On The Menu | Why you should try pizza in Japan and udon in London, and the benefit of thinking outside the box when you eat overseas
- Some tourists seek out food from home while in a foreign country, others stick to local dishes, but having an open mind can lead to surprising discoveries
- Some of my favourite udon noodles are found in London restaurant Koya, while Pizza Studio Tamaki, in Tokyo, rivals the best pizzas I’ve had in Italy
Trying new (to me) food and drink is truly my favourite part of travelling around the world, though it hasn’t always been that way.
Paris, for many, is a bucket-list destination. I first travelled there as an undergraduate, suffering a nine-hour red-eye journey via MegaBus and ferry, arriving in the early hours of the morning only to miss most of the day passed out in the hotel. By early evening, the winter sun had already long set, and we were starving.
What might have been our first meal in the magical city of lights, you might wonder? A warming beef bourguignon? Coq au vin? Non. For some reason, after wandering the neighbourhood in the oppressive drizzle, we gravitated towards what seemed to be the most welcoming sight for a pair of clueless, young and slightly homesick Asians in a strange new city: a Japanese restaurant.
I don’t even remember most of what we ate, but distinctly remember we’d made a grave mistake – the “miso” soup was pale and insipid, served with a Chinese soup spoon, and had strands of vermicelli floating within.
Much is said about travellers who avoid the local fare in favour of what’s familiar – the archetypical tourists who seek out chain restaurants while on holiday, more interested in the sights than in experiencing the destination through its food.
But on the flip side, I think there’s a lot of potential if you think outside the proverbial box. What if, for example, instead of the appalling Japanese restaurant we ended up eating in, we had stumbled across Kunitoraya near the Palais-Royal?
