Find the best eateries on your next trip

Written by Femina
Posted on Feb 3, 2014, 12:55 IST
Follow On

 

KALYAN KARMAKAR

If you’re chasing aloo gobi in London, or are surrounded by Mumbaikars and Delhiites in a popular biryani joint in Hyderabad, you’re on the wrong track. Food blogger Kalyan Karmakar of Finelychopped.net tells you how to savour real local flavour.

femina

One of the biggest challenges any traveller faces is how to eat well in a strange, unfamiliar country. How can you learn local culinary secrets? What are the best places to eat? What should you order? How do you ensure you don’t leave without trying out the best food that the city has to offer?

It would be ideal to have a local take you around and show you where and what to eat. You could hope for a stroke of luck, that a friendly local finds you. Or you can find your own way around. Here are five simple rules to help you if you decide to do that.

#1 Go where the locals go

At my hotel in Penang, Malaysia, I asked the staff to point me to places where they would go to eat themselves. A gentleman called Hanif happened to hear me, and offered to take me around.

Thanks to him I discovered the magical world of nasi kandar. This is the local Malaysian curry and rice (nasi)-based cuisine, which was brought to Malaysia by ‘Mamaks’ or Indian immigrants.

He suggested a pigeon curry, which was delightful, and then a soya sauce-based ‘Indian’ dish called ayam nigar which was delicious followed was an afternoon of letting my guard down. Egged on by Hanif, I tried durian—a fruit that is feared for its noxious odour. That afternoon, as I took in creamy bites of durian (with my nose covered), I discovered why people in the archipelago are crazy about the heady taste of this fresh fruit.

KALYAN KARMAKARfemina

#2 Tweet before you eat
Twitter is a great place for good food tips. For instance, when I was headed to Hyderabad, I tweeted, “Going to Hyderabad and want to check out the biryani. Is there more to it than Paradise?” By the time my flight landed in Hyderabad, I was flooded with tweets from locals who said adise was for tourists.

Thanks to them, I went to Paradise and Cafe Bahar, and then to Shadab in the old city. All of them had wonderful renditions of the Hyderabadi biryani. Then there was that wet evening in London’s Soho, far from Shadab. With nothing to do, I sat at Starbucks, using the WiFi to tweet about my lack of plans and of my quest for a dinner option. Robin Majumdar, one of the earliest food bloggers in London, and a friend, retweeted my tweet. The responses to his tweet led me to Bone Daddies and an ethereal pork belly ramen soup which warmed thecockles of my heart.

#3 Take a food walk
The New York Times recently referred to city insiders who conduct food walks as ‘food sherpas’. In Seville, Spain, we met Shawn Henessey, whom we began interacting with even before we landed there. She sent us to a quaint inn called Las Theresas, which was devoid of tourists. Luckily, she texted us the names of dishes we should order, since the owners didn’t speak English. She later took us on a tapas tour, which covered a variety of places. Her suggestions on what to order were peppered with stories of families who ran the restaurants.

KALYAN KARMAKARfemina

#4 Keep your eyes open
Sometimes it helps not to plan a trip down to every meal. There is a lot to be discovered by just ambling around and keeping your eyes open. While returning from the Matterhorn ski ramp at Zermatt in Switzerland, we decided to walk the last level down instead of taking the lift. We stumbled upon a village fair, and there were some food stalls as well. We decided to follow the crowd and tried out some amazing sausages. We then went to another stall where someone put a slice of cheese into a grill and then served the crisp slice with gherkins. That was our first introduction to the world of raclettes. I realised that day that there was more to Swiss cheese than fondues.

#5 Write a food blog
There are no substitutes to building your own food social network. My food blog, for instance,helped me explore Melbourne. I had just landed in the city and switched on my phone, when I saw a Facebook message from Kunal Dhume, a chef in Melbourne. Thanks to him, I discovered the world of Irish pubs in Melbourne and then a quaint Chinese place called Supper Inn and the Vietnamese settlement of Footscray, with their ephemeral rice spring rolls and hot pots of pho.

Then there was Carmen in Barcelona, whom I connected with through my blog. She tweeted suggesting that we meet. The next evening, Carmen, joined by her father who was visiting from out of town, took me to a delightful tapas bar called La Plata, which had just four dishes on offer and was packed with diners.
Those are my rules. Explore. Seek hosts. Tap social media. Let your guard down. When you step out of your comfort zone, you will eat well.

 

Next Story