food

Eating My Way Through Turkey
Eating My Way Through Turkey 2048 1536 Greg Ellifritz

Last month I took a great trip through Turkey with a friend.  If you are interested in what I did, check out my post titled Back From Turkey.

 

In that article, I didn’t cover one of my favorite parts of the trip- the adventurous food that I devoured.

 

People like food.  I get more comments on the pictures I take of my meals than any other aspects of my trips.  Because of that, I’m making separate dining posts for each location I visit.  Enjoy the photos below of some of the unique dishes I sampled in Turkey.

 

Lots of my readers are looking for something very exotic or completely different from what they might find at home.  This was the menu from a local Turkish restaurant in Bodrum.  I might be losing my hardcore traveler cred, but I skipped these soups and had some amazing Doner Kabobs instead.

 

 

You might ask: “What is a Doner kabob?”  You’ve probably seen Mexican restaurants serving pork “Al Pastor” from a vertical rotisserie like this one.  Doner kabobs are very similar to Al Pastor pork, but are generally beef and sliced on top of a pita instead of into a taco.

Turkish kebabs are not on skewers like you would expect in a Middle Eastern restaurant here in the USA.. They are grilled meat over rice, a pita, or something else. This is a kabob, but it’s really like the Turkish equivalent of a Philly cheesesteak

 

Thinly sliced grilled steak covered with cheese, tomatoes, and onions. Sitting on a bed of hash browns with a garlic yogurt sauce. One of my favorite meals from the trip.

Dinner at the Bodrum Yacht Club rooftop restaurant. This is fish, shrimp, mussels, and calamari. It’s all placed in a large shell. Add onions, peppers and cheese. Bake until delicious

 

It’s served in the shell over a burning fire to keep it hot while you eat. Definitely better than the smoked cow tongue I had for breakfast.

 

Whole fish was a common option in the seaside town of Bodrum.  The Turkish chefs made eating it easy by making some strategic cuts allowing the diner to quickly split the fish apart and eat the meat from the inside out.  This fish was Bream from the Aegean Sea.

 

Before I get off track talking about some amazing food, I also have to discuss Turkish coffee.  As most of the Turkish population practices Islam, many do not drink.  Coffee shops are the replacement for bars.  This is Turkish coffee.  It’s a thick expresso like drink that is very strong.  When you finish the liquid, there will be about a 1/2 inch of coffee grounds remaining in the bottom of the cup.

 

It’s very popular to turn the cup upside down after finishing the coffee.  That allows the grounds to slide down the side of the cup.  Turks will “read your fortune” by looking at the images created by the grounds sliding down the walls of the coffee cup.

 

In Turkey, appetizers are called “meze.” Waiters will come to your table with a massive tray of different varieties. You pick the ones that look good and the waiter brings out dishes full of your selections.

 

This is from one of our dinners. Beets, a local green that tasted like collard greens, spinach in a garlic yogurt sauce, beans, and mashed fava in a curry sauce. All this was about $8.00.

 

A three-meat kabob meal.

 

Tired of kabobs yet?  This is a “Lebanese kabob.” It’s cooked sliced steak placed on a thin pita. The steak is covered with cheese and rolled up in the pita.

The whole thing is then fried until the pita gets crispy and the cheese melts. It’s then cut up like a sushi roll and covered with a yogurt sauce.

Pretty good. Entire meal with a beer was $9.00.

 

You can’t have food without drinks.  In convenience stores, these little cups of water were sold right alongside larger water bottles.

 

 

The local beers were very malty pilseners and ales.  I tried almost all the local brews and never tasted any hops.  I didn’t find any Turkish IPAs in the country.

 

 

 

A very popular garlic butter shrimp appetizer.

 

 

The local pizzas had a very thin crust and less sauce than you might find in the USA.

 

Corn on the cob was a surprising afternoon snack served from a lot of the food carts in the urban areas.  I’ve only seen that in one other country (Brazil) I’ve visited.

 

 

My final dinner was a casserole of shrimp, mushrooms, peppers, and tomatoes.  Locals broke up pieces of the thin, hard crust, bread and dipped it into the shrimp casserole like sticking a nacho into a bowl of salsa.

 

 

I really enjoyed my meals in Turkey.  If you ever get there, be prepared to have more kabobs than you could ever imagine!

 

 

 

 

 

Eating My Way Through Medellin
Eating My Way Through Medellin 1080 810 Greg Ellifritz
I returned home last week from a 17-day trip to Medellin Colombia.  A lot of my readers like to see the food that is common in the countries I visit.  The article below shows some of the great meals I consumed in Colombia.  While there, I ate out for every lunch and dinner.  I ate at local places and didn’t try to scrimp.

For 17-days, I ended up spending less than $600 on food and alcohol.  That isn’t bad.  Here are some of the things I feasted upon.

On my first foray walking around Medellin. I hadn’t researched the neighborhood restaurants, so I took advice from my book and looked for the place with the most locals eating there.
I found Mondongo’s family restaurant.  It was packed.  Probably 150+ people eating at a covered open air patio at two pm.  That’s a good sign.
I was not disappointed with my choice . My first lunch in the city.
Three large steak medallions with chimichurri sauce, a whole avocado, a sweet plantain, French fries, fried green tomatoes,and a glass of homemade sangria for $15.

 

The restaurant has been in business since 1976.  There are only 13 dishes on the menu.  The cooks can prepare each dish to perfection and get it served quickly.  I got my steak less than five minutes after ordering and it was cooked to a perfect medium level.  Good, cheap, and quick?  I’m all in.  That’s probably why McDonald’s isn’t so popular here.

 

I ate a couple more times there as well.  Food was always excellent, but occasionally when they were short staffed, it took a while to get your check.

Here’s another Mondongo dish.  This is Ajiaco.  It’s a traditional Colombian chicken and potato soup that comes with all the fixings to customize it however you like.  The two small bowls contain capers and heavy cream to thicken the soup.  The cookie-like object is a tostone.  It’s made of corn meal and is used like Americans put crackers in their soup.  It also comes with rice, lime, avocado, cilantro, and hot sauce to jazz things up to your heart’s content.

 

The ear of corn in the center could be eaten on the cob or shaved into the soup.  Peruvian corn is a bit tasteless and chewy.  It’s definitely not Ohio sweet corn.  The meal was so incredibly filling I couldn’t eat it all.   I gave my banana and tostone to a homeless street kid on the sidewalk outside.

 

The soup was $7.25.  I added a small draft beer for $1.00 more.

 

The pic above shows a typical lunch for me.   Served at a small sidewalk cafe without a website, it’s white fish ceviche with avocado, onions, red peppers, and cilantro. Accompanied by a tasty local craft beer.  Seven US dollars for water, beer, and the meal.  In the USA, a restaurant would likely charge a similar price just for the avocado alone!

 

Beef carpaccio at a higher end restaurant in the most tourist-oriented area of the city.  I expected prices to be much higher here, but they weren’t bad.  I ordered the carpaccio as an appetizer, but the plate was huge.  It ended up being my entire meal.  It cost right around US $9.00.

 

The restaurant was called Bonhomia and it was situated with prime real estate along one of the most heavily trafficked pedestrian thoroughfares in the Poblado neighborhood.  I ate quite a few meals there.  The food was universally good, but service was always slow and the waiters often had unpleasant attitudes.

 

I’d been eating a lot of steak and one evening was in the mood for something lighter for dinner. I thought I’d order a chicken Caesar salad. This is what came.

 

It wasn’t really “light” but was the best damn salad I’ve ever eaten. About a pound of teriyaki glazed chicken, bacon, corn, cheese, and croutons covering a bed of romaine lettuce and kale, tossed with Caesar dressing.  It was $7.50.

 

And if you are wondering, yes, you can eat salads in Medellin. The city has potable tap water and the veggies are washed in that before serving.

 

The picture above came from one of my favorite restaurants called Botanika.  It was right across the street from my hotel and had pleasant outdoor dining.  They also had the best sangria I drank on the trip.  I ate there half a dozen times during my stay.

 

Here’s their salmon ceviche, mango, avocado, and cherry tomato bowl.  It was $7.00.

 

There was a tremendous variety of restaurants in my neighborhood.  Middle Eastern restaurants, Kabob shops, vegetarian places, Greek, and Asian restaurants abounded.  Strangely enough, the most popular for the locals seemed to be the Hawaiian Poke bowl restaurants and gourmet hot dog shops.

 

Menu at a local hotdog joint. I had to order a “Park Bitch” just to see what it was.

Looking at the menu, I had to figure out what a “park bitch” was.  When I was feeling adventurous one night I ordered it.

This is the “Park Bitch.”  What makes it a bitch?  It lacks a hot dog!  It’s a hot dog bun filled with with cheese, about a half pound of bacon, onion, and potato straws.


The “Park Bitch”

 

I also tried one of the local Korean restaurants.  The photo below is a sushi roll, but instead of fish, it’s stuffed with bulgogi, and fried egg. I thought that was unique enough to order. It was pretty good for $9.00

 

One of the restaurants that ranked well in the tourist guidebooks was La Revuelta.  It was a fusion Mexican place owned by Colombians.  It was always busy.  I had lunch there once and it was excellent.  They had a large and interesting menu.  I wasn’t that hungry, so I had three tacos with fish and shrimp ceviche, pickled onions, cilantro, and black beans for $5.50.  I accompanied it with one of their signature margaritas.  It went down quite smoothly.

 

 

A restaurant that was also popular with the tourists was Masaya.  It was a large hostel/hotel in a neighborhood popular with ex-pat remote workers.  The hotel has a killer rooftop pool and supposedly good cocktails.  I went twice and wasn’t impressed.  The cocktail on the rooftop was only average and the servers seemed quite haughty and easily annoyed.

 

They also have what is supposed to be the best hamburger place in the city.  I went during a slow lunchtime when there was only about six other customers.  It took 10 minutes to flag down a waiter for my order.  The wait staff and the kitchen crew were too busy screaming at each other to serve the customers.

 

I ordered.  After waiting 30 minutes, I still didn’t even have my drinks.  I left.  It might have been a good hamburger, but it wasn’t worth that hassle.

 

The richest part of the Poblado neighborhood was called Provencia.  It had several streets blocked off from traffic that served as outdoor dining and entertainment venues.  It was fun and always crowded.  See the video below for an idea of what it looked like.

 

 

I was in the mood for pizza on the first time I walked up the hill to visit.  I had a medium, thin crust “artisanal salami,” three cheese, and onion pizza.  It was really good and just the right size for one person’s dinner.  It cost $8.00.

 

The restaurant was called Hasta la Pizza, Baby and also rented shisha pipes.  I was in heaven.

 

My favorite Colombian dish was Bandeja Paisa. It has chicken, blood sausage, fried pork belly, and sausage with cheese accompanied by some mashed and fried plantains, a couple potatoes, and a small salad for $9.00.

 

 

Not all of my meals were opulent.  I often had simple lunches.  This one was a steak salad with plantain for $8.00.

 

I also ate the yummy empanada shop right around the corner from the hotel.   On nights when I didn’t have time to sit around, I’d pick up some empanadas to go.  Three chicken empanadas and a craft beer cost less than $3.00.

 

There were some surprisingly tasty Colombian craft beers that were often available in both restaurants and convenience stores.  My favorite was the Tres Cordilleras brand.  They had several styles of beer (including a strange “Rosada” that only contained 3.8% alcohol and tasted like strawberries).  I liked them all.  In upscale restaurants they cost a little less than $2.00 US each.

 

Some local beer options

 

One more thing for you foodies to understand if you ever go to Colombia.  Tipping more than some pocket change at a restaurant is a uncommon idea for the locals.  If you pay with a credit card, a tip of 10% will automatically be added to the bill.  If paying by cash, many places will ask tourists if they can add the tip directly to the bill.

 

Before giving your waiter a big tip, check the bill.  It was likely automatically included on your bill.  There’s lots of competition for server spots in the tourist areas.  The tourists don’t know the tip is already handled and then leave a cash tip on top of the bill.  Therefore waiters get to double their tip money as compared with their fellow servers in more local restaurants.

 

Colombia isn’t known for its food, but I ate really well when I was down there.

 

Street Meat
Street Meat 960 717 Greg Ellifritz

 

In the developing world, street food is often safer to eat than food in restaurants.  I eat at places like this as often as possible.  The food can be absolutely amazing and you have a very low chance of getting sick if you follow the tips in this article.

How to Eat Street Food Anywhere in the World Without Getting Sick

 

This is a salad containing cooked pig lung over a bed of chilled duck blood. It’s a traditional breakfast meal in rural Vietnam. I don’t recommend it.

 

Breaking All the Food Rules
Breaking All the Food Rules 640 480 Greg Ellifritz

I get a lot of questions from first time travelers about what foods to avoid when traveling in foreign countries.  I would love to be able to provide an all inclusive list, but, like many things “it depends.”

 

It took a whole chapter in my book Choose Adventure to adequately cover the basics.  If you want my best advice, see the chapter “Eating and Drinking (Without Dying).”

 

Until then, let me stress that in many places you can break all of the “food rules” for international travel and still be safe.  Here was my lunch yesterday.  It was a big dish of ceviche and a Caesar salad with shrimp.

 

The food Nazis would be very unhappy with this meal.  It breaks a lot of “The Rules.”

 

Lets start with the salad.  Everyone knows that it’s unsafe to eat salads in foreign countries.  The cooks wash the lettuce with local water which may be contaminated with bacteria and viruses.  Except in the high end restaurants that cater to tourists.  Those folks know to wash the produce with purified water instead of tap water so that all their guests don’t get sick.

 

Would I eat raw unwashed produce straight from a market in Bolivia?  Probably not.  But at the high end Mexican resort where I’m staying this week, it’s likely fine.  If you have any doubts, ask your waiter.

 

The next taboo is eating any dairy or cheese.  My salad had both cheese and a creamy dressing.  That’s supposed to be bad.  It is bad if it is stored un-refrigerated on an island without electricity in Nicaragua.  At a nice restaurant?  You are going to be fine.

 

Finally, we get to the ceviche.  It’s uncooked (but essentially “cooked” in citrus juice) fish, shrimp, and octopus.  Raw meat and seafood breaks all the rules.  Again, context matters.  I’ve eaten raw sushi all over the world.  I wouldn’t choose the sushi in a land-locked country without reliable electricity, but in a coastal town, that fish is far more fresh than most of the fish in your home supermarket.

 

Take a look at the photo above.  That’s kudu carpaccio that I ate in Zimbabwe.  Yes, it’s raw antelope meat.  Yes, I’m in a country that has been undergoing a complete financial and societal collapse for the last 20 years.  The hamburgers on the street there are cut with sawdust to make the patties bulkier.  I wouldn’t eat those.

 

Why did I eat the raw antelope?  Because it was in the country’s best restaurant and it likely had good safety practices.  Kudu in Zimbabwe is like fish in coastal Mexico.  It’s likely to be very extremely fresh and some of the safest food I could eat.

 

Sometimes you can relax the commonly touted “food rules” for international travel.  Sometimes doing that can cause horrible issues.  You have to be smart enough to know the difference.

 

Excuse me, it’s time for me to get a second helping of that ceviche.

Traveling in Egypt
Traveling in Egypt 789 395 Greg Ellifritz

All of my readers who are contemplating a trip to Egypt should watch this video.

 

Egypt Travel Nightmare!! Why I’ll Never Go Back!!

 

 

I enjoyed my trip to Egypt 15 years ago.  I wouldn’t be excited about the prospect of traveling there right now.  Lots of folks are reporting similar hassles and significant security concerns.  I agree with the producer of these videos.  Don’t go to Egypt right now.

 

 

 

Street Food
Street Food 1920 1000 Greg Ellifritz

I make it a point to eat street food as often as possible whenever I travel in third world countries.  Contrary to popular belief, the food is fresher and prepared in a more sanitary manner than the food you will find in most tourist restaurants.

 

Read this article for some tips and then go get some street meat!

 

How to Eat Street Food Without Getting Sick

Street Food
Street Food 720 960 Greg Ellifritz

I make it a point to eat street food as often as possible whenever I travel in third world countries. Having just returned from a month in Mexico, I can assure you that I took advantage of the nearby food carts and taco trucks for lunches and dinners several times a week.

 

Contrary to popular belief, street food is usually fresher and prepared in a more sanitary manner than the food you will find in the tourist restaurants. Read the article for some tips and then go get some street meat!

 

How to Eat Street Food Without Getting Sick

 

How can you pass up a Belgian fry truck in Playa del Carmen?

 

I had to draw the line at the dude selling sushi out of a cooler from his ATV on the street. Not quite that adventurous.

 

 

Foreign Food Etiquette
Foreign Food Etiquette 1280 700 Greg Ellifritz

Don’t make a culinary faux pas.  Read the article below to learn about how dining customs vary across cultures.

 

An International guide to food and eating etiquette

 

Weird Foods
Weird Foods 1912 2560 Greg Ellifritz

One of the things I enjoy the most about traveling is trying new foods.  Over the years, I’ve eaten some adventurous things.

Eating fried caterpillars in Zimbabwe

 

Freshly caught piranha in Brazil

 

Stuffed rabbit in Cuba

 

Grilled guinea pig in Ecuador

 

How adventurous of an eater are you when you travel?  Check out the list below and start counting!

 

Weird Food Bucket List: 60 Strange Foods From Around the World

 

For what it’s worth, I’ve eaten 20 of the 60 foods.  So much more good stuff to try!

 

If you want to eat adventurously, but worry about dying, I have a whole chapter in my book that explains how to eat and drink safely in a foreign country.

 

 

The absolute worst food I’ve ever eaten. Duck blood soup (served over raw pig lungs) in Vietnam

 

“Street Meat”
“Street Meat” 750 499 Greg Ellifritz

Most guidebooks will instruct you to “never eat street food.”

 

That’s bullshit.  Street food is often the safest option for travelers.  It’s prepared fresh and is still hot.  It hasn’t sat overnight on a rat and cockroach infested counter in a restaurant kitchen waiting to be rewarmed in a microwave.  Besides that.  It’s delicious.  Just look at all of these amazing street foods at the link below:

 

Best Street Food Around the World: 50 Favorite Street Food Dishes

 

I’ve eaten most of the foods listed for the countries I’ve visited and have not yet gotten sick from any “street meat.”.

 

Look for a vendor who is cooking the food in front of you and a long line of locals.  If you do that, you’ll likely be fine.

 

If you want some more information on street dining, pick up a copy of my book or check out the links below.

 

How to Eat Street Food Anywhere in the World Without Getting Sick

THE ULTIMATE STREET FOOD SAFETY CHECKLIST: HOW TO EAT LIKE A CAUTIOUS LOCAL

 

 

 

 

 

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