One of the greatest pleasures of traveling is eating. Each city and place has a different flavor and a different way of preparing a delicious meal. Even though eating sometimes can be a routine chore or a habit, it also can be an enjoyable social occasion and a work of art, given time to enjoy and, sometimes, enough money to pay the check.

Of course, some meals do have to be fast, so I’ve highlighted my favorite choices for regular food.  And some meals are memorable, but for the wrong reasons. I have a list of those as well.

I’ve also added a new list, combining food and locations. You’ve probably had Chinese food, but Yunnan? Xinxiang? If you love variety, food can be the place!  

And try this list of actual foods from a Chinese restaurant. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t copied them from the menu myself. 

Top Eating

I’ve had the chance to enjoy many meals, but a few top the list. They were extraordinary and memorable in some way, and I would enjoy any of them again anytime if I had the chance. If you are lucky, you may also get a chance to share some of these excellent dining experiences.

St Louis: Tony’s. We celebrated the award of Leslie’s doctorate degree there and it was wonderful. At Tony’s, the food is wonderful, but the service is unequalled in my experience. Some come close but I’ve never seen such attentiveness. Abby wanted to try dropping her napkin or silverware to see if a waiter would catch it before it hit the ground. When she rose from her chair, I think 5 well-attired young men were at her side to assist her within milliseconds. (Of course, that may have something to do with my daughter’s good looks too!). The food was terrific as well -- I had osso bucco, and for the first (and only) time I found out how to use a marrow spoon. I hadn’t even known there was such a thing! 

Singapore: Doc Cheng’s I like a lot of things about Doc Cheng’s -- the location (in the Raffles Hotel), the humorous and creative menu, the ambiance of the place, including the combination hashi/fork and hashi/spoon silverware, and most importantly the food! I’ve never seen so many creative combinations of ingredients. I also learned that I like a well-prepared dacquiri. Who said a little knowledge is a dangerous thing? They were right about dacquiris. 

Singapore: Jade One place that stunned me the first time I visited was Jade in Singapore. It’s a nouvelle Chinese restaurant for lack of a better description. The restaurant is in an old, old post office that has been converted into a wonderful hotel -- well, I haven’t stayed there but the lobby is gorgeous. The restaurant staff is friendly, knowledgeable and helpful -- what more can one ask for? Again here the tableware is unique and wonderful, particularly the green-dragon on royal-gold chargers that start the meal. The flavors of the food are of a mind-boggling complexity -- spicy, sweet, smooth, crunchy, pungent, all blending together into delightful creations that really have to be eaten to be fully appreciated. They take their inspiration from more traditional Chinese fare but bring it up to a new level. Unbelieveable. More expensive than most places in Singapore but worth it.

Tokyo: Inakaya Our family loves this place. It’s a robatayaki restaurant, which means that the customers sit at a low counter surrounding a grill, behind which sits a Japanese chef dressed in traditional Japanese style. In front of the grill is an array of gorgeous fresh vegetables, seafood, and meat. You simply ask the chef (or point, depending on your Japanese) for what you want, they grab it, grill it, and hand it to you on the end of long wooden paddles -- and I mean long -- 6 foot or more. The food is seasoned simply -- butter for the roasted potatoes, lemon juice for the salted asparagus and the okra, miso sauce for the beef. The potatoes, asparagus, and okra are absolutely the best I’ve ever had anywhere in the world; they are kampeki -- perfect, in Japanese. This restaurant will set you back a hundred dollars per person in expensive Tokyo, but it’s darn well worth it for a terrific food experience.

New Orleans: Commander’s Palace. I’ve been there three or four times and it’s always terrific. What I remember the most are two things: chocolate Sheba, which is a mind-melting dense sweet smooth chocolate dessert with perhaps a vanilla sauce on top, and the swooping service where a dozen waiters arrive at your table all at once with all your food, wonderfully presented.

New Orleans: Galatoire’s Galatoire’s is not fancy, not trendy, just exquisite in food. The decor of the long, mostly black and white room is plain, with mirrors around to make it look bigger than it actually is. The waiters are veterans of their trade, as are their black and white traditional outfits. The menu is mostly seafood, and it’s a simple menu at that. But the food is wonderful, simply flavored, traditional in presentation, ample in size but not so much as to make you sag on the trip home. It’s the opposite of a new-age theme restaurant -- kind of like Beethoven compared to the Beach Boys. And I really like Beethoven. 

Mobile, Alabama: The Oyster place, I have to find the name of it! 

Tokyo: Okura Hotel Wow, I had heard of Kobe beef but had my first chance to try it here. The Okura Hotel has a teppan-yaki restaurant, but a conservative, traditional approach in contrast to the show you might get at a popular Benihana’s. The prices are a bit outrageous, but for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, what’s a little money? Anyway, now that I’ve lived in Tokyo for a while, it’s not so bad. But the beef, that’s the ticket. Again, a simple presentation -- the chef prepares your cut of beef in front of you on the grill, meticulously caring for it, seasoning it, turning it, and cutting it diagonally into strips just before putting it on your plate. Is it fatty? Well, I suppose it is, though “well-marbled” is probably more accurate. The fat is intricately bound into the whole slice of meat, not along one side as again you might expect in the US. But the flavor? Unbelieveable. The meat melts in your mouth, without a hint of gristle. It’s like eating beef-flavored butter, perfectly seasoned. I’m sure I had some other food to go with it, but the meat is what stands out in my mind. After dinner you can retire to the “dessert lounge” -- yes, an entirely separate room with a new table and all -- for some ice cream with strawberries and a cup of coffee or tea or whatever you prefer. Not an experience for a person in a hurry, but something to be enjoyed, savored, and remembered. 

Salzburg: Unknown Pub Just driving along in Austria on a road near the Salzburg airport, we stopped at a local eating place. I have no idea now what the name of the place was, but someday I’ll get back and see if I can find it. I ordered Sole Florentine, and I remember it as being one of the best meals I’ve ever had. It was just a local place, nothing fancy, but had the mid-European homestyle ambiance of a popular local establishment. We of course has the local wine and beer -- that’s one of the most enjoyable things in Europe of course, eating the local food with the local favorite drinks. 

Bangalore: Someone gave me the name and I wrote it down, but now I can’t find it. It was a wonderful South Indian seafood restaurant with wonderful curries of several types, as well as a variety of breads that I didn’t even know existed. 

Tokyo: Kubakan. Leslie and I went there on Friday evening in May 2003. She had the tastes menu and I made up my own tastes menu. The food was fabulous. They specialize in creative international cooking, featuring a variety of smaller portions with flavorful sauces of many types. The service was wonderful, and in fact the entire staff seemed fluent in English, which is not at all common in Tokyo. They have a choice of over 50 different kinds of champagnes, which is great fun for champagne lovers like us. The highlights for us were the duck empanada, the scallops and ikura, the steak in a wonderful fruit sauce, the morels -- well, just about everything. A terrific restaurant, even by Tokyo’s high standards.  Updated 2004: And wouldn’t you know it, now it isn’t there anymore. What a shame. 

Tokyo: ___ Kitchen. For those of you who are Tokyoites, it’s not the one near Ebisu, it’s the new one near Nishi Azabu. No problem with the one near Ebisu either, it is one of our favorites! But this was the first I’ve heard of this concept, and it is something I will have to try again. The chef offered a list of ingredients, from which Leslie and I selected a set of ingredients that we linked, or didn’t like. From that simple premise, the chef took our selections and created a customized meal.  Each selection was lovely, well presented, and tasted great. How a chef can come up with an individualized meal out of just ingredients, well, it is beyond my understanding. Lots of fun. 

Tokyo: monjyaki. It’s not too difficult to find okonomyaki in Japan, which is monjyaki’s more famous cousin of a “pancake” of batter, vegetables, noodles, and usually a seafood ingredient. Monjyaki, however, is a cook-it-yourself experience. You get the bowl of raw ingredients, a hot grill for your table, and a small paddle/scraper to keep your ingredients in a pancake shape and to serve yourself as you are done. Add your own teriyaki sauce, perhaps some herbs or mayonnaise, and you’ve got a wonderful meal. Pretty cheap too, for Tokyo, and talk about local atmosphere! There is one neighborhood in Tokyo that is famous for monjya, and non-Japanese are unlikely to find it. Ask a Japanese friend and have fun. 

Montpellier, France: L’Ollivier. Frommer’s guide recommended L’Ollivier. What a fabulous recommendation. L’Ollivier is in central Montpellier, about 20 kilometers from the Mediterranean coast. L’Ollivier serves local French cuisine in a small restaurant that seats only about 20 people. My IBM colleague and I lucked out one rainy night and walked in without a reservation. I had a lovely mint “gazpacho” soup, a wonderful risotto with langostinos, and whitefish St. Pierre for the main course. The whitefish was served with this amazingly delicious serving of white beans. I asked about the beans, they came from Bretangne I believe, and the had a light sauce with a flavor that was divine -- a hint of citrus, perhaps a small swirl of olive oil, and some herb which was grown in the chef’s garden whose name I was not able to catch. The best beans I’ve ever had, or even imagined. Dinner closed with a creme brulee that was fantastic, served with a side of peach sorbet that just exploded with peach flavor. What a delightful meal. September 2005.

Routine Eating

Not every meal can be a wonderful two hour dining experience. Some meals have to be quick, and some just have to fill one’s belly for the time being. However, there are fun ways to eat fast, and there are terrible ways to eat fast (McDonald’s is, in my opinion, the consistently worst place to eat fast. Even though sometimes I have to give in to a sinful craving for a Mac with fries.). 

Kaitensushi in Tokyo: There are fabulous and expensive sushi places all over Tokyo. However, for very good sushi at a great value, nothing beats your local kaitensushi place. Kaiten means something like “goes around in a circle” which is exactly what your food does -- each serving of sushi is on an individual plate which rides around the restaurant on a conveyor belt. You simply take a plate that looks good and eat! For speed, flavor, and fun, nothing beats it. If you have a little more time, you can usually ask the chef for something that you don’t see right away, so there’s plenty of choice (well, if you like raw fish on rice that is!). When you’re done, just wave at the serving staff and they’ll count your plates and give you the bill -- the plates are color-coded by price. What a great idea. Other cities now are catching on -- I’ve eaten at kaiten-sushi at two places in Singapore and I hear there might be some places in the US now also. 

Taco Bell in the US: A controversial choice perhaps, since Taco Bell lands on the far side of the spectrum from, say, Commander’s Palace or Tony’s. But for fast and cheap, there’s nothing better for me in the States. Their food is flavorful, they have Mountain Dew (another controversial choice I suppose for an “adult” beverage), and it is consistently filling without swimming in grease. A personal favorite of mine.

Note: I’ll have to forego the Mountain Dew for now -- I’ve decided that the extra 100,000 annual calories of Mountain Dew and M&M’s aren’t so good for my aging physique. It’s a shame, really. Diet MD just ain’t the same thing. 

I could not omit Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese icing at MCL Cafeterias in Indiana. 

The Hash Brown Casserole at Cracker Barrel is definitely a keeper. Wish I had the recipe. 

Terrible Eating

Along with the aforementioned McDonald’s, there are some specific places that make an appearance in my personal Hall of Shame

Kentucky Fried Chicken in Ogallala, Nebraska. I swear the cook had tuberculosis. The floor hadn’t been cleaned since perhaps 1983, the tables more recently, maybe sometime in the early 90’s. The flies bit. The honey packets stuck to everything. The server was out back smoking before taking our order, hawking while she slowly assembled our plates. Why did we eat there? Desperation. Never again.

International House of Pancakes near Lewisville, TX. Don’t spill eggs on children while my mother is around. Also, it’s suggested that if you put one plate on top of another, the butter on the bottom plate might stick to the top plate. After that, it might stick to the server’s sleeve. Plus, can you get the eggs to the table while we are still eating? And no, I don’t care to take fried eggs home in a doggy box.