File this under „the question no-one’s ever asked us“, but hey Taste of Prague, what’s the five favorite meals on your travels around the world? Hey, if you haven’t noticed, it’s been a really slow year for us, the tourism industry in general, and Prague restaurants, so this is high time we tear up a bit as we recall that thing we used to call… what was it again… travel?
Anyway, consider this inspiration for your own travels when this whole thing blows over. So here we go, Zuzi’s and Jan’s five favorite bites around the world.
Zuzi’s Top Five Meals around the World
What a difficult question! We’ve had so much great food around the world, there must be something extra to the food to make it in my top five. If this was only about food, the list would be endless. Anyway, here we go:
1 - Jek Pui Curry Rice, Bangkok
I still recall this whenever Bangkok is mentioned. One day in Bangkok, we decided to focus on street food. We googled it and made a list and walked from one place to another. They were all nice but nothing really exceptional. We were just about to go back to the hotel when we saw a cart on a parking lot with locals gathering around and getting their food.
So we thought we might give it a try. I told Jan to try ask someone younger in English if we could order some food. They said yes, so we sat down on a stool in a parking lot… and it was amazing. I still remember that jungle curry to this day.
2 - Sushi Yoshitake, Tokyo
So we were in Japan for a few days and has tried sushi in a local restaurant and the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, but we thought we wanted to pamper ourselves with a luxurious sushi experience. If you’ve been to Japan, you know how difficult it is to get inside these tiny high-end sushi restaurants: you can’t even book yourself - you have to do it through a hotel concierge or through a special service, or only on invitation and referral by someone who already ate there.
We chose Sushi Yoshitake, a three Michelin star sushi restaurant that has only six seats and turns the tables once a night, so it feeds only 12 per night. It was amazing: just the two of us and two Japanese couples, the chef and his sous-chef. It was funny - the chef would explain every ingredient to great lengths… in Japanese, only to follow up with a two-word description in English for us („tuna fish“). But the atmosphere was great, and so was the food, and we always get a laugh when we remember the experience.
3 - Clamato, Paris
A casual place that you can pop in unannounced. Big focus on natural wines and seafood, and they have the best tart with Chantilly cream. I can never wait to get some oysters - they have great ones - then a few courses, sometimes anchovy’s. It’s just a great place with a lively, buzzing atmosphere. Love it.
4 - Momofuku Ko, NYC
Sure, this is a fine dining place but with a nice, low key, casual atmosphere. The food was great, but what really stood out for me was the beverage pairing, which was the best I’ve ever had. The sommelier knew everything from teas to beers and wines. Mind you, I did not order the pairing, Jan did, but he let me try everything and it just blew me away.
The food was great, too, obviously, as was the setup: you just sit around the kitchen with the chefs, laser focused, working to complete your food, and then they give and explain the courses to you. A great experience.
5 - Contramar, Mexico City
Sometimes the first day, and the first meal, set the tone for your entire stay in a city. And that was the case with Contramar in Mexico City. It was our first meal of the first day… and we just fell in love with the place… and Mexico City. The restaurant is buzzing from the moment it opens and if you get an outside table, you enjoy the sun and the atmosphere of a place that is enjoyed by affluent locals of all generations. And those tuna tostadas… I can still taste them on my tongue. So delicious.
Jan’s Top Five Meals Around the World
1 - Saison, San Francisco
Okay, we’re going to start fancy and expensive. If you didn’t know Saison, it is a three-Michelin star restaurant that allegedly serves the city’s most expensive tasting menu. And since that city is called San Francisco, you know it won’t be cheap. And it also happened to serve what I still recall as probably the favorite meal of my life.
How we ended up paying USD 170 for two almost entire tasting menus and four cocktails is a story I liked to tell to the guests of our food tours - suffice to say it was all due to a serious name drop (thanks, Kat!) and a bit of an awkward misunderstanding at the beginning of the meal. In any case, the restaurant itself was just stunningly beautiful. Modern and industrial, yet classy and casual: we walked in to the loud sounds of Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer blasting through the sound system.
Anyway, the meal was perfect. Many times with tasting menus, you have some hits and some misses, but Saison kept hitting the ball out of the park with every course, and with the uni toast, they hit it into the stratosphere - it still remains the best bite of food I have ever put in my mouth. And the food hit all the right notes: it was grounded in perfect technique, yet felt fresh and inventive. And the service was elegant and classy but with a human face and a casual nonchalance.
If you’re in San Francisco and are able to spend big (if you don’t have any powerful friends to name drop), give Saison a try. I absolutely loved it.
2 - Xiaolongbao @ Mr Wong, Sidney
I have to confess: when we arrived in Hong Kong from Tokyo, Zuzi and I were horrified. We had fallen in love with the detached elegance, the order, the quiet and the neatness of Tokyo. And Hong Kong was everything Tokyo wasn’t: loud, disorganised, chaotic, in your face and… well… not neat. Also, we arrived on a rainy and an all around unpleasant day. „We are meant to stay here for an entire week?“ I wanted to go back, as I was sipping my first Hong Kong coffee at a coffee shop down town.
And then we went to Din Tai Fung, a place we had heard about and wanted to go. The line wasn’t brutal (we went in between meals) and ordered a full table of food. After my first bite of xialongbao, I thought to myself, „yup, it’ll be alright. I can stay here for a week.“ And then I went for another xiaolongbao, the pork soup dim sum dumpling that Din Tai Fung is famous for.
I have become a big fan of Din Tai Fung, and tried to sneak in a visit everywhere we went afterwards. It is still my favorite chain restaurant in the world, and xiaolongbao is my favorite dim sum dumpling: I never miss it whenever we go to a dim sum place, and it is the number one food I miss in Prague - we just don’t have that here in the quality that is anywhere near DTF.
The only time I had better xiaolongbao than in Din Tai Fung was at a place called Mr Wong in Sydney, Australia. It is a high-end Chinese / dim sum restaurant near the bay. We ordered xiaolongbao, among other things (of course), and when I bit into it, there was something different - while the first emotion whenever I had xiaolongbao outside of DTF was disappointment, here I thought „wait, this is BETTER than Din Tai Fung“! I had another one to confirm my initial results right away, and they were confirmed. The best xiaolongbao I have ever had. (And their Peking duck and wagyu were great, too.)
3 - Taquería El Abanico, Mexico City
Everybody has that clichéd story where they had either the best pasta of their life from a nonna somewhere in a Tuscan village, or the cheapest curry eaten on a stool, roadside, in Thailand. To me, that clichéd story is the food at Taquería El Abanico in Mexico City.
We went to El Abanico twice, separated by two years, and on both occasions, I was just overwhelmed with a feeling of sheer joy and happiness that we were there. The place is alive, buzzing with people just waiting in queues for various stations or eating their food one next to each other, with the chefs and cooks in hairnets cutting away on hogs and chopping meat and innards and stuffing them in tacos. On both occasions, I had great conversations with the locals. (I do speak Spanish.)
If I did not have a family, I could literally become homeless, get a sleeping bag and just live at this place. That’s how happy it makes me. There is no place on earth where the eating is happier or more joyful.
4 - Kadeau, Copenhagen
Yes, we went to Noma. It was great. But the dinner at Kadeau in Copenhagen way back in… what was it, 2013?… was the dinner that started a „fine dining“ chapter in my life. (I think that chapter really ended when JJ was born).
I still remember the „wow“ of that dinner. Everything was great. The service. The staff in aprons. (Who knows what they wore underneath?) The food! That small bread cut with a small cross in the middle to melt that butter on! That squid that tasted like grandma’s cucumber salad! The restaurant setting that felt more like a club than a stuffy white tablecloth restaurant!
That dinner showed us that there was a cool table in the world of dining… and filled me with the uncontrollable yearning to sit at that table with all those cool chefs who manipulated your taste buds and brain cells and charged a lot of money for fancy food yet were inked and cool and casual.
5 - Eggslut, LA
Global hype is a weird thing. Sometimes you wait in line for a place like everybody else, then order a dish like everybody else, take the same picture like everybody else… and realise there’s not much there except the hype. But that’s not the case with Eggslut.
I like LA because it has more influence over food globally than you may realise. Sqirl has probably changed the way cool bistros cook around the world more than any other place. And Eggslut has been the inspiration for many egg sandwich places globally, including many in Prague or Brno. So it’s nice to try it at the source.
And Eggslut at LA’s Grand Central Market is just a happy place. Yes, you wait in line. But then you sit at the bar and get your food, and the stars just align and you dig into something as seemingly simple as an egg sandwich (we had the Fairfax in a biscuit, I remember that to this day), and the world’s suddenly a great place to live in. Zuzi formally shouldn’t be a fan of these things. She nearly finished the sandwich at Eggslut herself, which is the biggest honour you can give any food.
Bonus I: Al Cafetero, Prague
Al Cafetero was arguably the first specialty coffee place in Prague. They would give you attitude if you wanted sugar, were unhappy about you using their wifi, had beans from different roasters and served filter coffee (vacuum pot!) way before it was part of the hipster canon. It shut down ages ago.
It was also the place where Zuzi and I first kissed. After the first kiss, she pulled away a bit, with her eyes still closed, and nodded slightly with a smile, as if to confirm that it was good. (Zuzi has never stopped denying that she did this, but you can’t fight the truth forever, Zuzi.)
What did we have there? I have no idea. Maybe nothing, maybe cheesecake. Don’t remember, don’t care. What I am trying to say that sometimes a memorable dining experience is not about the food, but about who you share it with.
Bonus II: Five best desserts ever
Corn husk meringue @ Cosme in NYC
One of the ugliest desserts we have ever been served was also one of the best. We went straight from „what is THAT?“ when we first saw it to „what IS that???“ when we first bit into it. (BTW, here’s the recipe.)
Maple syrup tart with Chantilly cream @ Clamato, Paris
We get the tart every single time we’re in Clamato, which means every single time we’re in Paris. It is awesome every single time. The filling is maple syrup, so sweet as hell, but that Chantilly cream! Man oh man.
Pavlova @ Ester, Sydney
We loved our dinner at Ester so much we kept ordering food and got so stuffed we just couldn’t have their famous pavlova. So we came back two days later and ordered it as a take-out. Dedication! It was so worth it.
Lamington @ Flour and Stone, Sydney
I had a Ratatouille moment eating the lamington: it just reminded me of something I ate when I was a very small kid living with my grandparents in Eastern Slovakia. I think I teared up. (I think Zuzi was like „it’s okay“. She doesn’t understand.)
Hibiscus glaze @ Dough, NYC
We flew to the US for the first tie in 2015, some 20 years after I left after a year in Houston, so I lost touch. When I first bit into the hibiscus glaze donut at Dough, I thought to myself „yup, I totally get the obesity here. I’d be 300 pounds if I had this in my city.“ (To add insult to injury, there’s a Soul Cycle or something next door.)
