10. New Year's Eve dinner at Pizza Hut in Shenzhen. Don't judge us in. We know we didn't leave our lives behind to travel to exotic places and eat shitty fast food pizza, but after two months without cheese, we were seeing Kraft slices in our sleep. We know it sucks, but who can say no to stuffed crust. (pics 1 and 2)
9. Shenzhen street food. Take a two foot long wooden skewer, stick some chunks of pork on 'em, cover in spices and grill over hot coals. Add more spicy powder to garnish and bam! You got yourself some meat-on-a-stick. Add a few steamy soft bao buns filled with spicy pork and call it suppertime. Don't forget to bring your wet wipes because the bun bag feels like the inside of a used condom. Sorry, Ma. (pic 3)
8. Takayama dan dan ramen noodle soup. After taking our second exciting Shinkansen ride, arrived at the coldest Japanese town we would visit. We took a bone chilling bike ride and found the most slammin' bowl of ramen in Japan. Creamy, peanutty and spicy, this stuff put a fire in our bellies and kept us warm all night. (pics 4 and 5)
7. Nepali food in Osaka. This was one of our most anticipated Japanese cities. Being that it was Davida's birthday, the dinner choice was hers. To our mutual delight, the sound of Bollywood music from across the street lured us into a steamy and colorful dining room filled with the smell of nirvana. We ate curry, perfectly cooked and seasoned tandoori chicken and freshly baked buttery naan the size of a roadmap. We washed it down with a delicious mango lassi and left ready to tackle Mt. Everest. (pic 6)
6. Yangzhou beer fish. This tasty meal consisted of two whole catfish poached in a beer broth along with tons of spicy local Guilin chilies, peppers and onions and served in a silver tray over tealights with rice. We ate those bad boys down to their skeletons. (pic 7)
5. Bao bun and bread breakfast with beers in Beijing. We try not to be morning drinkers, but it was our new friend Kris' birthday and when a man in China says "gam bei", you gam bei. Coupled with a few of those wonderful warm buns full of pork, their juice running between your fingers, we thought breakfast was over until Kris picked up a bag of piping hot sesame seed covered bread rounds, as flakey and buttery as a Murray's bagel. The meal fueled us for a long hike up to the Great Wall. (pic 8)
4. Kuala Lumpur's Little India. We trekked from our neighborhood of Bukit Bintang for lunch in Little India. We've learned that the best food around is usually found in dirty places with cheap plastic chairs, minimal displays of food filled Tupperware containers and no white people. We ordered by pointing and shortly thereafter were given placemats/plates; two gigantic banana leaves. Our server came over with three pots in a holster and ladled out curried potatoes, raita and a stewed chickpea accompaniment right onto the leaves. Three dishes followed, all chicken, and each spicier than the last. To dress our rice, we were presented with three more pots with fish curry, chicken curry and dal. Our utensils were our right hands and hot roti, our napkins a wash sink in the back. (pics 9 and 10)
3. Kawaguchiko houtou noodles. This stew is transcendent. Unique to the five lakes of Mt. Fuji, the houtou noodle is starchy like soba, broad like pappardelle and dense like a dumpling. It is served in a slow cooked thick stew with rustic chunks of vegetables and beef garnished with shrimp. This is mountain food. (pic 11)
2. Hot Pot on Ghost Street. In Beijing, we had our first true family meal. Surrounded by new friends, we were served plate after plate of bright pink paper thin slices of sheep meat, piles of fresh greens, thick crisp slices of lotus root, potatoes, mushrooms and onions all to be cooked in the boiling pots in front of us. Some might ask,"what kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?" But with a spread like this and bowls of fresh cilantro, chopped garlic, diced chilies and sesame sauce, who wouldn't want to? (pics 12-14)
1. The Xi'an Chicken Lady. Xi'an is the coldest place we've been so far, so if we were happy to eat chicken out of a bag standing in the middle of a street on a blisteringly cold winter night, you know this meal was damned good. The Chicken Lady butterflies three chickens on spit, lines up fives spits over glowing coals and let's them spin on a rotisserie until they are perfect. Her spectators/customers look on eagerly as she seasons and tends to her precious fowl, but she does not pull a spit until it is right. The crowning glory is watching her tear each chicken, expertly by hand, into its constituent parts, season once more and bag it. We walked away and happily ate our chicken in the cold, having spent less than 3USD on the best meal yet. (pic 15)
- Ken and Davida
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