Diner, South Beach Miami

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Miami is another city to add to your foodie bucket list. Why? Drum roll please…

Miami has been voted as one of America’s top food cities, falling just behind Portland, Oregon and San Francisco! You can find out more here. With some fantastic restaurants, kitschy diners, and the famous South Beach Wine & Food Festival, there is much to tempt your taste buds in this beautiful part of the world.

Interested? Sure you are, so let’s dig in.

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If you are planning to visit America soon, you should allow your taste to influence your choice of location. Whether you love BBQ dishes or Mexican infused cuisine, America’s multicultural cities will offer you great culinary adventures. While there are fantastic award-winning restaurants in every part of the US, we have created a list of places you should visit as a true foodie.

1. Ontario, CA
Lanark County in California is the home of traditional maple syrup. If you love sweet things, you should check out Ontario, CA, where you will find traditional recipes and plenty of bakeries and pastry shops. In case you arrive in Ontario in the late summer or early autumn, you can try a traditional corn on the cob, and buy them by the dozen on the street. Cheddar cheese also has a tradition in Ontario, and you can even visit the Wilton Cheese Factory for a tasting tour.

2. Seattle

New England Clam Chowder

When visiting Seattle, there are certain dishes you should try. The city is famous for its artisan chocolate shops, and sweet toothed travelers can find something to take home with them for sure. Bubble tea is another specialty that is fun and refreshing on a hot day in the sun. To add a twist to your fast food experience, you need to check out what garlic fries are about, and sample them in one of the local burger joints.

3. Boston, Massachusetts
Boston has its own signature flavors. Try the Boston Cream Pie, generally only available as a whole, but some cake shops offer it by the slice. Seafood lovers can try the Clam Chowder, a sauce-filled seafood dish that is generally served with some fries, crackers, or fresh bread. Fried clam is also a local specialty, as well as the Maine Lobster Roll.

4. New Orleans

Caribbean broiled oysters at the Crazy Lobster

New Orleans has a great seafood tradition, and you can find some of the best chargrilled oysters here. They come with breadcrumbs, melted butter, and herbs. A great choice for a quick bite or street food is Po’Boys; French bread filled with seafood, beef, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. Originally created as a fast dish for streetcar workers on strike, it is one of the most popular fast foods in New Orleans and one of the traditional dishes to check out in America while on a visit.

5. San Francisco
To make the most out of your visit to San Francisco and spend your night indulging in local specialties, after seeing all the sites, you should try Apple Fritters, or sweet pastry, traditional Bloody Mary on nights out, and the super Burritos of San Francisco. Sample some of the best cheesecakes of the region. If you want something really local head to one of the seafood restaurants and try the special local seafood cocktails. Fancy something new for breakfast? Sample the special cinnamon toasts.

When you visit any country, you should start off with a list of dishes you would like to try while there. The above list of cities provides you with an overview of why it is worth to visit if you are a foodie.

Note: This is a collaborative post.

Where have you planned your next holiday? If you’re bored of always visiting the same places, you might be tempted into exploring somewhere new and exciting, somewhere like Asia. If you’re not familiar with the various Asian cultures – and by which we automatically discount any knowledge coming from sushi or Chinese takeaway, or from your preferred Kung Fu show – you need to get a little head up before you go. Asia is a vast continent with plenty of exciting destinations. For the purpose of this exercise, we’ve listed eight different countries and the key information you need to know to make the most of your visit. There are, of course, many more places to see and people to meet in Asia, but they will be the object of a next article! For now, these are the top things you need to know before visiting Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Laos, and Cambodia.

Reclining Buddha

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If you love your food, then it’s likely that some of your favorite restaurants also serve as your own benchmark for what makes great food. If you want to reach the lofty heights of your favorite dining experiences, then you need more than talent. You have to be willing to invest in your ingredients and to pick them wisely, too.

Freshness counts

Freshness
For your health’s sake, as well as your taste buds’, you have to do away with the reliance on processed food. Whole foods have much more flavor, much more nutritional content, and much more potential for different meals. Shopping seasonally will help keep things a lot more cost-effective and there are plenty of stores that offer deliveries of ingredients that might not be as easy to find in your local market, like fresh crab. Otherwise, you’re never cooking a meal with just the ingredients you want, you’re cooking with flavorings, preservatives, and much higher salt contents than you would have if you bought fresh.

Versatility
Now we’ve established they should be fresh, what kinds of ingredients should you choose? You might be inclined to go for the most exclusive, specific options possible, but there’s a lot more value to be found, in fact, in the simpler, more versatile ingredients. Any aspiring chef will know that your skill can be summed up in how many ways you can cook an egg. But you can also learn a lot by exploring the different tastes and textures you can achieve with Greek yogurt, parmesan cheese, sundried tomatoes and other incredibly versatile ingredients.

Flavour
Just as versatile is the rack of spices and herbs that any chef worth their salt (or parsley or paprika or thyme) should have. If you want to learn as much about taste as possible, you need to learn the differences that even a pinch of the right flavorings can have. Just the change from one herb to another can make is enough to vastly expand your repertoire of meals. Learn what goes with what, how to measure a more pungent spice compared to the subtler flavors, and how certain flavorings have specific requirements, such as how cilantro can very easily go bitter when overcooked.

Options
Whether you’re a vegetarian, cooking for vegetarians, or just looking to cut down your weekly food budget from time to time, having a few alternatives to the meat base of a meal can help vary your recipes a lot. Roasted cauliflower, wild rice, nuts, and beans make it perfectly easy to achieve those savory flavors that most people associate with meat and meat alone. No meat alternative offers a one-to-one comparison with meat, of course, but it can be pretty refreshing to learn that not all your meals have to include animal products to have both the taste and the filling factor.

You don’t have to fill your fridge with only the most expensive items to create truly quality meals. There are priorities higher than price. With the focuses above in mind, you should be one more step to creating restaurant-worthy food.

Note: A guest post

Rudie’s Dalston

Winter is here and there’s nothing better than a bit of spice on your plate to warm you up. So Elika (Instagram: @Sunny_Elika) and I headed to Rudie’s in Dalson after work one evening, starving, but filled with excitement for the Jamaican feast that laid ahead of us. Jerk chicken is one of our go-to dishes at food markets, and so we were more than ready to give Rudie’s a try. It was a chilly night, and as we entered Rudie’s we were greeted by some Jamaican tunes and kindly staff that warmed us up on the spot. We got in early enough to get a window table so that as we drank our Mai Tai (£7.50) and Jamaican Mule (£7.50) we were able to watch the world of Dalston go by. If you are a fan of rum, then the Jamaican Mule will not disappoint, and the Mai Tai will make you feel like the sun is blowing you kisses by the beach.

Rudie’s takes Jamaican food to another level, offering a more refined and contemporary approach to the more traditional Jamaican experience of jerk and spicy BBQ. We kicked off with the Peppered Shrimp (£8.50) for starters which was not for the faint of heart. We had been appropriately warned that these were hot, and this dish lived up to its reputation. The sauce was spicy and bold and served the plump juicy prawns very well. And although fiery, the intense, rich flavour of the dish was entirely worth the risk of the burn on your tongue. Topped with some avocado, this helped to balance out the heat of the dish.

Rudie’s Jamaican Patties (beef £6) proved to be love at first smell, offering up a comforting and delicious aroma of homemade food that we found difficult to resist. The pastry on the patties was flaky, and the moist beef filling contained a hint of Jamaican curry which was wonderfully delicious. For those feeling less adventurous and looking for a more familiar option, we would recommend the Crispy Calamari (£7.50) which had been battered and deep fried in polenta. These were tender and crispy and had been sprinkled with a delicious jerk seasoning.

Rudie’s Dalston – Starters

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As we get older, our taste in food and eating habits alter, whether we like it or not. Our metabolism lowers meaning we don’t burn as many calories as we used to. The digestive system changes making it harder to absorb essential vitamins. There is often a loss of appetite because of medication, low energy and the diminishing in our senses of taste and smell. So what can we do about it? Whatever your age, consider the following advice.

Everyday Food

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FIREDOOR

I recently had a fabulous meal at Firedoor, a slick and modern outfit located in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, close to the heart of the Sydney Central Business District. Firedoor is a very unique restaurant in that it serves an entirely fire-powered menu. The first of its kind in Australia, each dish is cooked to order and powered entirely by wood fire. The kitchen draws upon a collection of different woods every day, purposefully used to create a certain effect from the coals that best enhance the natural characteristics of the ingredients on show.

The head chef is Lennox Hastie who spent the early part of his career working at various Michelin Star restaurants across the UK, France and Spain. The pinnacle was the five years that he spent at one of the best grill restaurants in the world, the much-touted Asador Etxebarri located in the Basque country. A one Michelin star holder and a regular on the 50 Best Restaurants in the World’s List, Asador Etxebarri readily makes use of wood-fired grilling. Here, Lennox spent five years working with Victor Arguinzoniz, honing his skills on working with an open flame.

Lennox opened Firedoor in April 2015. Focusing primarily on seafood and vegetables, he has transported his unique understanding of wood fire cooking to Firedoor, His talent was recognised when the restaurant was nominated for the Best New Restaurant in the 2016 Australian Gourmet Traveller Awards. Firedoor currently holds a chef’s hat in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide and sits at number 17 on the Australian Gourmet Traveller Top 100 Restaurants.

We shared a selection of dishes and all were fabulous, starting with the albacore tuna with radish (A$27) which was sensational. Wild caught Mooloolaba albacore had been grilled (seared) over apple wood and was meaty and ripe with flavour. Texturally the albacore was heaven and a joy to each. The fish was served with shaved fennel and breakfast radishes that were fresh and lively, and a well-judged grilled lemon dressing which provided the right hit of acidity. Everything on the dish came together superbly.

Firedoor – Albacore tuna

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CINNAMON KITCHEN

Cinnamon Kitchen is an upmarket Indian fusion restaurant in the Liverpool Street area. Bearing the word “Cinnamon” in its name, it is part of the Cinnamon Collection, a group of Indian restaurants run by Vivek Singh, restauranteur, and a celebrity chef regular on a number of television cookery shows such as BBC’s Saturday Kitchen. Vivek first made his name with his flagship restaurant Cinnamon Club by championing a brand of modern, innovative Indian cooking. His contemporary approach has further translated into his other restaurants including Cinnamon Soho and Cinnamon Bazaar.

As we walked into Cinnamon Kitchen, we were immediately seduced by both the aroma of the tantalising smells wafting through the restaurant, as well as by the excited murmur of happily munching clients. The interior is both smart and trendy, and gave both a happening vibe with a balanced sense of a cozy intimacy.

To begin our meal we were offered some miniature spiced potato fritters on a curly bamboo stick as the complimentary amuse-bouche from the chef. Usually, such throw-ins are an opportunity to showcase the chef’s best skills or new, novel ideas, to dazzle and intrigue customers into coming to try more next time. This one was a little bland and unassuming and tasted like a deep-fried ball made of faintly curried mashed potatoes.

Next we tried a variety of chutneys with naan. Of the three chutneys that arrived, the most memorable was the tomato one. With just the right level of hotness, it treated tomato as what it technically is: a fruit, which is that it was intensely rich with flavour and naturally sweet. The naan that accompanied the chutneys was pleasantly spliced with fennel seeds.

Cinnamon Kitchen – Naans & chutneys

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