Restaurants Archives - Page 17 of 20

Restaurants December 24, 2017

So Much Fried Chicken

I was at the Gukje Market in Busan, a huge street market that sells, among many other things, a variety of street food. Nothing was particularly catching my eye until I saw a restaurant on the outskirts of the market serving up some seriously delicious-looking fried chicken. Korean fried chicken (or, confusingly, KFC for short. I was on a food forum once, and someone was asking where the best KFC could be found in Toronto, and I was thinking “uh… at… KFC…?” until I realized he was talking about Korean fried chicken) is kind of a big deal. So I figured I’d check it out.

Restaurants December 22, 2017

Enormous Dumplings and Chewy Noodles in Busan

A bowl of cold noodles that are so chewy you have to cut through them with scissors before you can eat them probably doesn’t sound all that compelling to you. You’re just going to have to trust me: they’re super delicious.

What about dumplings? Yeah, everyone likes dumplings.

Well, you can get both — and that’s about it — at Choryang Milmyeon, a popular restaurant in Busan.

Restaurants December 21, 2017

Visiting the Biggest Department Store in the World

Did you realize that the biggest department store in the world is in Busan? No? Well it is and I went there, because why not? It’s the biggest in the world.

Restaurants December 18, 2017

Souping it up in Souptown

One of the specialties in Busan is a soup called dwaeji gukbap — pork and rice soup. There’s a whole stretch of road in the Seomyeon area of town that features nothing but one restaurant after another that specializes in the dish, so yeah, it’s a big deal here.

Restaurants December 8, 2017

Post-Wall Duck

I mentioned in a previous post that I wasn’t sure if I’d get a chance to sample Peking duck — given that it involves a whole duck, it’s not exactly a solo-friendly endeavor (though in retrospect, I’m pretty sure I could have polished it off myself if I came hungry and didn’t order anything else).

Once we got back into the city, a few people from the group I went to the Great Wall with decided to go to Siji Minfu for duck. So: problem solved.

Restaurants December 4, 2017

Mystery Noodles are the Best Kind of Noodles

I recently found myself in a food hall of sorts in Beijing, hungry for something a little bit more substantial than the various snacks that most of the vendors were offering up. There was a full fledged restaurant in the back, but the menu was fully Chinese, with no pictures to point at.

There’s an app you can get on your phone called Google Translate, where you can point your camera at something and it’ll translate it on the fly. When I first heard about this, I thought, well, travel has been revolutionized. Then I tried it. It sorta-kinda works, depending on what you point it at, but for some reason when you try it on menus the results tend to be gibberish.

Still, I was desperate enough to give it a shot, and amongst the nonsense was a line that said something about “old noodles.” So I pointed at that and ordered it.

Restaurants December 2, 2017

Mushy, but Good

Thanks to its colonialist history, Surinamese cuisine is quite common in Amsterdam (the history of colonialism is pretty horrifying, but at the very least some good food came out of it. So… glass half full?).

Restaurants November 28, 2017

Crunchy Fried Tubes in Amsterdam

One of the more popular foods in Amsterdam is a version of a croquette called kroket. It’s deep fried, with a very crunchy exterior and a creamy interior with chunks of beef. It’s really good.

Restaurants November 23, 2017

The Line Failed Me

I’ve written before about how I’m powerless to resist a line-up for food. Yes, some restaurants can be over-hyped, but generally speaking if a place is popular enough to generate a long line, the food is probably pretty good.

So I got pretty excited when I saw the line at the Green Bench Cafe, a takeout joint (or “takeaway,” as they call it here) that’s well known for its sandwiches.

Restaurants November 16, 2017

The King of Full Breakfasts

Though both England and Scotland have their versions of the full breakfast, based on the version I had at Matt the Rashers in Dublin, Ireland can’t be beat.