500 Restaurants

Last week I celebrated my 500th restaurant review on TripAdvisor: 122 in Chicago alone, reviews in more than 20 countries, probably more than 50 cuisines…

New Orleans

Before I moved to the US I didn't care much about good food.

Everything changed when I moved to a very diverse and high quality food city: Chicago. For 2 years, every weekend we had brunch or lunch in different places.

 Beijing

We explored the city through the restaurants and different cuisines. We went to many neighborhoods because we wanted to have food in a specific restaurant.

White Coffee, Penang

My fav restaurant in Chicago is Ruxbin. There we celebrated our wedding, Rui’s graduation, our wedding anniversaries… All the dates were an excuse to go there! Oh boy, I really missed it!

Yelp and Tripadvisor were our compass. And the smartphones made our task much easier, with little planning we could find a restaurant or a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere.

Tokyo

When we are looking for a restaurant the most important is food quality. I don’t care if the place is a hole-in-the wall or if it has a great view. My target is having great food.

When we are travelling we always want to have food where the locals have it.

Singapore

Last year, in our trip in South East Asia, we had amazing street food experiences. If a food stall is full of locals that’s our call.

Hanoi

In Ho Chi Minh we spent a long time walking and trying to find the famous LunchLady. I ate one of the most delicious meals I ever had in an alley. The crunchiness, mix of flavors and textures and freshness were insane.

The Lunch Lady Ho Chi Minh

My fav food country destination is Japan. When we went there we had 5 meals a day, and I mean something like 3 lunches. All our meals there were pretty amazing and unforgettable.

Fish Market Tokyo

One of my fav dishes is a salad that I ate in Myanmar, tea leaf salad. It’s the national dish. It’s an eclectic mix of flavors and textures. I couldn’t resist, I ate it several times in different cities.

Barbados

I had big expectations about Penang (Malaysia), especially after watchingBourdain’s TV show and I found it very disappointing. It’s one of those cases where tourism changed the essence of the place. Instead of an exciting mix of cultures I found bagel and pizza restaurants.

Ipoh Malasya

I recall a delicious ceviche that I had in Paracas, Peru. The city itself is terrible and this restaurant looked so mediocre but in the end it was perfect.

Ruta de Las Flores, El Salvador

I love South and Central America cuisine, especially Peruvian. During my trips there I can’t recall a bad food experience.

Beans Soup, El Salvador (Gracias, Delmy!!)

I’m already looking forward to 500 more J