Of course, this is subjective. Do you agree with this list? Where have you eaten well?
I’d say Hong Kong, New York, San Francisco, Singapore and Vancouver and are among cities not on this list where I’ve eaten well, for example. And on this list, my favorite cities for food were Istanbul and Marrakech.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Articles-l0XT4C1f4KLM-Best_food_cities_world.html
Definitely Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Saigon (over Hanoi) and Taipei over Hong Kong.
Agree KL has some of the best food in the world.
Like a lot of TripAdvisor stuff some of the cities are just predictable, some a bit weird - Jamaica is a country not a city!
I love Asian food so I agree Bangkok and Kyoto are great but think Chiang Mai and Osaka have a more interesting food scene. I also think Penang and Kuala Lumpur have amazing food and aren’t mentioned.
For Mexico, I loved the food in Oaxaca
For Europe my favourites are Bologna and Copenhagen (Nordic food, which is wonderful, doesn’t seem to feature at all). Australia is also totally missing too - I thought the food in Sydney and Melbourne was wonderful, with such great produce.
Had some amazing meals in Sydney. We were cruising, though, so most of our meals were aboard. That allowed us to see a bunch of places we’d like to return to. Loved Melbourne especially.
Hi Maggie8K - I live in Vancouver and would love to know where you dined there - what was your favorite restaurants?
Chicago, Illinois!
I have a bunch of relatives there, so I’d go where they took me for Chinese food or recommended when they left their second homes for my use when they returned to Hong Kong on trips.
With that kind of food, chefs are key and they switch restaurants a lot, so I go where my family recommend at a given time. Many Chinese chefs are proprietary and often don’t share their recipes, special techniques and such. Chinese folks also are very entrepreneurial, so often chefs will open up their own places, co-own or such, and when the restaurant fails or someone has a falling out, the chef moves again.
I haven’t been back to Vancouver since before the pandemic and I moved away from the Pacific Northwest several years ago, so it hasn’t been as convenient to visit. I hope to revisit Vancouver maybe next year, because I’m booked up this year.
If you live in the area, I’d say ask Chinese acquaintances whom you trust taste wise. And it helps to know what part of China they’re from, because it’s a large country, with different cuisines. Like dim sum comes from Southern China, so I wouldn’t ask a Northerner unless I knew they knew dim sum well.
If you like pure, clean, subtle tastes, ask a Southerner. If you like spicy, bold flavors, ask a Northerner. Northerners also are the ones who traditionally ate a lot of noodles and buns. Southerners are big on rice. So if there are certain dishes you prefer, ask accordingly. Typically, Westerners like more robust flavors and might find Southern Chinese food bland. Taiwanese food is typically closest to Northern Chinese. (Southern China had the benefit of fresh ingredients and seafood, so they didn’t glop on seasoning, sauces or peppers to hide so-so ingredients.)
Richmond was especially good for Chinese food — many restaurants and shops catering to Chinese folks, especially from Hong Kong. We could go visit malls and such where you could speak only Chinese.
Thanks for your reply - interesting! I love to cook so I don’t really dine out much and Chinese food is actually not my favorite. I tend to go for Indian or Greek food when I do go out for dinner. I loved visiting India and Greece for that reason!
I love Indian and Greek. Indian seems much more interesting to me, though, because of the size of the country and diversity of food.
Been to both countries, but haven’t explored anywhere enough timewise. Don’t cook at all.
I also love Malaysian. Its cross-cultural influences are amazing. And when I was in Singapore last, a native friend there introduced me to Peranakan cuisine - Wikipedia, which was delicious.