The biggest thing for me when I travel is finding the best food in every city. I always try to find the best restaurant and take advantage of it because it's cool to go to a lot of different cities and experience a lot of different cultures. So I'm big on the food.
There are pockets of great food in Spain, but there are also pockets of very mediocre food in Spain, and the same in Morocco and the same in Croatia and the same in Germany and the same in Austria.
When I'm in L.A., I have salads, sandwiches, and soups all the time. Eating in New York, I feel like I have to have pizza and bagels while I'm here!
It was the greatest thing in the world getting fat. Every meal out was an event. Or we'd go to Italy and we'd have pasta, truffles, and dessert and then plan the next incredible meal. It was a happy-go-lucky time. I never had so much fun.
I take a cooking class everywhere I travel. I find it's the best way to get to know a culture.
I'm vegan on home base, but when I travel to other countries, I throw it all into the garbage.
Eating's not a bad way to get to know a place.
I've been a foodie most of my life. I started when I lived for a year in Germany in my early 20s, and here was this new food environment, and I decided I needed to make sense of it. And I found it was the rules of economics that do the best job. Food is a capitalist product of supply and demand.
I think that curiosity happened on these reviews where I was just a guest of the reviewer, because it introduced me to new cuisines and to the idea of cooking as a mechanism for studying other cultures and understanding other parts of the world.
I think D.C. has always been very, very vibrant for food. Like Boston in a way. Boston and D.C. were really the two cities that were the most active with their local chefs and their local food scene.
If I'm trying to get you to travel by showing you the best places in the world to eat, I think enthusiasm goes a long way. Especially because I'm not a chef, I'm not an expert. I'm a tourist like you.
I like to watch Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, because I like them when they travel. I like Ina Garten, 'The Barefoot Contessa.' Giada is really nice, but I get a little bit bored with just staying in the kitchen.
I don't understand people who travel purely gastronomically, who book a Michelin-starred restaurant three months in advance and suddenly find themselves in Copenhagen or Barcelona with a zeitgeist plate of snail porridge.
Food is my big connect to Old City, and I discovered the culture and history of the city by exploring food joints.
I am not a stickler for Indian food, but by the third day or so I start looking for something familiar to eat. I have travelled a lot, and I always try out local food.
Restaurants and chefs have become followed by such a broad swath of the public, in a way that used to be reserved for sports stars, movie stars, and theater actors. Restaurants are in the firmament of today's common culture.
It's difficult when you travel around America to get local food; it used to be very easy. You went from town to town and were more in touch with things.
As a chef and avid traveler, meeting new people and sharing a meal with the intent to learn more about their culture is important to me.
A workday lunch that lasts as long as a transcontinental flight is an impossibility for all but the most pliant and footloose of food tourists. To get in the game, you need a thick wallet, an adventurous palate, and a whole lot of time.
I guess after college, I just got really into food. I also think going on the road doing stand-up makes you more into food. Because when you travel like that, one of the things to do is find really good places to eat.
I love food shows: Anthony Bourdain, Iron Chef, Chopped, you name it.
After the passing of my personal hero, Anthony Bourdain, I've been reflecting a lot on his influence on food culture. He made street food from around the world, that most of us have never heard of, accessible.
It's simple - I love food. I am travelling all-year round, so I have the chance to eat every food possible, so I am really lucky with that.
I am passionate about spreading awareness about Sri Lankan food.
Traveling around the world to eat, it's a weird life, but I love it.
