Travel

My Platonic ideal of a fish taco is fresh fish, simply grilled (not breaded or fried), with some salad and lime juice and maybe salsa, but no crema or other dairy-based sauce. When visiting Tulum (a few times 10 years ago, and again in 2017), my favorite fish tacos were at the cheap beach hotel Los Arrecifes: The setting is decidedly low-key– it often feels almost abandoned, without much signage and with one employee (if you’re lucky) working in a kitchen, and a patch of sand covered in campers’ tents… but the tacos were fresh and simple– very different from any number of bars along the Tulum beach that advertise “Tulum’s best fish taco” (but whose focuses are just as much the bar, music, and a place to hang out). ...

One highlight of a spring trip to the Yucatan peninsula was spending a post-cenote-snorkeling afternoon at Chamico’s, a small restaurant on a beach about a 25-minute drive from Tulum: They had great ceviche doused in lime juice and served with vinegar and hot peppers. We sat around a table and ate fish and drank beer and talked… and when at one point I moved to a nearby hammock to doze for a bit, a passing waiter moved a plastic chair next to the hammock to put my michelada within arm’s reach. ...

During much of our late-2015 Mexico City trip I was eating tacos and street food, but we also had some really excellent sit-down restaurant meals. The ones that stand out most are: Pujol We knew from the beginning we’d have to come here for an extended small-bites tasting menu. Looking at my phone, I apparently emailed myself some notes later that evening when back in our B&B because I couldn’t stop thinking about the meal and experience (what a dork!), so I’ll just copy them here: ...

In late 2015 I took a week-long vacation to Mexico City, and spent much of that time eating tacos, tlacoyos, and other food around the city (whether in restaurants or at street stalls). I’d done some initial reading on others’ experiences with the tacos of Mexico city (e.g. Serious Eats 2014, Thrillist 2015, The Mija Chronicles) which gave me a list to start from, and I also spent a day just biking around the city looking for street food carts and taquerias. I can’t claim any deep Mexico City or Mexican culinary expertise as a one-week tourist with very poor Spanish, but I had a great experience and jotted down a lot of notes, for future trips or friends. A year later (when feeling under the weather at home one evening) I’m finally transcribing a few. ...

Looking back on our Buenos Aires trip a year ago (a few days after La Huella), the most memorable lunch was at Don Carlos. After catching a cab across the city, we walked in to what felt like a casual family neighborhood cafe, empty except for two tables of older gentlemen chatting over food. The grey-haired owner strode over to our table and brusquely said in English “You Eat What I Cook?” ...

[ update, April 2021: I visited The Willows many years ago and wrote the below, but disturbing information about the restaurant and chef have come to light. The meal I had there in 2015 was great, and I enjoyed time walking around the parks in the island, foraging for berries, and talking to a local farmer, but now I won’t be going back… https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/dining/blaine-wetzel-willows-inn-lummi-island-abuse.html ] Since reading about Blaine Wetzel at The Willows Inn a few years ago, I’ve always wanted to eat there, but getting to a restaurant on a small island a three hour drive and ferry ride north of Seattle was always logistically tricky. ...

Back in February I visited Big Bend Brewing in Far West Texas (6 hours West of Austin or 3 hours East of El Paso). Only a few years old, they’re already expanding, growing from 30bbl to 90bbl tanks, adding an automated canning line (they only do kegs and cans, not bottles, except for some special releases), with several excellent beers across a range of styles. And they gave one of the best brewery tours I’ve been on (and I’ve been on quite a few)– friendly and scientific, followed by a tasting of every one of their beers. ...

In Iceland, in a cabin on a snowy horse farm half an hour outside a tiny 350-person town on the day after Christmas. The two restaurants in the area were closed. As was the only grocery store we could find. A gas station beckoned– we took it as a challenge. This collection of tins/boxes: Became spaghetti with peas, sardines, tuna, fried onions, and the salmon rub spice pack Alaska Airlines had inexplicably given me as I disembarked and which I’d been carrying ever since. Not bad, actually. With a candle lit with an emergency firestarter and flint (we didn’t have matches) surrounded by bits of lava from the beach. ...

Even beyond The Hot Dog (already mostly lamb), most of what we ate during an epic December trip across Iceland was lamb or arctic char (14 lamb dishes and 13 with char in 12 days)… The trip was more about the icebergs, the lava, and the hot pools than the food, but a few memorable bits: Salted cod and tomato. But, even better, salted cod pizza from the pizza place with no name: ...

Iceland’s most famous food: Mostly-lamb hot dog in a snappy casing, with the pentalogy of condiments: raw onion, deep-fried-and-dried onion, ketchup, pylsusinnep (sweet mustard), and remoulade (mayo, capers, herbs). Legit. I regret I only had two in my time there.

A week and a half ago, I was here. Walk into a flower shop: Head through the back door and down metal stairs: Have a drink: Just one page of the loosely themed menu: One of the best cocktail bars I’ve been to in my life, by far. Every single cocktail was remarkably good, and distinctive– glass jars of eucalyptus, cocktails infused with smoke from the grill, beer and amaro, a cocktail in pieces you combine as you drink… but none of it felt ‘conceptual-cute’ or forced. Really well executed cocktails that happened to have some structure to the presentation. I’m in awe. ...

A flight, complex car rental logistics, and a long drive on highways and pothole-ridden back roads to Jose Ignacio down the coast in Uruguay led to the legendary La Huella just before they closed. Delicious seafood fresh from the grill on a soft-sand beach. Remarkable thin-sliced octopus in oil, grilled squid, potatoes crushed into the grill, buttery-rich mussels, and more. Quite a day.

In Copenhagen earlier this summer as part of the birthday week European tour (see the past week of posts), I took the “Black Gold” licorice tour. It’s not well advertised, and I was the only person to show up, so I felt a bit bad for the tour guide who did a whole two-hour walking tour just for me. It included a lot of education about the history of licorice as a medicine, a “medicine” (tonic/elixir), a sweet, and a savory ingredient. I got to chew on a real licorice twig, eat a number of sweet and salty licorice candies (including many of the traditional licorices made with ammonium chloride salt– a noticeable ammonia/fishy taste which I liked), licorice ice cream, licorice syrups, meringues, intensely salty licorice menthol hard candies popular with sailors, and even a beer brewed with licorice. ...

When I ate at Kiin Kiin earlier in my visit to Copenhagen, the chef/owner(? – sorry, industry friends, for not knowing) stopped by to chat at one point, and asked where else I was eating on my trip. I mentioned Geranium as my other major meal and he was very enthusiastic and excited I was eating there, putting it up with Noma as an elevated nordic food experience. And there I was a few days later, eating things like this (only the center piece is edible– a chocolate egg filled with toffee and rolled in pine dust, nestled in a bed of fragrant evergreen tips): ...

The tail end of my food-oriented birthday trip through Europe involved a 4-day solo jaunt to Copenhagen (for the first time), after finding surprisingly inexpensive flights from Paris. True to my typical solo traveler form, I stayed in an inexpensive hostel, got around by bicycle, spent most of my days outdoors wandering the city and surrounding areas… and also ate several extraordinary (in taste and experience as well as price) meals. ...