Cusco, a westerner's paradise

After four days of humble, homely and, yes, rather bland cooking on Lake Titicaca I was very excited about my arrival in Cusco. With several recommendations from a fellow foodie friend in my pocket I was ready to be a bad tourist once again and embrace all the western cuisine the city had to offer.

First stop: Jack’s Café. This was no.1 on Emma’s list for exactly the same reason it's no.1 on mine; sometimes when you have been on the road for a long time you just want something that reminds you of home. When you are done with llama and alpaca steaks, deep-fried everything and more rice and potatoes than you can shake a fork at, coming across great coffee, an all day breakfast menu and café food to rival Sydney and Melbourne can be a truly restorative experience.

Click to read more ...

Worst of Bolivia

I was quite surprised when I came to narrowing down the best and worst of Bolivia that I actually had more best ofs than worst ofs. This is partly because I am more lenient in the best of category – something has to be really bad to make it to the worst of list – but I think what it really highlights is that the food in Bolivia is not terrible, it is just not terribly exciting.

Many of the meals that didn’t make it to these two posts were perfectly pleasant, but incredibly plain; think unseasoned potatoes, boiled rice, undressed salads, flavourless meats. I have left out the bland and mediocre and narrowed the worst down to ten. Here goes…

Click to read more ...

Best of Bolivia

Bolivia is hardly a gastronomic paradise.

I was there almost a month and towards the end, following upset bowels and a rather horrendous allergy, I have to admit to being a bad tourist – avoiding street food and seeking out Western fare.

Still, I had several good meals worth sharing but I reckon I can get through them quite quickly. I am now in Peru and still have much to say about Argentina so I thought I would whizz through Bolivia in two posts – best and worst of – try to keep up in Peru and then catch up on Argentina when I am back in the UK.

Click to read more ...

BA BA MOO

So I am finally in BA. First impressions are cold but sunny, familiar but intimidating, colourful and vibrant… and from a culinary perspective there are a lot of dead cows.

Dad, are you reading this? For your benefit I am going to risk my life (the Argentines are very passionate about all things Argentinean) and say that BA is not the culinary highlight that you anticipated it would be, well not after Madrid anyway.

Now I have only been here a few days, so it is probably unfair to reach this conclusion so early on, but I am well informed from a gastronomic perspective, both through my Dad’s extensive research into the food here (after months of reading up on all that BA has to offer poor Dad never made it on account of the volcano in Chile) and, more importantly, via recommendations from the locals I have met.

Thanks to Heather, a local who a friend of the family put me in touch with, I have had one exceptionally good steak. Heather took me to her favourite parilla (the Argentine word for steakhouse, which literally means grill), Don Julio, in the Palermo district.

Click to read more ...

Madrid; an unexpected culinary adventure

My next post was supposed to be about steak. And lots of it. You see, I am supposed to be in Buenos Aires, but the volcano in Chile has disrupted my travel plans and I am in Madrid. It turns out this is not such a bad place to be stuck and, hey, it means I can continue with the tapas theme.

Thanks to couch surfing, I have had the fortune of being taken to dinner by some Madrileños. One girl in particular, Maria, has been extremely helpful. She saw my profile on couch surfing and thought that we would probably have a lot in common; we did. She too loves to eat and to talk about food, in fact she kept apologising for talking about nothing else.

“¡Por favor, Maria, es mi sujeto favorito tambien!” ("Please Maria, it is my favourite subject too!")

Click to read more ...