it’s traditional to eat the duck meat wrapped in a thin pancake that you top with onion, cucumber, and duck sauce to essentially form a duck taco that you eat by hand. This winning combination is almost as delicious as the crispy skin! Almost.

The Peking Duck meal we had soon after arriving to Beijing was so outstanding, we did something we almost never do while traveling. We went back to the very same place, the very next day, and experienced this deliciousness all over again! It was that good.

Peking duck is not just one of our favorite meals of 2018. It’s one of the top meals eaten during all of our travels.

If you go

Where: 四季民福烤鸭店 (Siji Minfu) Beijing, China

Cost: ¥178 ($26) for a whole Peking Duck (enough for 2 people)

3) Dim Sum – Hong Kong

While roaming around the world we like to eat well, but we don’t splurge too much on pricey restaurants.

So when in the expensive locale of Hong Kong, we were delighted to be able to eat the national food of dim sum at what’s been dubbed the cheapest restaurant in the world to ever be awarded a coveted Michelin star:

Tim Ho Wan.

We waited in line at this renowned eatery to try Hong Kong’s hallmark dish. That’s dim sum! And at Tim Ho Wan it consists of a variety of stuffed buns and dumplings that come served in round steamer trays.

Hong Kong is an expensive city, yet Tim Ho Wan keeps their dumplings affordable, even despite the accolades they receive. A tray of three dumplings at this Michelin-starred starts at a mere $2 USD.

The dim sum here completely lived up to all the hype! The baked BBQ pork buns offered a taste of east-meets-west.

The steamed dumplings packed with vegetables and shrimp had the unexpected crunch of peanuts that worked strangely well.

But our mutual favorite was the mouthwatering, pan-fried pork & veggie dumplings in a chili sauce. Whatever is chosen, we found that it’s all best washed down with pu’erh tea, which was delivered to each table alongside the dim sum feast.

This meal was a testament to the high praise and worth the wait in the long queues this now notorious eatery regularly receives. It’s an awesome travel value to be able to easily afford a Michelin-star meal within one of the priciest cities in the world!

If you go

Where: Tim Ho Wan, Hong Kong

Cost: HK$16-33 (~$2-4) for each dumpling set. You’ll leave stuffed on about $10 per person.

4) Tom Yum – Thailand

During this past year, we made our third, albeit briefest, pass through Thailand. This Southeast Asian nation has definitely remained a favorite food country of ours. So with a week on the ground there, we spent our meals revisiting the dishes we’ve enjoyed most in the past.

We came to Thailand excited to dig our forks into what’s perhaps the most well-known dish, “pad thai.” These flavorful stir-fried rice noodles are served with egg, tofu, and shrimp with accouterments of sprouts, crushed peanuts, chili pepper, and lime to season to taste. And that we do. Bring on the lime and crushed peanuts!

But when we wanted to turn up the heat, we ordered a sizzling Thai red curry. Thailand has so many great curries but our mutual favorite is the red! We like it spicy and find the coconut milk tends to balance out heat nicely.

Pad thai and red curry are fantastic, but we’d have to crown Tom Yum Goong as a favorite meal of the year and our favorite Thai dish.

Tom yum goong is a national dish in Thailand that’s a hot and sour soup that’s packed with flavor. That signature spicy and tangy combo comes primarily from chili pepper and lime juice, and along with lemongrass, lime leaves, galangal, and fish sauce. Tom yum can sometimes be found to include chicken, beef, or pork.

Along coastal Thailand, it’s almost exclusively goong, or shrimp, as the protein. And that’s the only way we can imagine having this lip-smacking soup we enjoy so much.

If you go

Where: Coastal Thailand. We’ve had some of the best at food stalls and casual eateries.

Cost: Expect about ฿100 ($3) for a bowl of Tom Yum Goong that eats like of meal.

5) Southern Indian Seafood – India

We only had one full day in India this past year and so we had to make our meals count. We went roaming around Mangalore in search of the fiery seafood dishes that its known for.

When stumbling across a restaurant that had a long line of locals waiting for a seat, we knew that with such a steady stream of customers, the fish had to be fresh.

Oh, it was. In fact, it tasted as if it had just come off the boat.

But it was the unique and flavorful style of how this seafood was cooked that really wowed us.

We tried the kingfish and prawns that was pan-fried and liberally coated with a concoction of chili, spices, and fresh coconut. A squeeze of lime added a zing to compliment the spiciness that made each bite out-of-this-world delicious!

And don’t even get me started about the prawns. Oh, those prawns!

My mouth is watering just thinking about them. If you’ve ever had bang-bang shrimp or firecracker shrimp, it tasted somewhat similar to that but with way more flavor and more of an Indian flare, of course. They were definitely one of the most amazing things that we put in our mouths last year.

We were so uncomfortably full after clearing both platters, yet those prawns were so damn good that we had a serious conversation about ordering more. If we had stayed in Mangalore for longer, we’d have been back every single day for lunch just to eat those tantalizing prawns again.

And we’d dig right in with our hands. Because that’s how you do when in India.

Actually, as foreigners in India, this restaurant was kind enough to provide us with silverware. But not a single person in the restaurant was using any. In India, it’s traditional to eat with your clean right hand. Even rice covered with “gravy” is eaten by hand.

So we also attempted, not-so-gracefully, to dig right in with our hands. Doing so just added to this amazing food experience in India, as we sat at communal tables, eating off the metal trays and making friends with our tablemates.

For both taste and the experience itself, it’s gone down as one of our most memorable meals of the year and has left us craving further food forays in India.

If you go

Where: Machali Restaurant in Mangalore India

Cost: ₹200 (~$3) gets you an entire seafood meal

6) Fresh Tortellini – Italy

We firmly believe that Italian food is one of the best cuisines in the world. We were in pizza heaven during our month in Italy, of which those floppy pies provided for so many affordable meals that were consistently delicious yet each stood out on their own. From focaccias to lasagnas to risottos, everything Italian was a total delight. And don’t even get me started on the gelato.

Perhaps most fun in Italy was making a few food-inspired pilgrimages.

To travel to the town of Parma for a board of fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano (Parmesan) cheese and prosciutto crudo di Parma was a true gastronomic high of the year.

Yet we never realized just how amazing pasta fresca (fresh pasta) can be until we spent a month eating fresh pasta while roaming around Italy. Nothing in Italy quite compares to the quality and freshness of the homemade pastas you can find in the pasta fresca shops.

We thoroughly enjoyed all sorts of new-to-us shapes and sauces, like the indentations of Genovese “troffie” catching all that deliciously oily pesto sauce.

It was in the food city of Bologna, where we tried smooth tagliatelle, a long flat egg pasta that’s traditional topped here with a meaty “ragù.” But Bologna is not only home to tagliatelle al ragù. It’s also is said to be the birthplace of tortellini.

And it’s the fresh handmade tortellini we devoured in the city of Bologna that has gone down as not only one of the best things we’ve eaten in Italy, but around the world, period. Our favorite tortellini had a simple filling of ricotta cheese and parsley, modestly tossed in a buttery tomato sauce. Sometimes simplicity wins and this was absolutely phenomenal!

Bologna is an interesting city to traveling to on its own merits. Yet it’s worth venturing here to just to spend a few days eating. We dream of returning if for no other reason than to eat those tortellini again, right in its home turf.

If you go

Where: Pasta Fresca Naldi in Bologna, Italy

Cost: €7 ($8) for what we say is the best to-go bowl of tortelloni di ricotta al burro e pomodoro you can get in Italy

7) Fondue – Switzerland

We’ve gotta admit that a big part of our desire to swing into Switzerland for a few days was simply to try a traditional fondue meal while in those gorgeous Alps surroundings.

While spending the night in the town of Leysin, we found a restaurant that had been serving the same fondue menu for the past several decades.

So we gladly mozied in to order the “moitié-moitié” (or half and half). What proceeded was pure cheese bliss.

Local Gruyere and Vacherin cheeses intermingled in a warm fondue pot for a delicious nutty, tangy, salty, creamy punch to our taste buds.

It was every bit as delicious as it was fun to eat.

With each dip of crusty bread into that melty pot of deliciousness, we moaned in delight as we savored each bite.

Washed down with local white wine, the slightly tart, dry, and mineral flavors paired almost too perfectly between each bite of gooey Swiss cheese that is leaving my mouth watering as I now write this.

If you go

Where: La Fromagerie in Leysin, Switzerland

Cost: A 200-gram portion of fondue runs $24 per person and each 100 ml pour of white wine is $4.

8) Lyonnais Cuisine – France

We do enjoy France’s affordable eats, from crepes to croissants. Yet it’s our opinion that some of France’s best cuisine is often financially out-of-reach for many travelers on a budget, like ourselves. Perhaps that’s why we enjoyed ‘

The city of Lyon, France, has a rich and unique culinary tradition that’s even been lauded as the “world capital of gastronomy.”

There’s said to be over a thousand restaurants here. Yet only 24 of them are the certified bouchons that this foodie city is best known for. Bouchons are small bistros that came about in the early 1900’s when large families began to let go of their in-house chefs, who began setting up their own eateries, catering to Lyon’s hungry silk workers.

These bouchons serve very hearty fare in a casual atmosphere. It’s all using fresh regional ingredients and much of the traditional Lyonnaise cuisine relies on rich and heavy dishes. Many such dishes are only for adventurous meat eaters (think: trotters, tripe, sweetbreads, intestine, brain, etc.) It’s a bit adventurous, even for us.

Still, we popped into one of the city’s charming bouchons to partake in this quintessential Lyon dining experience. Thankfully the menu had dishes that were still friendly to newbies to Lyonnaise cuisine.

The celery salad topped with smoked duck was the perfect way to kick off our three-course meal, leaving us hungry and curious for more.

That call was answered with a dish composed of savory ground chicken that was stuffed, oozing full of tangy goat cheese and covered in a zippy tomato sauce. It was all atop a bed of rice pilaf that was there to purposely sop up the messy and bold flavors that dripped from above. It may not look like much, but it tasted phenomenal.

The meal concluded with a lavender-scented crème brûlée that was the best rendition of the dessert we’ve ever had. Although the sweet praline pie we tried wasn’t so bad either and is very traditional to the Lyon area.

Yet any way you slice those desserts, we thought Lyon’s Bouchon cuisine totally rocked.

The meal has even gone down as our favorite in all three trips that we’ve now made to France and certainly one of the best meals we had during the year.

If you go

WhereLe Poêlon d’Or in Lyon, France

Cost: It’s €19 (~$21) for their prix fixe lunch menu.

9) Mexican Food – All of it

Since we spent the bulk of 2018 roaming around Mexico, we got the opportunity to dive deep into the local cuisine venturing far beyond many delicious tacos.

So what was our favorite meal there? After much debate, we’ve decided that was an impossible proclamation to make, from gorditas in Queretaro to enchiladas in Guanajuato.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Mexican-style ceviche we devoured while in warm coastal regions. Yet we really appreciated the warm pozole (soup) while up in the mountaintops of Mexico’s cooler climates.

Perhaps what sticks out to us most during this past year’s trip through Mexico are the regional dishes in the state of Jalisco. While we had traveled through Jalisco once before, it was the first time we lingered long enough to try the local specialties to this state.

From the first bite of a torta ahogada, a pork sandwich drowned with sauce, we were in love. In fact, I spent the next five days straight eating one for lunch every day.

That is, until I discovered slowly simmering pots of “birria” (a tender spice-laden meat stew). Then there’s the Jalisco-style tacos barbacoa, which are dunked into a sauce before being fried up on a griddle.

We bounce between street eats like tacos to finer gastronomic Mexican cuisine and find both to be outstanding in taste and value.

Really, it’s all the bold flavors found in Mexican cooking that’s a big reason why it stands out to us as another one of our favorite cuisines in the world. And it’s a big part of what keeps us coming back for more.

We look forward to eating more Mexican food in 2019 and writing a more detailed guide to where you can find some of our favorite dishes.

The post Best Meals Around the World We Ate Last Year appeared first on Roaming Around the World.



This post first appeared on Roaming Around The World - Travel Blog With Tales, please read the originial post: here

Share the post

Best Meals Around the World We Ate Last Year

×

Subscribe to Roaming Around The World - Travel Blog With Tales

Get updates delivered right to your inbox!

Thank you for your subscription

×