My Favorite Places to Gain 10 Pounds

One of the most fun aspects of travel is the opportunity to try new, exciting, and strange foods. There's good eatin' to be found everywhere, EVERYWHERE! Here are a few places I've unashamedly crammed copious amounts of junk down my foodhole:

Indonesia

Rarely have I been so flustered by menus as I was in Indonesia. It seemed that everything contained my four favorite ingredients: chilies, lime, garlic, and tempeh. But the real reason I love Indonesian food is masakan padang. Padang food looks kind of gross and violates too many health code rules to ever exist in the US, but it is a truly wonderful creation. Various fried things, cooked vegetables, and sauces are displayed in a shop window behind a screen to keep flies out. You go in, point to what you want, and the shopkeeper puts on a plate for you. The first place I had padang was in Ubud, Bali, and it cost 70 cents for a plate of rice, tempeh, vegetables, and sauce. Don't mind if I do!

Belgium

Waffles, chocolate, frites--Belgium is full of fast and fatty food. Don't even get me started on the beer, which just prompts the consumption of even more frites, preferably served in a cone with curry ketchup (mayonnaise is the traditional dip of choice, but I just can't handle it). Belgium is also famous for mussels, but hey! Look! Is that a waffle with ice cream and chocolate on it? As a bonus, last time I was in Bruges, pasta in a box was a popular item. It's exactly what it sounds like.

Japan

I don't think I can even begin to explain how much I love Japanese food and, unlike Western cuisines, it isn't generally heavy, so you feel springy and refreshed after eating instead of bloated and asleep. Sushi on a conveyor belt combines my love of convenience with my love of not saying out loud all of the things I'll be eating. Udon and ramen are plentiful, cheap, and delicious. Curry udon? Yes, it's real. Like most of Asia, convenience stores are amazing in Japan and offer all sorts of mystery treats to stock up on, especially mochi. If you're not sure you can eat enough udon to gain those ten pounds, try going to a crepe stand in Harajuku, where filling options include ice cream and slices of cheesecake.

Poland

I have an irrational and, considering the nature of it, unhealthy obsession with Polish food. Unsurprisingly, this obsession is centered around pierogi and cabbage. Pierogis can be filled with more than just meat and potatoes; my favorite commonly available variety was cabbage and mushroom. In Krakow, after a walking tour, nine other participants and I visited U Vincenta Pierogi Restaurant, which has probably thirty different types of everybody's favorite Polish dumpling, from sweet strawberry to Italian salami. Everyone ordered a different type and since there were ten of us and ten pierogis per plate, we were able to have one of each. I also had sauerkraut soup at a restaurant in Lodz, and as a sauerkraut fan, I thought it was super.

Melt in the middle chocolate peanut butter cake with ice cream.  Um. YES.

USA

America is famous for food, but mostly for the quantity-over-quality, processed-cheese-stuffed-hot-dog variety. In fact, the US has an outrageous amount of delicious, diverse, high-quality food, from hole-in-the-wall Mexican to fancy fusion cuisine to Cajun food trucks. In Seattle, where I'm from, I rarely go to a restaurant that isn't fantastic. Sometimes I'll read an article in the paper lamenting that such-and-such restaurant is one of the only places in the city to get authentic Ethiopian food, and I just think, "Wow, we can get authentic and non-authentic Ethiopian food? That's amazing!" However, there is a depressing dearth of eastern European cuisine in these parts.

Every country has great food, and these are just a few that stood out to me. "Why aren't Italy and France on this list?" people who are more sophisticated than me might be asking. Well, I don't think I was in Italy long enough to truly appreciate the food, so I left it out of this round, and could I really include France just because of croissants and Nutella crepes? Probably, but I had a cheese there that tasted like a urinal cake so get out of here, France.

(By the way, I'm really bad at taking pictures of food, as I tend to eat it before I can think of getting my camera out, so I these pictures are from flickr creative commons except for the molten chocolate cake. Is that cheating? Whatever, everyone likes looking at food.)