Food, food, food and more delicious, yummy food!

We love to travel for lots of reasons.

The adventure.

The experiences.

The culture.

The people.

And, obviously, duty-free champagne.

But one of our absolute favourites is THE FOOD.

We’ll eat almost anywhere. From five-star French restaurants where the waiter explains the dish for seven minutes… to a roadside place where you point at something, smile and hope you haven’t just ordered a goat.

We’ve done the full French fine-dining experience.

Frogs’ legs. Snails.

Yep.

Apparently at some point someone looked at a frog and thought, “I reckon the legs on that would go nicely with garlic butter.”

Then someone found a snail crawling around the garden and thought, “Chuck that in as well.”

URGHHHH.

Thankfully, the French also invented steak and fries with sauces so ridiculously good you contemplate licking the plate. Apparently that’s frowned upon in fine-dining establishments. Who knew?

At the other end of the scale, we ordered a pulled-pork sandwich for one that could have fed a family of four.

Challenge accepted.

Then there are crepes. Sweet ones. Savoury ones. Chocolate. Banana. Caramel. Fruit. Cream. About 100 different combinations, all apparently requiring extensive research on our behalf.

We’re nothing if not thorough.

And, of course, the humble baguette.

Fresh. Crunchy. About a metre long.

Toast it, slap some Vegemite on it and voilà — French/Australian international relations at their finest.

Breakfast can be as simple as a croissant and coffee, although walking past a French pastry cabinet and ordering one croissant requires extraordinary levels of self-control.

Every second shop is a pastry shop filled with all sorts of delights stuffed with sugar, custard, chocolate and apparently no calories at all.

Pastries lined up like little soldiers saying, “Go on Rowdy, you know you want me.”

The markets are another level.

Fish displayed like works of art. Vegetables stacked perfectly. People bartering, yelling, laughing and doing anything they can to sell you whatever they can. To the point multiple stall holders are happy to help a poor Aussie buy a grapefruit with a card even though they only accept cash. I still don’t know how, but they made it happen. Its exciting interesting and fun.

Then there’s BBQ pork with crackling chopped into bite-sized pieces and handed to you in a bag.

Pork popcorn.

Possibly mankind’s greatest achievement.

We’ve eaten lobster BBQ’d on a deserted island, lobster sitting with our feet in the sand at a little local restaurant, and lobster in a five-star restaurant in town. All of it local, all of it different. All of it heavenly in its own right.

Turns out lobster tastes bloody good everywhere, in every way.

Especially with champagne

But also sometimes with just a beer or four.

Some food you just don’t mess with.

Tacos, for example. Leave them to the Mexicans. They’ve nailed it. Job done. No further innovation required.

We tried the French version.

Massive mistake.

Now, we love the French. Give them butter, bread, cheese, steak, pastries or a bottle of wine and they can perform miracles. But apparently there’s a point somewhere near the Mexican border where their superpowers stop.

The taco arrived looking like it had heard about Mexico from a bloke who once met someone who’d been to Cancún.

We ate it. We regretted it.

Stick to the croissants, France.

Food also helps when you don’t speak the language.

We discovered the girls at Hertz loved banana lollies, (the New Caledonia kind, with jelly in the middle.) A few laughs, some terrible French, a bag of banana lollies later… and somehow we got an upgrade.

Forget Google Translate.

Take lollies.

That’s what we love about food when we travel. It’s not just eating.

It’s exploring. Laughing. Trying weird stuff. Meeting people. Pointing at things you can’t pronounce and occasionally discovering something absolutely brilliant.

Fortunately they only weigh our luggage for the trip home because I’m sure I have an extra 5kgs hidden on my body somewhere 🙂

Quite frankly, some places are worth the trip just for the food.

And the duty-free champagne.

Obviously. 🥂

Love, life and happiness.

Rowdy and Suz