Let’s be honest, Westfield foodcourts really do suck arse. I won’t elaborate any further.

I’ll also be honest with the fact that I am biased towards Asian foodcourts. Why? Because they are insanely awesome and we’re always spoilt for choice. And did I mention great value for money? Yes. I won’t elaborate any further on this either, let the photos speak for themselves!

Whenever I’m in Asia, I try to make a trip to a Takashimaya or SOGO shopping mall just for the unbeatable foodcourt experience. This particular set of photos were taken while on a trip to Taipei, Taiwan.

Drool away!

Impulsive as I am, I decided to make a spontaneous trip to Madrid and within 24 hours I had procured a return high-speed train ticket from Barcelona and a disgustingly cheap 4-star hotel smack-bang along the Gran Via in Madrid. In between frantic Facebook messaging and trans-Mediterranean SOS’s to friends asking them for last minute tips on what to see, eat and do in Madrid it was my mum who told me about Botin through a 3-page text message that sparked my curiosity.

While in Madrid, I was to rendezvous with a good friend of mine from Sydney, and on our first night out on the town, the first of our many decadent stops was Botin. Located at Calle de Los Cuchilleros 17 in the Plaza Mayor area, Botin was founded in 1725 and according to the Guinness Book of Records, it is claimed to be the oldest restaurant in the world. Specialising in traditional Castilian cuisine, they are most well-known for their legendary roast suckling pig.

It sounded like it was going to be an upmarket joint and we were ready to spend the big bucks – So I called to book a table for two just in case. The concierge was very polite and we had a table down for 10:30pm Spanish dinner time. When we jumped in the taxi all I needed to say was ‘Botin’ and the driver just smiled and within 5 minutes we were at our destination. (We could have walked, but on our first night out in Madrid, we treaded carefully after several glasses of wine as we didn’t want to risk ending up the drunk tourists who lost their way).

We were literally dropped off right out the front door of the restaurant, and what greeted us was an extremely quaint establishment on a narrow stone-paved street, complete with aged timber panelling and waiters in bow-ties at the door. The restaurant was packed, and we were taken upstairs to our table. The ambiance was really warm, it had this old workman’s tavern feel to it – you could really sense the centuries gone by as soon as you walked through the doors. It was going to be a no-holds barred affair, and since it was the day after my birthday, we decided to do an old-fashioned gorging to celebrate so we kicked off the binge-fest with a jug of Sangria.

We decided to create our own degustation menu as follows:

We trembled when the first plate arrived, as we were expecting the usual ‘tapas-sized’ servings but we were quite surprised they were larger than usual; almost dinner-plate sized. After a couple of gulps on our end, we decided to suck it up and face the barrage of food that we ordered (note that there were only two of us). The artichoke dish was so simple; fresh artichoke hearts drizzled in olive oil with a hint of garlic, mostly flavoured by the salty Iberian ham which breathed extra life into the dish. The hearts were really tender and made for a great appetizer.

Next to arrive were the Morcillas or blood sausages. This is probably the most delicious blood sausage I have ever eaten; they are rather different compared to the English or German variety as these ones are filled with rice, onions and meat and seasoned really well with a secret ingredient and pan-fried to perfection. You still get the irony taste you do from blood sausages, but Morcillas tend to be milder due to the rice filling.

Somebody call the doctor – oh wait – olive oil is supposed to be good for you, right? Shrimps swimming in a clay dish of garlic oil and herbs, complete with large chunks or garlic. The oil was SO tasty, we soaked all our bread into the pot until there was nothing left. The shrimps were not overcooked and were extremely tender. Anything cooked in that much fat and garlic MUST taste good.

How could we NOT order the Botin specialty – The roast suckling pig. Okay, I’ve had my share of out-of-this-world suckling pig in my lifetime (Chinese, German…) but this one really takes the cake. It’s a Botin specialty for a reason. What makes a succulent roast suckling pig? Is the meat tender? check. Does the skin crackle? check. Does the skin ooze fat while crackling in your mouth? check. Just times these factors by 100 and you get the Botin suckling pig. Nothing fancy about the seasoning, just salted, but the cooking technique is definitely something to write home about. I bet they employ rocket scientists just for this one dish. Enough said.

The last of our mains to arrive were the amazing baby squids or in Spanish, chipirones as they are called. Cooked in their own ink in a rich and delectable yet simple gravy and served with rice. Again, such simple fare yet so much loving care has been put into creating such a delicious dish. The squid ink gravy really dominated our palates with its rich and sweet flavour without any fishy taste. By this stage we were close to keeling over but we weren’t done until we hit up some dessert to end our night of gastronomic debauchery.

For myself I decided to go for something light (ha,ha) and settled for a traditional creme caramel. It WAS a good creme caramel, pretty on-par with a lot of great creme caramels I’ve had in my lifetime, the syrup was caramelised to perfection, but what really grabbed me was the fresh cream it came with. I usually avoid the stuff but after taking one bite I was hooked. It was so rich, so fluffy yet dense at the same time it almost tasted like whipped cream cheese!

My companion upped the ante and ordered the supremely decadent mascarpone with mango ice cream and mango puree. The combination was a marriage made in heaven; as we each took our first bite, we could hear celestial trumpets bellowing in the distance as the gates of heaven creaked open, sending naked Angels down to earth to carry us up into the clouds…and we were never seen again.

The last thing I remember was waking up face-down in my hotel room at 10am the next day, finally conscious from a food-coma that was, Botin.

I chanced upon these crumbed potato cakes in the frozen foods section at my local Japanese grocery store. I’m a big fan of potato croquettes, and I took a fancy to these particular ones because of the ingredients – seaweed and cod roe. I’ve never tried potato cakes with this combination of fillings before, so I bought them for yet another taste test at home.

These would make a good snack for those peckish moments, or served as a side dish with some hot rice. Not very good value for money considering their size and amount though.

Nattō, or fermented soy beans, is a very popular Japanese breakfast food usually eaten with rice, sometimes with a raw egg broken on top. They say it’s highly nutritious and is a rich source of protein, but whether it is palatable or not remains to be seen…

I’ve eaten my fair share of stinky cheeses and fermented shrimp paste, and I usually have a high tolerance and adoration for pungent foods (such as Durian) that most people stay away from. I first heard of Nattō while reading Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour and how repulsive he found it to be when he had it in Japan. The chapter on Nattō in his book contained so much profanity that I simply had to venture out and buy some of this to try. The beans are fermented with Bacillus Subtilis bacterium; I’m scientifically challenged so I won’t go into further detail on the fermentation process, but you get the drift.

I’ll be honest. I have never eaten anything so foul in smell, taste and texture in my entire life. Nattō smells like 1 week old wet socks left in a dark corner of a room, previously worn by a person with severe fungal tinea, which is then sprinkled with a generous helping of Stilton cheese, and then slightly baked for effect.

It tastes exactly like how it smells – rotten feet. Not that I know what real rotten feet taste like, but that is the best description I can give you. Not only that, the aftertaste lingers. However, this was fixed with a tablespoon of Nutella, and it dissappeared straightaway. But having said all that, the worst thing about Nattō is the unfortunate texture. The fermented beans are covered in a very sticky, slimey, slippery goo that very much resembles regurgitated saliva, phlegm and nasal snot (plus that lingering aftertaste of feet). Needless to say, it was an assault on the senses and I recoiled in terror upon tasting it.

Nattō is definitely an acquired taste. I’ve only had it the one time, and after my horrific experience I’m not sure if I will attempt to give it another go – just yet. I still have 2 containers left in my freezer… So you never know!

I was at a Taiwanese restaurant in Sydney called Din Tai Fung and I saw this curious combination of foods all on one plate on the menu. I couldn’t resist ordering it – It had 3 food items that I absolutely love: Silken Tofu, Pork Floss and Century Eggs (Preserved Duck Eggs). I’ve just never imagined them served together!

At first glance, the dish looked pretty menacing. Even I was slightly afraid. How could this combination possibly work? And not only that, the dish was served cold! It was topped with a sweet, dark, caramel-flavoured soy sauce as a seasoning which didn’t drown the delicate flavours.

I enjoyed the different textures of the three ingredients which worked well together. It took me about 3 bites to really appreciate the magnitude of the dish – the silky softness of the tofu, the salty, ammonia-like flavour of the century eggs, the sweet, dry and salty fibres of the pork floss.

It was a light and refreshing entree, just like the calm before the storm of what was to follow…

During one of my weekly grocery shopping trips to my favourite Japanese food store, I was browsing through the condiments isle and right next to the pasta sauces I saw a packet of this “Spicy Cod Roe Spaghetti Sauce” by S&B (Makers of the popular ‘Golden Curry’ range and wasabi sauce). This was a new concept to me, and the thought of some ‘caviar’ infused pasta excited me so I bought it.

A quick glance at the ingredients and cooking instructions:

The instructions were very simple, just like preparing instant noodles. There was one minor problem though- I didn’t have any pasta in my pantry but I had some Udon, so I used those instead. How could you go wrong with Udon anyway? It’s Japanese as well so I figured a happy marriage would be the outcome of the two ingredients together.

The Spicy Cod Roe Sauce packet contained two separate servings which meant I could save the other serving for a rainy day. =) There are two different seasoning sachets; the red and silver contained the cod roe sauce, while the black and silver contained shredded seaweed garnish.

Here is a closer look at the Spicy Cod Roe Sauce when applied onto the cooked Udon – It’s bright orange, has thousands of tiny egg sacs, and a tart, fishy smell. It would put some people off but I didn’t mind it.

I mixed the sauce in well with the Udon, then sprinkled the seaweed garnish on top. So here’s the verdict: Delicious. It tasted EXACTLY like Taramosalata. It’s both salty and tart, and very fishy. As for the ‘Spicy” factor, maybe a 1/10. I have to say it’s an acquired taste. But if you like Taramosalata then you’d love this. The Udon matches the sauce well, and it absorbs more flavour than regular pasta so I’ll probably use Udon next time, but I’m also open to trying it with regular pasta. Although the egg sacs were visible, the sauce itself wasn’t grainy. This dish was a winner, and I’ll definitely be buying more “Spicy Cod Roe Spaghetti Sauce” in the near future. =) Tasty!

Thanks to a friend of mine who brought back this joyful box of crunchy insect larva from America and the fact that Australian border security didn’t detect this coming through customs meant I got to savour these deliciously crunchy Californian BBQ-flavoured ‘Larvets’…

I asked Google and found out that these are actually mealworms, or larva from a type of grain beetle of sorts. These worms also resemble the live wriggly ones an old friend of mine used to feed his Arowana fish with. Funnily enough, you can even buy these Larvet snacks in bulk from Amazon.com! But whether it will make it past customs or not is another question…

Besides being a tasty novelty item, the packaging indicates that these Larvet Worm Snax have practically zero nutritional value. However, it would probably be a beneficial source of protein if consumed in large quantities!

After opening the plastic wrapping, a waft of wormy, wheaty, smokey, nutty goodness creeped up my nostrils. The BBQ flavouring actually complimented the worms in a strange way. I mean, the last thing you’d consider for a snack would be BBQ-flavoured worms right? To be honest I don’t think they would have tasted any worse or different without any flavouring because the worms were dehydrated and hollow, and tasted like crunchy chicken skin without the grease.

If they sold snack Larvets here, I would definitely be filling up my party bowl with them. I actually liked the taste and crunchy texture of the Larvets, and didn’t find it offensive at all. A good way to get a kick out of these is to eat a large handful and crunch away…nom nom nom…

We were always on the constant lookout for vending machines that sold ‘unconventional’ foods and other strange miscellanous items. By unconventional I mean items that you wouldn’t really expect to purchase from a vending machine on a day-to-day basis.

So when we came across this vending machine at the Mount Fuji lookout that sold dumpling soup, American hot dogs, Takoyaki balls, stir-fried Soba noodles, deep fried rice balls and french fries, out came the spare change!

Out of all 6 items, I’m not really sure why we picked the most ordinary food item on the menu – French fries (Or potato fries – whatever you call them) – but hey, it was novelty enough buying anything from that machine! It was interesting to see how this apparently simple technology worked.

So in went Naomi’s 380yen (around $4.50) – Or rather, a large bill (yes, it returns your change). It took just one press of a button on the item of your choice, and a 3 minute wait for the fries to be heated up before we heard a tumbling sound followed by the appearance of a fancy box of french fries in the opening of the machine:

It was hot alright, and when we opened the box my sunglasses fogged up from the steam! The fries were well, fries. They looked and tasted like the real thing and even had the ‘burnt edges’ taste. The only thing I didn’t like was that the fries were soggy. Looks like the Japanese still need to work on their crisping technology! Some ketchup would have gone down well though.

Yet another bizarre find – this time from a vending machine. I had some spare yens so I gave this little beast a try – Sweet black coffee jelly in a bottle. The stangest thing was that I had to shake the bottle to ‘activate’ the jelly so it turned into a thick  fluid. It tasted like coffee alright, so that was a plus. But the texture was an assault on the senses. Cold. Jelly. Sludge.

Needless to say I was left feeling slightly queasy..

This kept me awake for a few hours as it was nearly midnight when I ate/drank this. The drink was surprisingly high in caffeine! At least I got my 200yen’s worth for trying something new…

It was over 35 degrees, humid and hot as hell. These factors were hard to avoid while walking down a street in Kyoto in the middle of a Japanese summer, but as the below photo demonstrates, the sheer joy of one finding the ultimate in edible coolants:

We came across a stall outside a tea shop selling green tea ice cream floats – With a Japanese twist of course! Soft green tea ice cream dunked in a cup of chilled green tea! It was the perfect summer coolant. Yet another brilliant idea by the Japanese!