Hi everyone, welcome to Potluck Food Talks. Today we're going to talk about food travel.
What's your approach on food travel? How do you plan a trip? For example, you get a ticket today
and you have to go for a week to Korea. What do you do? How do you plan that whole thing?
That's a good question. I actually do put a fair amount of research into it, right? So I don't just
go and hope for the best, which I also think is totally fine, right? But what I enjoy the most
when I go somewhere is I want to get out of the tourist areas straight away. One of my biggest
focuses when I am visiting somewhere is obviously the food, right? I want to go where the locals eat
and I want to kind of dissolve into the environment and basically be unnoticeable, right? Like I am
part of the scenery. I just want to be one of the locals, right? As much as that's possible, right?
That's like not always possible. Obviously, especially when you're in Korea. When I'm in
Brussels, it's a little bit easier. I love this statement of Anthony Bourdain where he says,
don't be a tourist, be a traveler. I guess that implies respect for the local culture and not
behaving like a dick or behaving like you own the place. I recently saw this video of
so embarrassing, of a woman chasing a geisha in Kyoto to make a picture of her. Standing in front
of her with a camera and harassing her to make a picture as if it was a fucking safari, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that those kind of tourists should be deported immediately, you know?
Like go back to your fucking country, you know? Shot on sight. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Executed. We put out a flyer and it's a manhunt, you know? You see this person, it's free for all.
The purge is real. But I totally agree with you. This is very strange. I guess it's like
inherited racism in a way where people have a disassociation of the human aspect of people
when they're going to other countries. It's maybe a lack of education as a like education and sort
of like a multicultural education, you know? If you're like stuck in your community and then
suddenly you go out and it's a very like, especially when there's like a very obvious, you know,
difference in appearance and culture, right? That people don't really value that as much as they
would when facing something familiar. That's how I always kind of felt about that. When I see that,
you see it often, especially Americans when going to Europe, you know? Yeah. It often feels like
they come and they're like, they're incredibly loud. They own the place. They're incredibly loud.
They talk like they feel like nobody can understand them anyway, right? Where we're sort of like,
everybody here speaks fucking English, you know, because we have a function, excuses.
It's like the stereotype that I've seen proven riots many, many times. Also with the British,
I grew up on the Canary Islands, right? The British would come to the Canary Islands
and be disastrous. My image of British people as a child was horrendous, right? Because I would only
see the like thick neck, overweight, kind of like St. George flag tattoo on their arm, like 10 o'clock
in the morning already had three pints and just kind of like walk up to the logos, look, hey,
where's the club, you know, and get into fights all the fucking time. Like they were horrible,
you know, just like urinating on the street, being super rude to everybody because they know
that it doesn't fucking matter. It doesn't matter how much they embarrass themselves. It doesn't
matter how rude they are. In a couple of days, they're going to be gone forever and nobody's
going to see them again. And it's very problematic. Going back to the travel topic, like I, same as
you, like for example, I'm planning a trip now to Japan. And for me, that's a like a very special
trip because I'm traveling just to eat, to learn, to generate content. So I'm actually planning this
truly. I first made like a checklist of traditional Japanese things that I love and that I've
taste and many of them cooked myself for my whole life. This is my first time to go going to Japan.
So it's the first time I'm going to try the original thing, the real thing after having tried
copies all my life, which is an interesting process in itself. I experienced that in Israel
when I tried like a hummus in a Lebanese restaurant and it was like, okay, I was getting the wrong
copy all my life. And suddenly this is the real thing and this has nothing to do with the hummus
you find in the West or in supermarkets or the ones you do at home with the chickpeas that you
find in the West. It's like a different thing starting with the chickpeas that are different.
And I guess like I will get many of those. So even though I've been to really Japanese restaurants
with Japanese chefs, I guess I had like a grasp of the real thing, but not the real thing. And for
me that's very, very exciting. So I've also been planning like a lot of places to go. Also, by the
way, I'll be recording and traveling with a co-traveler, Bernie from Canada, and I'll be
recording episodes on the way, like on the places we go, what we eat, what we try, what we think
about and these kinds of things. So there's episodes on that coming because Japan is like a
very different country from any other, I guess. Also like maybe is the number one foodie destination
in the world. Maybe. One of them for sure. And for that reason I didn't know, but my friend Barry,
who lives there, he told me in advance, so we start making the bookings and he told me just like six
months in advance. And I leave everything for the last minute as I always do. So I was planning my
bookings like one and a half months in advance. Many of the places it's impossible. Everything was
booked until February. Like six months is a good time frame to do your bookings in many places,
especially the very good ones. I never saw so crazy booking policies and cancellation policies
as I've seen in Japan. I actually, I did a mistake and I booked for a place that I booked wrongly.
I have to pay full price and I won't be able to visit it. If I cancel it, I have to pay anyway.
If I cancel one month in advance, I have to pay anyway. If I do a change like an allergy change
of whatever, I have to pay double price. And I think, yeah, for me, that's like too much.
For me, that's things that are non-rationally strict. For me, it's like way too much. Not being
able to cancel and get my money back 45 days in advance. For me, that's a little bit too crazy.
Yeah, it's very strict. I mean, Japan can be a very strict country in certain regards.
Don't wear any perfume, blah, blah, blah, etc. No alterations to the menu. A lot of the mission
stuff places will say like, not even mission stuff, but just general, like focused places. There will
be sort of like, if you have like preferences for your diet and allergies, etc., we recommend you
to go somewhere else because we don't make any alterations to our food. Yeah, I saw that in
Cezanne, man, because I tried to book that Cezanne. True Michelin star place. Three now. Yeah, like
you told me to go there and a lot of people have told me that Japan is a very interesting place
to try Italian and French food, which is not my interest at all. I mean, not in my first trip,
I want to go like just 100% pure Japanese from Japan. I'm going to Mas, which is a Peruvian
restaurant, well, modern Peruvian. Maybe Peruvian is not the, I mean, it's Peruvian, but I would say
it's more like land and place kind of focus, like they focus on the territory. I know the chef,
I'll interview him. There's an episode on that coming as well, and I'll have a dinner there.
I had like a super nice experience in Central. This is a restaurant associated to Central in
Santiago, who is the chef. He is the first and only Venezuelan to have two Michelin stars and me
being from Venezuela. It's an interesting topic to interview him. That's the only booking I made
that is non-Japanese. Everything else is because there's so much and there are so many sub genres
of Japanese food. You have like tempuras, you have yakitori, kaiseki, shojin, oden, sushi, of course,
wagyu, you know, like so many different things that I want to catch them all, like with caimans,
you know. I would say though that you have to, at least there's some things that you have to do
because it is sort of like on the outside, it's not pure Japanese, but it is actually pure Japanese.
Like for example, you have to go eat a pizza. You have to go to a place like Studio Tawaki and eat
like a marinara pizza. You just have to, you know. For me, it's like going to like a good sushi place.
I'm actually also planning a trip to Japan in like next year, like middle of next year,
which is also the first time for me going back in 10 years. And I'm super excited for you, by the way,
because for me, my trip to Japan was really life-changing. So I'm really excited to hear
what you say. I was talking to the person I'm kind of planning to go with and I'm sort of like,
we're doing exactly what you're saying. So like, okay, what are the must-dos, right? And it's kind
of like not ending because you start, you're like, okay, well, we have to have sushi. It's no question.
We have to have good sushi. It's fucking no ending. It's incredible. We have to have yakitori and then
you go on, okay, well, you have to have ramen. You have to have soba. You have to have, well,
it would be nice to go to a udon place, but then you have to go to a yakiniku place, really,
because you have to do yakiniku. It's not ending. And then any of these, you have 150 options that
are all incredibly great. Exactly. All top of the top. I don't know. I can't believe that there are
yakitori places for 200 years, the omakase menu. And I'm like, really?
But this is something that was life-changing for me because I was very young when I went and
just like you, I already knew a lot about Japanese food, which is really cool to go to Japan.
And already have this like knowledge that you can apply. You know, you know what things are,
you know, and you know why tempura is great, for example, why tempura isn't just the frito misto,
right? But like for me, for example, I had this exact thing. I went to a yakitori place
and like my, and I was looking forward to it and I was excited, but my mind was fucking blown.
It was so good. And it really made me not just like question ingredients and blah. It just made
me question like the momentum of food and the preparation itself with it being grilled to the
certain point it gets placed in front of you. You take it, you eat it straight away. It's a
completely different impact, completely different. And then before I left, right? A few days before I
left my head chef at the time, he asked me, so like, what's your favorite tempura place? And I
was like, I didn't really get the time in my time here to go eat tempura. And he was like,
that's super unacceptable. Like, because I was like, well, you know, I was more focused on going
to like, high-seki places and sushi places and yakitori places. And I ate a lot of ramen and all
that some street food stuff. And he was like, no, you cannot leave Japan without having eaten real
tempura. Because for me, tempura, like it's very nice, but it wasn't like exciting, right?
And he took me to a tempura place. It has one Michelin star, it's called Mikawa. It has two
places in Tokyo. And it again, it completely blew my fucking mind. It was insane. Like I did not
know that tempura could be like that. The execution, the produce, the point of cooking, well, fried.
Just crazy. And you can talk about it, but this perfection and simplicity, you have to experience
it. That's so exciting, man. Well, what I do when I travel, I mean, Japan is a very specific and
special destination, but usually what I always do is that I go to different guides, different sources,
especially the best source is always the recommendations from people, locals or people
that have traveled there that know how to eat. And then when I have like this list of places,
I pin them on Google maps. So I have already my Google map with all these dots where I know.
So because there will be times that we are in the middle of whatever and you need to find a
place just at hand that it's near is to have lunch, you know, because it's not that you're
going to have bookings for the three meals of the day for the whole trip. You also have to have some
flexibility, right? And then at some point you're just looking on Google maps and it's good to have
already like your places. Okay, look, there is something near here that I already look for
because I think something that is really like sad and a waste of everything is having a bad meal
in a trip. If you're in a nice food destination. And it's so easy to happen. It's so easy to happen.
Yeah, exactly. That happened to me when I was in Bolzano and in South Tyrol, this Austrian,
Germanic, Italian. I mean, this place, I think it was listed in the Michelin guide or something.
And I wondered for me, it was like, meh, you know, like, not exciting. And not bad, not bad. But
not like, you know, when you're looking for this regional cuisine, something that you can't find
anywhere else and it's super different and exciting and tasty. And I didn't find any of that because
I didn't have a recommendation from a local. So then there's something that I started doing
recently because also for the main reason is because I became a food tour guide, but I'm
starting to take food tours when I travel. Because it's also like, I won't do that because I was with
the mentality of, ah, I'll just find the places and go. But now, first of all, also to learn from
others, it's always good if you have like an activity or a profession to see how others do it.
But also I find the value in it. Like, for example, if someone goes to San Sebastian,
I'll save them a lot of time, you know, like you can eat all the places and then decide which are
the best ones. I'll take you directly to the best ones, you know, you can book on potluckfoodtours.com
Do it. If you're coming to San Sebastian, just book a tour with me. It totally makes sense,
you know, like, and I would consider doing the same thing if like, if I would go to Japan,
you know, and I had somebody, I would call myself like, okay, this person knows what they're talking
about. It saves you a lot of time, probably money also. Well, I mean, you spent the money on the
tour, right? But like so much effort and you know, you can have the ease of mind that you know,
because you can have really shit food in San Sebastian also, right? Like you can go to the
Par de Vieja and have things that are, well, not shit, but like, underwhelming. If you go to the
wrong place, you get the wrong stuff. And you're like, well, this is, I mean, fine. But well,
what I always say, I really believe so, is that in San Sebastian, everything will be at least good.
Like it's very hard that you find something that is bad. I've had things that work,
that work a little bit. I mean, for me, like, especially in Par de... I mean, yes, there are,
but I mean, you have to do something really wrong, you know, like if you're going to like a very
suspicious, for example, I went to a new Mexican place that opened and I was like, that was...
It was not okay. First of all, Mexican place in Old Town. Second, it recently opened, like two
red flags, you know, like it was, I was hungry, man. What can I say? Talking about Mexicans,
and I wanted to bring this out. Like, dude, like that thing we had from in Copenhagen was shit.
Oh yeah. Those tacos we had, man. Yeah, really disappointing. Yeah. We were at this market. This
was one of the Sanchez places and the guy, we were filming, like the cooking and the guy worked.
There's no filming allowed and I have my image rights and I don't want to appear on camera,
something like that. And we're like, okay, take it easy. Then we had like three tacos for 60 euros.
And I mean, okay, yeah, it's Copenhagen and those are the prices there. But I find it to be
unacceptable that this place is opened by such a respected chef and that I have in a super simple
taco place in the Gia and San Sebastian, which is like a non-pretentious place at all, thinks way
better for way less money. For me, that's just crap. Like for me, that was one of the down,
I would say maybe the worst dish we had in Copenhagen was that one.
I would agree. It was by far for me, the worst thing that we ate on the Copenhagen trip. Like
even it is very harsh to say, but even like the like 7-Eleven hot dogs late at night were better
because of the experience and stuff, you know, the service was super shit. Also the tacos,
they were very underwhelming. It wasn't like we expected something amazing and we got something
that's just good. It was very substandard. And I guess that's the difficulty when you branch out
and you do like food markets and stuff, like holding the quality, but it's just the important
thing that you have to do. Yeah. And also this guy, you know, confronting us because we were
filming. It's not that we were like with TV equipment. It's totally fine. It's totally fine
that he says that he doesn't want to be filmed. It's just the way that he did it, right? And we
weren't actively filming him, right? You know, he was making the point, yeah, it's not allowed to
film in the market. And we were sort of like, well, okay. He was like, there's signs everywhere. And
we were sort of like, well, we definitely did not see the signs. And I mean, afterwards we looked
around, right? And we didn't see any sign. Yeah, exactly. There were no signs. This guy didn't
want it to be filmed. And he made like a whole drama about it. Look, I've been in the same
situation, you know, I've also had people come to the kitchen and start filming me. And I said,
excuse me, but if you're going to start filming me, it would be nice if you at least asked my
permission, you know, what's, I'm not an animal in a zoo, right? But it's just ways of doing it,
right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, like also when we went to Popple, by the way, in the veganism episode,
we didn't mention the vegan burger. We had a Popple. That shit was amazing. You remember it
was like this pressed mushroom. Maline's main mushroom. Yeah. That was so good. Popple in
general was just, I think for me, that was the surprise of the trip, honestly, because the
burgers, they were very nice, but we expected that, right? From the beef burger to the monkfish
burger was my favorite, honestly. The monkfish burger was so nice. Yeah. They were just very
surprising. You know, like I wasn't expecting, you know, having like burgers with very crazy
fermented sauces. That was kind of like my expectation. But then we had like this crazy
monkfish thing, this crazy vegan burger. Super nice. All the small side dishes, they were just
fucking nice. You could just take the side dishes, put them in any sort of wine bar in London,
in Berlin, in Paris. And you know, like there would be a hit. Those little fjord shrimps with
the rose powder and whatever, and the lemon, you know, the little like grilled vegetable leaves to
drag through the sauce, you know, the dessert. I really loved all of it. The service was super
nice. The place was beautiful and simple. One of these guys came to us and they told us,
well, there's no problem with you guys filming us. We'll have a contract that we can be filmed
for marketing purposes. You just can't film the guests. I mean, that's perfectly logical.
I also understand that if you're working like in just a market taco place and you don't want to
sign something like that and you don't want to be filmed, that's fine. You know, like,
dude, I went yesterday to a Korean place here in Barcelona. And Korea for me is like a next
thing that I want to explore way more, Korean food in general, because there are so many things
that I don't know that are so amazing. There is this thing here in Barcelona or in Catalonia that
is called the Association of Koreans. And they have their own, it's not like a Michelin star,
but it's just like a seal, you know, like approved by the Korean association. So like it's an
authentic restaurant. And I've seen in a couple of restaurants and I had many things. I have like
this dumplings, I had fried chicken, but I would say the surprise was a tteokbokki.
The little rice cakes, huh?
Yeah, these rice cakes that are called taeok. And these were like in a sauce that was kind of fish
with gochujang, a little bit spicy, but for me the crazy thing and that was like really
the surprising thing. It was gratinated with cheese. And for me cheese in Asian food is like
a surprise. They also like as a starter by the house, they sent us as a gift a little salad,
which had like, I mean, when I say salad, I mean tomato, lettuce, an onion with a very simple
dressing, you know, like Korean vinegar and oil and salt. That was it. And it has grated cheese
on top. And I was like, okay, this was unexpected, you know? But this thing, because this
is rice cakes, they're like, I don't know how to describe them. These are like long gnocchi's
udon kind of thing. Like this little, they're like the size of a thumb finger and the texture was so
fucking nice. They were like gnocchi's like so nice, man. I really love that one. Yeah, for example,
Korea. Korea is a place that if I would go to Korea, I would do my list of dishes that I want to try.
I would go to a map, paint the things I would ask my Korean friends. I would like build like a whole
schedule of destinations. That's the way I would do it. Yeah, I would also look at the neighborhoods
and get a little bit informed about what is going on in what neighborhoods just in a broad sense.
Sometimes it doesn't really work. Sometimes it's a little bit difficult, but you know, often it's
very useful. Like for example, like take the, I can think of lots of examples, you know, San Sebastian,
right? You can say, okay, there's Gross, there's Partheberer, blah, blah, blah. You have a little
bit of an idea. Paris, right? The Aarhus, the Rondes Malls. What's going on in which one, you know,
because there's some that are like a little bit more in this cultural direction, that cultural
direction Berlin, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg, you know, whatever. Do you go west? Do you go east?
You're a little bit informed. Tokyo, so you know, Ginza, right? You know what, like what is
happening in Ginza. You know what's happening in Omotesando. Like you have a little bit of a broad
idea. This is a very rich area, very fancy area with high level restaurants. It's more like a
neighborhood area. This is a drinking area. And that helps a lot also. And I also often, you know,
I mean like a little ritual that I have, I will try to find an old Anthony Bourdain episode about
the place and I'll see what he did, you know. Yeah, that's always a good one. I have a lot of
powers at Consul-Saint-Sebastian that they get to tour with me. They do that. They saw when I bring
them to some places, they're like, oh, Anthony Bourdain was in this place and so on and so
on. Yeah. Also something I didn't mention about tours and tour guides. They always add like a
layer of context that it's very hard for you to find out yourself by yourself, you know, like,
and I know that because I do that. And I guess that's what I expect. I'm having a trip to
Portugal next week and I took a food tour, you know, because I, like I said, I want to learn
from other professionals that are doing the same. Like I said, like there's always this
history context that of course you can read it yourself, but at the end of the day,
you know, like you pay someone else to do the work for you or to make it easier for you in general.
Like, of course you can find all the restaurants, Google the restaurants, look for the reviews,
which is the best dish in each restaurant and also to read some history or you can
save a lot of time and just let someone else do that for you.