
“How much hairspray does it take to make a McDonald’s Big Mac look edible?”
Our fellow travellers and tasters on our Culinary Tour of Istanbul were the famed food photographers Nancy and Chris Cassidy. Among other projects, they do nearly all of the mouthwatering photography for the Rick Bayless empire. It’s unlikely that they have ever photographed a Big Mac, but we couldn’t resist asking. For the first and possibly only time in our lives, we were sitting across from people who could answer this time-honored question.
Chris shook his head, clearly indicating that our question was a stupid one. “You can’t do that any more,” he said. “There are still tricks you can use, but everything in the photograph has to be part of the actual dish.”
We would’ve been less shocked if he had told us that the process involved medical waste extruded through a 3D printer. The last thing we expected to learn on our trip was that the fast food pictured in advertisements contained even a small percentage of actual food.
Our fellow travellers and tasters on our Culinary Tour of Istanbul were the famed food photographers Nancy and Chris Cassidy. Among other projects, they do nearly all of the mouthwatering photography for the Rick Bayless empire. It’s unlikely that they have ever photographed a Big Mac, but we couldn’t resist asking. For the first and possibly only time in our lives, we were sitting across from people who could answer this time-honored question.
Chris shook his head, clearly indicating that our question was a stupid one. “You can’t do that any more,” he said. “There are still tricks you can use, but everything in the photograph has to be part of the actual dish.”
We would’ve been less shocked if he had told us that the process involved medical waste extruded through a 3D printer. The last thing we expected to learn on our trip was that the fast food pictured in advertisements contained even a small percentage of actual food.
Our epiphany about food photography came in a tiny coffee shop in Istanbul. The shop was smaller than some American cars. Five seats were tightly packed around a small glass table. An older gentleman stood behind a small counter making Turkish coffee on a portable camp stove. We never would have noticed the shop had our tour guide not ushered us through the door.
Fact: Turkish coffee is designed for people who think espresso is too weak. The grounds are twice boiled in a small, stovetop pot. The end result is a hot, frothy, coffee concentrate that settles into black silt on the bottom of the cup.
Turkish coffee is usually sweetened to the point where it is indistinguishable from melted ice cream. We, however, live by the No Mixer Rule so we drank our coffee black. In fact, the first Turkish word we learned was “sade,” which translates roughly to “For god’s sake, please do not put any sugar into my coffee.”
In San Francisco, where we live, coffee is a contact sport. Everyone has his or her favorite artisan coffee roaster. The city is littered with trendy coffee shops, some of which are so hip that their ambient music is spun on vinyl. Our guess is that an occasional tourist walks into one of these shops, panics and backs immediately out onto the street. Unless you’re well versed in San Francisco coffee culture, it would be easy to mistakenly assume that you had wandered into a tattoo parlor.
We love San Francisco coffee. We love our micro roaster and tiny cafes. But we have to admit that the old man with the camp stove produced the best coffee we have ever tasted.
We love San Francisco coffee. We love our micro roaster and tiny cafes. But we have to admit that the old man with the camp stove produced the best coffee we have ever tasted.
Fact: Drink Your Carbs’ travelogues are joyous, but not particularly useful. For example, Meat Cooked in the Manner of Thieves was among the best foods we have eaten, but our descriptions do not make it easy to duplicate. Our trip to Hong Kong is no better. It may make you desperate to visit that part of the world, but we don’t make it particularly easy to follow in our culinary footsteps.
In our defense, our previous travelogues were written to illustrate that DYC was compatible with exotic travel. We no longer need to prove that.
We just returned from a trip to Italy, Greece and Turkey. Instead of stories selected to demonstrate the value of DYC, we will share some practical tips on how to find good food while traveling.
Finding Good Food in Tourist Areas:
The unspoken truth of travel is that the food in tourist towns and cruise ports mostly sucks. This should surprise no one. These places cater to travellers. If, as a chef or restaurant proprietor, you know that patrons are unlikely to return, you don’t try that hard. This is why the food sucks near Time Square in New York, at the Warf in San Francisco or anywhere within 20 miles of a Disney property.
The unspoken truth of travel is that the food in tourist towns and cruise ports mostly sucks. This should surprise no one. These places cater to travellers. If, as a chef or restaurant proprietor, you know that patrons are unlikely to return, you don’t try that hard. This is why the food sucks near Time Square in New York, at the Warf in San Francisco or anywhere within 20 miles of a Disney property.
If these tourist traps are so awful, why are they so busy? Our theory is that restaurants along tourist corridors survive solely because most travellers prefer the comfort of a predictably mediocre meal to the anxiety of taking a risk. (There is no other plausible justification for the existence of the Hard Rock Café.)
The warning signs of a culinary wasteland are unmistakable: mimes, human statues, surly teenagers distributing tour brochures and people dressed in Bermuda shorts and knee-high tube socks. Shop windows are crowded with signs promising never-ending sales. Most importantly, you cannot pass a restaurant without being physically assaulted by a waiter waving an English language menu.
'We make all the best traditional Etruscan dishes,” a waiter in Venice, Italy assured us. “Also, hamburgers and pizza.” This pitch hit us like bug repellent. The more items on a menu, the larger the walk-in freezer. Dining in one of these restaurants is the equivalent of eating in an airport Chili’s and claiming that you have experienced Mexican food.
After all of our recent travel, we are becoming experts at identifying worthy restaurants. It’s a little like finding Waldo in those old children’s books. It’s a skill that improves with practice.
'We make all the best traditional Etruscan dishes,” a waiter in Venice, Italy assured us. “Also, hamburgers and pizza.” This pitch hit us like bug repellent. The more items on a menu, the larger the walk-in freezer. Dining in one of these restaurants is the equivalent of eating in an airport Chili’s and claiming that you have experienced Mexican food.
After all of our recent travel, we are becoming experts at identifying worthy restaurants. It’s a little like finding Waldo in those old children’s books. It’s a skill that improves with practice.
Good Food is Often Less Than a Block Away.
You would think that people who travel would be, by nature, adventurous. Travelers are, but tourists are not. In our experience, tourists rarely stray from the immediate area surrounding a significant site or walk on roads not recommended in a guidebook.
It is also worth noting that small, local restaurants can rarely afford marquee locations along tourist corridors. This means, in nearly every case, the best food nearby is a short walk down a small street or alleyway. You don’t have to go far. On our most recent trip, we found incredible food less than 100 yards from the well-traveled path.
You would think that people who travel would be, by nature, adventurous. Travelers are, but tourists are not. In our experience, tourists rarely stray from the immediate area surrounding a significant site or walk on roads not recommended in a guidebook.
It is also worth noting that small, local restaurants can rarely afford marquee locations along tourist corridors. This means, in nearly every case, the best food nearby is a short walk down a small street or alleyway. You don’t have to go far. On our most recent trip, we found incredible food less than 100 yards from the well-traveled path.
Trust Your Sense of Smell.
You’ve wandered off like an Alzheimer patient. You see a dozen small restaurants dotting adjacent streets. Which is the best? Follow your nose.
Allow us to illustrate our point with a story. The Island of Corfu, Greece is home to the most aggressive restaurateurs we have ever met. One man chased Steven for a full block, swinging at him with a hard-sided menu and repeatedly shouting, “What do you want to eat?”
We fled the main tourist artery and immediately sniffed something extraordinary. We followed that smell to Restaurant Anthos, a small family run establishment. We sat down even before learning that the family grew their own vegetables and prepared everything fresh.
After one of the best meals of the trip, they lined up cocktail glass and poured us tastes of local aperitifs. By far the best was the crystal clear Rakia, which was hand-distilled by the family’s patriarch from grapes grown on the family’s property. The worst was kumquat liquor, the flavor of which can best be described as “Otter Pop.”
If you go to Corfu, eat at Anthos. And consider bringing an umbrella to fight off waiters along the main tourist drag.
You’ve wandered off like an Alzheimer patient. You see a dozen small restaurants dotting adjacent streets. Which is the best? Follow your nose.
Allow us to illustrate our point with a story. The Island of Corfu, Greece is home to the most aggressive restaurateurs we have ever met. One man chased Steven for a full block, swinging at him with a hard-sided menu and repeatedly shouting, “What do you want to eat?”
We fled the main tourist artery and immediately sniffed something extraordinary. We followed that smell to Restaurant Anthos, a small family run establishment. We sat down even before learning that the family grew their own vegetables and prepared everything fresh.
After one of the best meals of the trip, they lined up cocktail glass and poured us tastes of local aperitifs. By far the best was the crystal clear Rakia, which was hand-distilled by the family’s patriarch from grapes grown on the family’s property. The worst was kumquat liquor, the flavor of which can best be described as “Otter Pop.”
If you go to Corfu, eat at Anthos. And consider bringing an umbrella to fight off waiters along the main tourist drag.
Eat Like Locals.
Venice Italy is expensive for tourists and locals alike. Most of the Venetians we met commute into the city center to work and rarely eat in fancy restaurants. In order to attract these locals, the Venice bar scene has evolved its own form of Tapas, small plates of delicious, inexpensive food. From a DYC perspective, Venetian Tapas are difficult. They are served on slices of baguette, like tiny open-faced sandwiches. DYC frowns on bread because we prefer to consume our empty calories in alcohol. Nonetheless, vacations demand that rules be bent. And Venetian Tapas are cheap and delicious. By the end of our visit, they were pretty much the only food we ate.
If you are looking for the best Tapas in Venice, our vote is Al Bottegon. Technically, the name of the restaurant is Cantinone Gia’ Schiavi but no one seems to use that name. As a bonus, Al Bottegon serves double duty as one of the best wine shops in the city.
Venice Italy is expensive for tourists and locals alike. Most of the Venetians we met commute into the city center to work and rarely eat in fancy restaurants. In order to attract these locals, the Venice bar scene has evolved its own form of Tapas, small plates of delicious, inexpensive food. From a DYC perspective, Venetian Tapas are difficult. They are served on slices of baguette, like tiny open-faced sandwiches. DYC frowns on bread because we prefer to consume our empty calories in alcohol. Nonetheless, vacations demand that rules be bent. And Venetian Tapas are cheap and delicious. By the end of our visit, they were pretty much the only food we ate.
If you are looking for the best Tapas in Venice, our vote is Al Bottegon. Technically, the name of the restaurant is Cantinone Gia’ Schiavi but no one seems to use that name. As a bonus, Al Bottegon serves double duty as one of the best wine shops in the city.
Fact: Andrea is gluten free. Not by choice. It’s probably the result of too many cousins intermarrying in the years before the family trip on the Mayflower.
At Al Bottegon, Andrea ate the toppings off the bread. At least, until the staff noticed and started serving her tapas on a plate.
Steven consumed his bread without guilt. As we have said 1000 times. Vacation is not the right time to rededicate yourself to your diet. Deal with your dietary lapses when you get home, or, better yet, prepare for your transgressions in advance.
Occasionally, You Must Break All of These Rules and Eat Like a Tourist.
We’ve already mentioned our Culinary Tour of Istanbul. This is not the kind of tour we would normally take. We are deeply suspicious of food tours. We have enough confidence in our ability to ferret out good restaurants. Moreover, we always assumed that food tours existed solely to drum up business for the mediocre restaurants owned by relatives of the tour operator; the culinary equivalent of your tour guide asking “Can I take you to my brother’s carpet shop?”
Our tour of Istanbul was nothing like we had imagined. Our guide was charming and the food was incredible. We feasted on specialties from across Turkey. As we ate, our guide explained the history and traditions surrounding each dish. In retrospect the combination of food and history seems obvious. The history of any well-developed food culture is the story of trade, alliances, immigration and wars.
By the time we reached the end of our tour and the tiny storefront that served the world’s best coffee, we were full beyond description. We had eaten two breakfasts, two lunches and an endless series of in-between snacks. For the first time in our lives, we understood how competitors feel in the aftermath of a Hotdog Eating Competition.
We’ve already mentioned our Culinary Tour of Istanbul. This is not the kind of tour we would normally take. We are deeply suspicious of food tours. We have enough confidence in our ability to ferret out good restaurants. Moreover, we always assumed that food tours existed solely to drum up business for the mediocre restaurants owned by relatives of the tour operator; the culinary equivalent of your tour guide asking “Can I take you to my brother’s carpet shop?”
Our tour of Istanbul was nothing like we had imagined. Our guide was charming and the food was incredible. We feasted on specialties from across Turkey. As we ate, our guide explained the history and traditions surrounding each dish. In retrospect the combination of food and history seems obvious. The history of any well-developed food culture is the story of trade, alliances, immigration and wars.
By the time we reached the end of our tour and the tiny storefront that served the world’s best coffee, we were full beyond description. We had eaten two breakfasts, two lunches and an endless series of in-between snacks. For the first time in our lives, we understood how competitors feel in the aftermath of a Hotdog Eating Competition.
Fact: If you want good food, you have to take a risk. We concede that a small restaurant in the back alley of an unfamiliar city may be amazing or it may be terrible. Using your sense of smell tilts the odds in favor of amazing, but you will not always emerge victorious. Nonetheless, we strongly believe that the possibility of “amazing” justifies the gamble.
A dear friend likes to say, “If you want to find a prince, you have to kiss a few frogs.” We always assumed this was metaphorically. But on our recent trip, Steven ordered a truly mediocre frog leg appetizer in a small, Italian café. It turns out that kissing frogs can be done both symbolically and literally.
A Few Favorite Shots From Turkey and Greece: