International Travel & Food Adventures

Although I'm in the midst of a 4-week travel hell tour of the world (only being outdone by friend Tom Paul who will earn airline status in a period of 4 weeks!!) the one thing I always love about traveling internationally is the chance to experience "new foods" or rather foods that I normally wouldn't see on an American menu and that tickle my fancy.

The last two nights have seen some fun choices which I'm happy to share with you.

Last night I had a starter called "Duck Pancakes".  I threw caution to the wind and didn't even ask what they were.  One could envision big American style pancakes with duck embedded but what arrived was really a 'build your own' taco/wrap with pulled duck breast meat, small pastry type 'shells' and a wonderful Hoisin sauce to dip them in.  The only knock was that the wrap was too doughy and broke up too easily once stuffed with the ducky goodness and dipped into the sauce.  All in all though, a really nice surprise and a good contrast to the typical Fish & Chips and mushy peas that I ordered.

Tonight, I tried a Lamb Kofta burger which was the bomb!!  It was a great re-purposing of what traditionally is a kabob.  The seasonings were done just right.  Normally a kofta has things like garlic, ginger and cardamom but I think I tasted some clove in there as well.  One of the drawbacks of it was that the bun was a really dense Bap bread.

Stupid me now has a phone that can take pictures but did I take one (of EITHER food)??  No, so here are two images, one of a Bap bun and one of Lamb Kofta.  You do the photoshopping in your head okay?

The frustrating thing about this is that when I get back stateside I end up having a craving for something like this and can't find it worth a lick.  This happened in 2004 when I had pleasure of eating a combination of two of my most favorite foods, Indian and Italian with a Chicken Tikka Pizza in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Call it a desperate cry for decent food when the local fare isn't that hot, but I've been talking about that pizza ever since!!

Can't wait to see what my final night brings for dinner!  Tomorrow I'm heading back to London as my flight home is ridiculously early in the morning on Friday.  London opens up many doors, unfortunately, I'm housed right next to Heathrow and so that'll limit anything of true quality, maybe...