25 Unforgettable Food Experiences People Have Had While Traveling Abroad
"After that flavor experience, I started trying anything and everything."
One of the most exciting parts about traveling is trying new flavors and dishes from around the world. So redditor u/rakahr11 asked "what revelations did you experience regarding food during your travels? Give me your food stories and fav dishes!"
1. "In Vienna, a schnitzel has to be larger than the plate."
2. "Some of the nicest French meals I have had have been in Japan."
3. "The one dish I still think about sometimes is Khao Soi. I ate it first in Chiang Mai and would hop on a flight to Thailand right now to have it again."
4. "Singapore by far has the best food I have ever had, from gourmet dining to the amazingly cheap hawker markets."
"Any time I go to Southeast Asia, I try to go to Singapore for a few days just to eat." —u/AdlfHtlersFrznBrain
5. "The best pizza of my life was in Japan."
6. "Pasteis de Nata from Manteigaria in Lisbon. It's better than the one from the famous Belém, IMO."
7. "Living in San Diego, I started going to Tijuana with a friend and her coworkers, and they took us to a taco shop where my life was legit changed by adobada tacos."
8. "I went to India and it made me go vegetarian."
"I had been considering trying to go vegetarian for a while. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, though, because I’d been brought up on meat and ate it every day. Went to India for a month and, because it was harder to find meat to eat there anyway, decided to go veggie....Been vegetarian ever since. That was five years ago." —u/malfie44
9. "In El Salvador, we had pupusas, which are corn tortillas (or rice tortillas) stuffed with cheese, pork, and cheese or black beans."
10. "That mayonnaise on fries is delicious and that American mayonnaise is totally wrong."
11. "Authentic Vietnamese pho."
12. "I was prepared to find sardines in Portugal overrated but was instantly in love."
"My favorite kind of meal was having them grilled at a seaside cafe. They were juicy, extremely flavorful, smoky, and I couldn't get enough. They were also bigger than any fresh sardine I've seen in the US. Somehow, the €9 plate there was so much better than what we were served at the fancy restaurant the night before." —u/tinyorangealligator
13. "Arancini. I'm European, but I never discovered them until visiting Sicily. Damn those things are addictive."
14. "One of my top meals from international travel was eating fresh kabobs with chicken, peppers, and onions and giant pita bread from a food stand behind the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul."
15. "Brazilian street food."
16. "In China, we took an overnight Great Wall tour and our guide took us to this tiny hot pot spot right near the wall, close to the Mongolian border. We picked out the trout we ate straight from a pond."
17. "Hokkaido, Japan ruined me for most other raw seafood for the rest of my life."
18. "Liège waffles changed my life when I visited Brussels."
"Now I make them once a year as a special treat, since it takes so much preparation time. Mine still aren't as good as what you find in the streets of Brussels." —Phctawtekcop
19. "About 15 years ago, my husband and I went to Barcelona. To this day, I still eat pan con tomate for breakfast."
20. "Traveling to Tokyo before the stateside ramen boom and learning that ramen isn't just a poor college kid's food, but an addictive variety of broths and noodles."
21. "Best hot dog in the world is in Iceland, and it's much cheaper than most other food there."
22. "Uzbekistan and Georgia are my two favorite countries for food. Try an Uzbek samsa, not to be confused with the similar but different samosa."
"It's a savory beef or lamb-filled pastry, typically made with onions and cooked on the inside wall of a tandoor. The soft, juicy pastry is perfect for a quick bite on the go." —u/IAMA_Nomad
23. "The cheapest food is often the best. Noodles on a plastic table in Thailand, grilled fish over coals in a Cebu open air market, hawker stalls in Singapore, yakitori in Japan or pepper crab in Singapore."
24. "I've never been a big breakfast person, but traveling a bit in Asia, I discovered it's common in some regions to have a spicy savory noodle soup in the morning, which I found more appetizing than traditional western breakfasts."
25. "I learned that China has some of the best street food and authentic Chinese food is a completely different experience than westernized Chinese food."
