Let's talk about food

I live to eat. Who doesn't?

When you're on the road, (quite possibly) broke and starving, looking for a decent meal can either be a pleasure or drive you crazy. Meals always become more memorable when you're away, so this is a list of the worst and best stuff I've eaten on my travels:

1- Worst meal ever: 
Spaghetti bolognaise at a cafe in Rome. Not home-cooked but one of those processed instant meals sold in microwavable containers. Not only was it expensive and over-heated, it tasted absolutely foul and the waiter didn't even have the decency to serve it on a plate- it was left in its plastic container.

2- Best meals:

There've been so many so this is a long list:

- bagels and pumpkin soup in Christchurch, New Zealand, in winter

- chicken briyani at the Everest Club in Hong Kong- after pots and pots of instant noodles, this was the most amazing meal I'd had in days

- roast lamb in Dunedin, New Zealand - how can you NOT eat lamb in NZ?

- chettinad meen varuval (spicy fried fish) in Chennai, India

- the most juicy, succulent burgers ever at a roadside cafe in Sausalito, California, USA

- tuna kimchee noodles in Seoul, South Korea, at a restaurant in the Posco Building

3- Most memorable (for the right reasons): 

a) fried rice at a Thai restaurant in Christchurch: it was winter, I was starving and was dying for some rice. I found this little Thai place near my hostel by accident and I asked the lady to make the fried rice really hot. She said, 'White man hot or Asian hot?' and I said, 'Asian extra hot', and she laughed and went into the kitchen. The nasi goreng cili padi (chili fried rice) that she brought out ten minutes later was amazing.

b) dinner at the Muslim quarter, Xi'an, China: once again, it was winter. Sat by a roadside restaurant, ordered some shashlik (lamb kebabs) nd got chatted up by one of the guys working there. His English was bad and my Mandarin was crappy so I used my phrasebook most of the time. He ended up taking me on a tour of the city.

c) dinner at the Dead Fish Bar, Siem Reap. The green curry is excellent!

d) Ice-cream in Venice, Italy: we'd been walking for hours around the city, looking for this elusive gelato parlour which apparently had the best ice-cream in Venice. Just when I was ready to push my travel companion into the canal out of frustration, we turned a corner and there it was, this famous ice-cream place. We each ordered TEN scoops of various flavours, found a nice spot by the canal and finished our ice-cream in silence.

4- Most memorable (for the wrong reasons): 

Indomie (instant noodles) in Greymouth, New Zealand, about seven years ago: I'd booked into the Hairy Lemon Backpackers the night before (don't EVER stay there by the way, it's the worst place I've ever stayed at) and to my surprise, found Indomie at a convenience store. I bought the noodles immediately and dashed back to the Hairy Lemon.

I was stupid enough to book myself into a place which had a kitchen that was absolutely filthy, with a kettle that had rat droppings inside it, and because I was really really stupid, was too lazy to find another hotel. So what did I do? I went upstairs, avoided the chap at the stairs who was staring at me, went to my room and put the noodles into a bowl. I then filled the bowl with water and put the bowl, noodles and all, on top of the heater and waited for the water to get hot, in order to cook the aforementioned noodles.

I waited. And waited. And waited.

OF COURSE the water didn't boil, so what did I do? It was dark outside, there were strange men hanging around the lobby and I was starving. So I ate the noodles just like that, soaked in cold water. Dinner was eaten in silence.

I said goodbye to the Hairy Lemon and its scary kitchen and left Greymouth first thing in the morning.