World Flavor

One thing we love to do here on the blog is review things. Over the course of hundreds of posts you’ve read our opinions on restaurants, hotels, cities, and other stuff that I’m not going to bother thinking of right now. Am I lazy? Yes! But that’s besides the point. The point is that today I’m going to talk about the many problems with writing an accurate and useful review with a focus specifically on restaurants.

The first one is varied tastes.

“If you don’t like the same things that I like then the food I recommend will be unpalatable to you.”

For instance if I love turkey sandwiches and you can’t stand turkey, that mouthwatering sandwich I lovingly praise probably isn’t for you. To get around this problem I try to give you enough information to decide on a dish based on your own preferences. When I say something like, “this is an excellent mac and cheese if you like the mushy artificial-tasting kind.” I mean that truthfully without any scorn. That really is a type of mac and cheese and there are plenty of people who really like it that way. Sometimes I’ll recommend foods to people who might not expect to like them, acknowledging the dislike and positing that this food will transcend it. So watch out when I say something like, “Even if you don’t like mushrooms, you should try truffles.” Furthermore, taking this kind of advice is a great way to find new foods that you like.

Another issue in the wide realm of varied tastes is differing thresholds of enjoyment. If I enjoy even mediocre Indian food and you can’t stand anything but the very best, all my opinions on Indian food are going to seem inflated to you. It doesn’t mean that I can’t recognize the difference between good and bad Indian food, pizza, dessert, etc. but in my mind they already have a leg up on the competition. I’ll try to let you know when I have this kind of bias.

Varied Quality Within a Menu

“If a recommend a restaurant it probably just means I’m recommending the one dish I ate there.”

I rarely have the opportunity to try a substantial portion of a menu. For something like Busboys and Poets in Washington DC or Butter is Better in Chiang Mai where my visits easily make it to double digits I’m pretty confident in my suggestions. But going somewhere once? There’s a lot of room for error. To give you some idea, Rachel and I went to a place on Koh Lanta called The Frog. I ordered the vegetarian lasagna and it was some of the best lasagna I’ve eaten in my life. Rachel got the pesto. It was good, but nothing special. It certainly didn’t seem better than many other pesto pastas we’ve gotten on this trip for half the price. So how do I rate such a restaurant? Well, I try to make the extent of my experience clear in my reviews, but I really can’t rate the whole restaurant without more experience. The only thing you can be sure of is that The Frog’s the place to go for wonderful lasagna…

Temporal Differences in Quality

…except you can’t, ignore that last part. Strike it from the record. Even if we assume that we both would find the exact same lasagna equally transcendent (which we can’t!), we can’t be sure that the lasagna doesn’t vary in quality over time. Fruits and vegetables go in and out of season, individual chefs get nights off or quit, ingredients raise or lower in price and get substituted, sometimes it’s just someone’s off day and an assistant throws in too much salt or a waiter brings out your food too slowly. In reality even a dish you’ve had ten times might not be very good on the eleventh. This very thing happened to us at Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Virginia. Rachel and I were some of this place’s number one evangelists. We would go as often as our arteries could handle. Somehow I would always finish eating these massive, juicy burgers feeling energetic and refreshed. And somehow, the final time we went before leaving for Korea, it just wasn’t quite as good. It was still a great burger, but that magic was gone. If a restaurant has a seasonal menu, the dish I recommend might not even be there when you visit. Do not despair! Seasonal menus tend to combat temporal variance by using the best available ingredients instead of bad versions of the same ingredients. So hopefully, a good restaurant with a seasonal menu will be good all year round.

Context Matters

“If I eat some great food after a terrible day, you better believe that’s going to negatively impact my appreciation of it.”

There are so many things that can actually affect taste that are external to the actual ingredients in a dish and I mean it when I say that your perception of the taste, for all practical purposes, is the real taste. There is no taste outside our perception of it. The ambiance, design of the dish, plating of the food, background music, secondhand smoke, noise level, sinus congestion, and any number of other things can all have serious consequences for the flavor. And even if you magically make constant the weather, the dinner companions, your mood, and everything else, different people will react to the same stimulus differently. What I find elegant plating might seem drab and boring to you. Now I’ll admit that usually the ingredients and preparation seem most important, but don’t underestimate context. It’s like the hidden part of the iceberg that makes all the difference to your ship.

So… reviews are useless?

Ack! Wait! That’s the wrong idea entirely. Reviews are like science, there is a lot of room for error, but they are the best method we having for discovering truth. Having an awareness of what errors might exist and an ability to read reviews critically allows you a greater understanding of how much weight to give a particular review based on your individual preferences. On this blog though, I’ll try to do some of the work for you and write with bias problems always in the corner of my mind.

When does food always taste best? When you taste… hungry! During out week in Budapest (pronounced with an -esht) Taste Hungary offered us a discounted (19,000 FT → 5,000 FT/ person) food tour of the city. And if they like truly not very good jokes, they can totally use that one I started with. Seeing as a food tour is just about the number one thing I could possibly want to do at any given moment, we accepted.

We arrive at the Central Market Hall just a few minutes before 10:00 AM. It looks like it could have once been a train station and sure enough, that’s entirely wrong. Instead it has retained its original commercial purpose since it was designed by Samu Pecz in the early 1890′s and it is clearly still a popular spot for locals and tourists alike. Our guide Judit appears flashing a copy of The Food and Wine Lover’s Guide to Hungary as identification. There is a maximum of six people per tour and today is a full one. The other four tourists give us something of a demographic shock. We’re expecting older, richer couples from somewhere close like the UK .What we get are Americans who are about our age. Two of them are even from Northern Virginia like me!

We start the tour on the second floor and Rachel breaks her fast on some Unicum. The other three women in the group partake as well while the other guy and I teetotal totally. This liqueur is often considered a national drink of Hungary and has a strong herb and cinnamon aroma. It is made from a secret recipe of 40 herbs which the Zwack family kept out of Soviet hands when they fled the country. During the socialist regime, a fake, communist Unicum was created. In the 1990′s, the Zwack family was able to return to Hungary and once again begin producing their original formula. This formula, in Rachel’s opinion, tastes kinda gross.

Luckily for Rachel’s alcohol tolerance, we soon move on the a lángos stall. Lángos is the ultimate food for someone who needs some alcohol soaked up. It’s a big piece of fried dough covered in toppings, most often sour cream and cheese. Judit bought two for the group. Unlike the lángos that immigrant Hungarians consume in Transylvania which has a sweet filling, in Hungary the snack is almost always savory.

Moving away from prepared foods and souvenir kitsch, we descend the escalator to the ground floor for an enlightening experience at one of the many overflowing cured meat counters.

We try the mystery sausages one by one. First is a a common Pick brand pork sausage. It’s a pretty good, though not very especially remarkable.

Next we have pork tongue. And seriously, if you like meat and have never had tongue, you’re really missing out. This one tastes much like pot roast.

Thirdly we have a pork liver pate, it reminds me of one of my favorite sandwich ingredients from when I was a kid. I’ve recently come to realize that when I ate braunschweiger in my formative years, I was eating liver (surprise! :O) .

Next comes a pork kolbas. It is intended to be like a sausage you might cure at home so the composite chunks are larger.

Then we try another kolbas. I take a bite and it is vastly superior to the previous one. It’s chewier, aged longer, and more heavily seasoned. “This one’s horse,” says Judit.

Finally, we finish our whirlwind tour of cured pig with a pork salami. Pork became a dominant meat in Hungary during the Turkish occupation. The locals realized that if they farmed a meat that the invaders (as Muslims) wouldn’t eat, it wouldn’t be in danger of being taken.

We are slowly wending our way towards the cheese counter when we come across one of the most unexpected parts of the market. Take a look, before you scroll past the picture, see if you can guess what it is.

If you guessed wild mushroom shop, you’re totally wrong! This little number is a free service provided by the government. People bring in whatever mushrooms they find in the wilderness, and a mycologist tells them whether they’re edible. Apparently these exist in food markets all over Hungary.

Our cheese tasting arrives. First is a fresh springy goat cheese. Next, a smoked, dry, moderately sour cow cheese. And third, a salty, grainy sheep túró. Túró, called quark in English, is ubiquitous in Hungarian cooking. To finish everything off is a much beloved Hungarian sweet, túró rudi which consists of the aforementioned cheese covered in chocolate.

For our last stop in the market, Judit takes us to the basement to view fish, wild game (!), and an admirable array of pickles. Most notable among these is the pickled whole baby watermelon.

And off we go to explore Budapest’s delicious underbelly. First off is a peek at the city’s growing artisan chocolate scene. We have one flavored with tarragon and one with sour cherry pálinka (a fruit brandy).

And so, after hours of eating, it’s time for lunch. This means Belvárosi Disznótoros, a butcher’s shop whose meat counter has been eclipsed by its meal offerings. Our meal consists of a veritable (brown) rainbow of meat. There is (uncured) sausage in paprika, liver, and blood varieties with mustard and horse radish. We have (succulent) duck leg with a sweet red cabbage. Also present are noodles with sour cream, (ever-present) túró, and, of course, bacon. And to round things out there’s a turkey ragu and a variety of pickles. There’s even a free sample of (American style) biscuits made with pork cracklings.

Since we’re all still starving (not true), we head to the venerable Auguszt for a plate full of cakes. As you might expect, we start with a túró cake. We soon move to a very Hungarian apricot poppy cake. The walnut cake is Rachel’s favorite while I prefer the custardy krémes cake. Not to be forgotten are the nutty Esterházy cake with it’s signature design and the Dobos cake which despite it looking like a drum and the name translating to drum, was named after its inventor, József C. Dobos.

Finally, to digest, we head over to what is by all appearances, a mad scientist’s candy store.

And it is soon time for the wine tasting, or for me, the fanciest-lemonade-of-my-life tasting.

Hey! Rachel here. Bear with me, as I am no wine expert but I am learning. Our wine tasting consisted of three different wines. The first was a Tokaji Furmint, a white wine from the Tokaj wine-producing region in northeastern Hungary.

Our final wine, shown above, was a Tokaji Cuvee, a dessert wine made from a blend of Furmint, muscat, and one other varietal that I didn’t quite catch properly. It had a strong sweet scent which reminded me of pear. The flavor, too, was very sweet, and the alcohol content was just 10.5%. I enjoyed it a lot and counted it as my favorite.

The wine tasting reminded me that I should really take a class or read a book about the art of wine appreciation because I don’t know what I’m doing. They did give us a sheet for tasting notes that asked very specific questions which I found very helpful. Now back to Jeff.

So, is it worth the money? If you like food and it can in any way be reasonably fit into your budget, do it! It was one of the Top Highlights of my Trip ®. If you are interesting in eating with Taste Hungary yourself, check out their website.

Disclaimer: As mentioned, we were offered a discount for this tour in exchange for a review. However, we really did enjoy it a whole lot and we are sure you will too! All opinions are our own.

A tasty Caesar salad at Highlands Coffee in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Boat noodles in Bangkok, Thailand.

Homemade macaroni and cheese, made by Rachel.

We may be foodies but we are still new to the world of fancy foods. We're on a budget and we usually can't splurge to go to the very top restaurants of a given city. And until recently, we hadn't had the chance to try a molecular gastronomy restaurant.

Molecular gastronomy, for those who don't know, is a fairly new style of cooking in which chefs use food science to create new and surprising meals. This is the kind of cooking where you have a lot of foams and powders and sometimes things are served under a bowl that's filled with smoke.

Because of the technical skill that goes into creating this type of meal, plus the labor intensive nature of the cooking, molecular gastronomy restaurants are expensive. Their popularity at the moment doesn't help either.

But in Bucharest, Romania, one can find a molecular gastronomy restaurant known as The Artist. It's rated number one on TripAdvisor, and is run by a Dutch chef, Paul Oppenkamp. Best of all, a full tasting menu will run you about $42 per person, excluding drinks. While that's certainly more than we normally like to spend on a meal, it's within reach for a splurge.

So on Tuesday we found ourselves at the Artist, where they for some reason didn't have our reservation but were able to seat us anyway. I had put on my custom-made dress from Thailand and Jeff was wearing his finest jeans and button-down shirt. We had ordered the spoon tasting (one spoonful of each dish) for each course – appetizer, main, and dessert.

The first thing to come out was bread with olive oil and balsamic. Except the olive oil was served in gel form and powder form, and the balsamic rested on the olive oil gel in small round balls. It tasted pretty normal.

Next, we were given a potato truffle soup on the house. The bowl came out with foam in it, and the waiter poured in the soup on top of the foam. It was strongly truffle flavored. I loved it. The thin rounds of crisp bread stuck into a rock were an amusing side item.

Finally we received our appetizer spoon tasting. Laid in front of us were four spoons full of food, a salad, and another soup (again, the bowl was full of foam and the soup went in over it).

The salad, pictured above, was described as a Spring Vegetable Salad. It had: tomato, melon, carrot, baby vegetables and couscous. Jeff thought it was nothing special but I found it refreshing in its normality.

Next was the Sea Trio: smoked salmon, tuna tartar, and green tea cured sturgeon. We liked it alright but it didn't stand out.

Charred Veal Tartar with shallots, asparagus, Romanian white cheese, and spring bean vinaigrette: this was a tough one for me. I don't normally eat veal. Or raw meat. The texture was a little weird. Overall, okay. Jeff liked it a lot better but thought there was too much char flavor.

Quail Egg Sunny Side Up with mushroom and Dutch black truffle cheese: My favorite of the appetizers. The full size version uses a hen's egg, so I thought using a quail egg in the spoon tasting version was a cute touch. Jeff really enjoyed it too.

Seared Diver Scallop with Tahitian Vanilla salt-cured foie gras, red beets, onion confit, and white chocolate foam: another one that gave me trouble. Foie gras is usually on my don't-eat list and I'm not big on scallops either (though I'm warming to them). I began to think that molecular gastronomy may not be best for people with a “thing” about texture. Or dietary restrictions. Jeff quite liked it and said it was very rich.

Baby Spinach Soup with crouton, goat cheese, and sun-dried tomato butter. Both of us loved this one! It was all around great.

That does it for the appetizers! Are you ready for the main course?

Here it is! Five spoons full of mostly meat and one bowl with shrimp, which I'll get to later. My pictures of the individual spoons didn't come out too great, so let's go left to right: 24 Hour Cooked Crispy Pork Belly with pink pepper and soy; Romanian River Trout with tomato and sprouts; New Zealand Lamb Rack with some kind of sauce we're not sure about; Poached Turbot with Iberico Ham and zucchini; Argentinian NY Strip Steak with potatoes, mushroom, and bean. My favorite was either the steak or the pork. I made the mistake with the pork of putting the whole chunk of pork in my mouth at once. I do not recommend this. Jeff's favorite was also the pork.

The other main was the Seared Prawn with Bouillabaise Sauce, caramelized fennel, and a bit of garlic aioli on that little toast piece. I'm still working my way to eating shrimp so I thought it was okay. Jeff liked the prawn itself and the sauce itself, but together they weren't anything special. However, he really liked the presentation of the dish.

Now it was time for dessert.

But first, a mystery. Why on earth were we given a spoon and a pestle as our dessert implements? We puzzled over it until…

…this mortar full of basil, mint, orange zest, and rose petal came out. Do we crush it? The waiter told us to wait.

After a little time, the chef came out with a pitcher of… liquid nitrogen! He poured it on the herbs and instructed us to crush them. He then put a scoop of cucumber sorbet on top and told us to mix everything for the best result. The crushed herbs were rather fragrant and the whole dish was both tasty and extremely fun.

Next came two more dessert spoons. On the left you have chocolate two ways (dark and white) and raspberry two ways. On the right, Romanian pancakes with ice cream and raisin chutney. Both things were very tasty.

And the final dessert dish, which ended up being my favorite dish of the night, was the Mango Parfait with passionfruit meringue, vanilla cream, and freeze-dried mango. Totally divine.

Our bill came to be 283 RON (US $84.88), though we weren't given change so I guess we didn't have to decide how much to tip (tipping in Romania is usually only done if the service is very good, and then you give about 10%). All in all, the meal was tasty and really fun.

If you find yourself in Bucharest, check out the Artist or another fancy restaurant, as you can get a great meal at a very good value compared to elsewhere in Europe!

Have you eaten a molecular gastronomy meal?

Homemade cornbread, made by Jeff.

We really ate well in Turkey. And that’s because Turkish food is one of the most delicious cuisines we’ve encountered. Here are our favorite foods, and where to eat them in Istanbul, or elsewhere in Turkey in some cases.

İskender Kebab

Kebab is a Turkish word simply meaning “roast meat.” In this dish, extra thin strips of lamb (in Turkey known as “meat” as in, “would you like chicken or meat?”) are draped over bite-sized pieces of bread and covered in some rich tomato based sauce and plain yogurt. The first time I tried it, the chef came out with a pot of liquid flavor that I can only assume were meat drippings and poured a generous helping over the entire dish. The best iskender has very thin meat and the bread is crispy.

Where to Find It: İskender was invented in the late 19th century by a man named İskender Efendi in Bursa – the name is actually trademarked by the restaurant he worked at. I didn’t make it to Bursa to eat at the famous Bursa İskender, but luckily you can find good versions elsewhere.

• Istanbul: Kasap Osman, Hocapaşa Sokak 22, near Sirkeci Train Station. This was in the Istanbul Eats book, and we thought it was pretty okay. Had we checked their website, we would have known that there were reports of lower quality here. It was still the best iskender we ate in Istanbul.
• Ankara: Tevhid Et Lokantası, Anafartalar Mehane, Anafartalar Cd No. 10, not far from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. We stumbled upon this place, popular with local businessmen, and had the best iskender of our trip.

Kuru Fasulye

These are basically Turkish baked beans. If baked beans were awesome. It’s beans stewed in a tomato based sauce, sometimes with meat.

Where to Find It: Kuru fasulye originates in the Black Sea region.

• Istanbul: Fasuli Lokantası, various locations (website is in Turkish but has all the locations listed). This one is also in the Istanbul Eats book, but that’s not where we found it. We stumbled upon the Çapa location because it was near our Couchsurfing host’s house.
• Istanbul: Hüsrev Lokantası, Dedeman Is Merkezi, Yıldız Posta Caddesi 48/1, not far from Gayrettepe Station. I found this on Foursquare since it was near where we were staying. While these beans were the most expensive we ever found, at 12 TL a bowl, they were also probably the most delicious. Though Fasuli, above, was very close in quality.

Kumpir

Simply a loaded baked potato, where cheese and butter and mixed into the fluffy potato. The most common toppings are olives, pickles, mayo, and ketchup. Greasy tasty student food.

Where to Find It: Look for it in student areas, mall food courts, and the like. While I didn’t find any especially notable kumpir vendors, I have read that the ones in Ortaköy, Istanbul are the most popular.

Kaymak

Ever have clotted cream? It’s okay if you say no, most people haven’t. It’s richer than almost any food I can think of. It’s like someone concentrated cream and put it in a solid, spreadable form. It is basically the same thing as kaymak. Except where in the US you pay exorbitant prices for for enough to cover the top of one scone, in Turkey it’s a cheap breakfast food that is served in huge slabs covered in honey with (just like everything is served with) an endless basket of bread. It is also sometimes eaten on top of baklava, making it ridiculously rich.

Where to Find It: From our kaymak experiments, we found that the quality doesn’t vary hugely. It’s pretty much always good. But we have a recommendation for you anyway.

• Istanbul: Karaköy Özsüt, Yemişçi Hasan Sokak No 9/11, Karaköy, near the waterfront. Open since 1915, this place serves up a nice plate of bal kaymak (honey and kaymak) for 7.5 TL, pictured above.

Yaprak Sarma

A classic mezze – vine/grape leaves stuffed with seasoned rice.

Where to Find It: Yaprak sarma is, happily, very widely available.

• Istanbul: Çiya Sofrasi, Guneşli Bahçe Sokak No 43, Kadıköy, not far from the ferry docks (within the market area). Now, the thing about Çiya is that they change their offerings often. So I can’t actually promise you that they will have yaprak sarma on their cold mezze bar. However, if they do, it will be the best you eat. And if they don’t, well, I doubt you’ll be sorry that I told you to eat there.

Adana Kebab

When Americans think of kebab, these are probably one of the three things most people think of. There is shish kebab, AKA: chunks of meat on a stick. There is doner kebab, AKA: strips of meat cut from a spinning meat lathe. Then there are Adana and Urfa kebabs which are basically ground lamb combined with spices and grilled on a stick. The only differences between them is that Adana is spicy and Urfa isn’t. Whatever spices they add are like crack. It’s often served with rice and/or bread, peppers and tomatoes, and sometimes with onions.

Where to Find It: Both Adana and Urfa kebabs give away their city of origin in their names. They’re both from southern Turkey. They are also both pretty ubiquitous on kebab joint menus throughout Turkey. We don’t have anywhere particular to point you – perhaps go to a place with lots of people, or that smells good.

What’s your favorite Turkish food?

Grilled corn at the Flower Festival in Chiang Mai.

After a week in overpriced Railay Beach, we were very happy to find better and more reasonably priced food on Ko Lanta. We stayed in Saladan for 6 nights and here is what we discovered.

Catfish

We loved Catfish, and it was really close to our guesthouse in Saladan. They have especially good sandwiches. Just look at that giant club sandwich! And they use real cheddar too. Sandwiches were 70-100 Baht. There’s an attached bookstore and lots of cats napping throughout the place. You can find it on the main road in Saladan at the end near the pier.

Ocean Restaurant

This restaurant and bar is attached to the Ocean Divers shop on the main Saladan road. We were lured in by their claims of amazing burgers on the sign out front. We were not disappointed in our bacon cheddar burgers, which also came with a nice variety of sides (pro tip: put the cole slaw on your burger!). Burgers are 120-150 Baht.

Coffee My House

Also on the main road is a little breakfast and lunch place called Coffee My House. They have a really nice bakery case. Breakfast will be 50-100 Baht.

Street food carts

Over on what I’ll call the beach road (it takes you down to the main beaches on the west coast) there are various street carts. You can get juices, grilled corn, grilled meat, and especially sweet roti (sometimes called Thai pancake). This is a very cheap food option.

Sunday and Tuesday market

Down a little further from Saladan on the beach road, there is a nice local market on Sundays and Tuesdays. Plenty of local delights are available here, though more ingredients for cooking than dishes for immediate consumption.

Pizzeria Italia

Even further from Saladan on the left side of the beach road is Pizzeria Italia, a tasty pizza place with a huge oven. Pizzas are about 200-300 Baht. They are the saucy, cheesy kind on more of a pan-style crust as opposed to Naples-style. We really liked the pizza but we did talk to a girl who thought they were awful. So I’m not sure what you’ll think!

The Frog

The Frog is on the main Saladan road. It has an absolutely lovely back garden and excellent vegetarian lasagna. The pesto was pretty good too. This is definitely not a cheap option.

Black Pearl

Black Pearl’s nacho plate lured me in one day for lunch, and it was quite delicious. Jeff wanted to try the place after my rave review so we went for dinner one night, only to find that the other stuff we ordered wasn’t very good. If you’re craving nachos, splurge on the 280 Baht nacho plate, as it is huge and yummy.

ABCD Bistro

Red Snapper

The owner of ABCD Bistro recommended Red Snapper to us. It’s mainly a tapas place, located on the beach road just past the far end of Long Beach (Phra Ae in Thai) from Saladan. We went with Steph and Tony of 20 Years Hence, who we ran into in a 7/11. The food was great. A great tapas meal for two was about US $20.

As you can see by my pictures, I basically ate all Western food on Ko Lanta. But if you’ve read my recent confession that probably won’t surprise you. Most of these places (indeed, most places on the island) have Thai food too. I did try a Thai dish upon returning to the Black Pearl but I did not enjoy it.

Have you been to Ko Lanta? Got any restaurant recommendations?