mlgb

Never had an emu or ostrich egg, but ostrich filet is something I liked (in NZ). Alpaca and llama are both absolutely delicious. And of course I like goat (ex-Caribbean resident as a child).

I'm always surprised at how many Americans don't eat lamb, or don't like it. It is often hard to find outside of holiday season in the major supermarkets. On our recent group tour in NZ I wanted to order it in restaurants, but it was usually something like a well done braised shank or roulade, not medium rare as it should be. We cooked at a few motels due to restaurant overcrowding. On request one night our leader bought some lamb pieces which were grilled (under my supervision) to perfection. Enjoyed by all but the two nonadventurous eaters. They had well-done steak, LOL.

tom42

I had ostrich filet in a restaurant around Greenville, SC. It was delicious. Around here, lamb is pretty easy to find throughout the year. Both sirloin chops and racks. Love lamb. I'd rather have a rack of lamb over a steak any day of the week. But I can understand why it turns off some people.

starrs

What about venison, pheasant, quail and fish?

Nikki

Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.

Love eating local food wherever I go. New foods, old foods, all of it. I haven’t tried many burgers abroad but have been disappointed when I did. I read a post on Fodor’s once that said the grind is different in Europe, and that made sense to me.

scrb11

Yeah there are definitely locals patronizing these chain restaurants or else there wouldn't be several outlets of them.

Definitely local people at McDonalds and Starbucks too.because they operate during times of the year when there aren't many tourists.

mrwunrfl

>> * bonus: ume juice, which is cold plum nectar from public drink dispensing machines in Japan= ambrosia on a hot summer's day.

Zebec, thanks for mentioning ume jusu. Had a meal that included ume fruit and loved it. Because of that, a week later I saw umeshu on a menu and ordered it. I was asked how I wanted it and the only word I understood was the Japanese pronunciation of "rocks" (rokusu maybe), I just threw up my hands and said whatever. She brought out a tall glass of plum wine mixed with some kind of soda on the rocks.

Anyway, you reminded me that I need to get some umeshu at the supamaketto.

balthy

Sweden is not a country with a food/eating out culture. The national dishes are burgers and their version of pizza. It’s an urban myth that Swedes eat pickled herrings or fish, maybe at Christmas they do. I find it a great country to lose weight in. There a few exceptions obviously but in the main it’s pretty dire.

zebec

Travelers may want to try healthy red sorrel juice. Originally a Caribbean drink, one may now find it throughout the Jamaican diaspora. We can get it here at a couple specialist booths within farmer's markets.
Strong in flavor, delicious in taste. We just found some fresh at London's Burra market this past summer ('Aunty Audreys Red Sorrel'), and assumedly it'd also be available in say I dunno, maybe Brixton.

I am done. the natural irie heights

mlgb

Sorrel drink is made with those hibiscus (roselle) flowers you discovered, zebec. In Mexican markets and restaurants here and in Mexico, oddly enough, it is called "Jamaica".

Have a look at the Wikipedia entry for "hibiscus tea". It is a popular drink in many countries under different names.

Next time I visit Marukai market or Daisu I will look out for ume drink.

mlgb

What about them? I made sure that other 3 adventurous eaters on the NZ tour tried venison when it was on the menu, they liked it. Farm raised and not very gamy but I had wild venison on a bun from a food truck that trip ( it was called a 'burger') and it was nice.

nelsonian

the locals in NZ cannot even afford to buy lamb, it is cheaper to buy in the UK and the US than it is here. I grew up eating it we had it two or three times a week. Probably in the last 40 years though most of the lamb produced here is exported and we pay at least that price or more in the supermarkets.

mlgb

What do you pay for lamb shoulder chops? They are on sale this week at Aldi for USD 7.49/lb. Which reminds me I need to run over and see if they have sold out.

zebec

Is it just my imagination or....naw forget it.

For decades now, one has been able to sample hash brownies, cookies and balls in Amsterdam. Sometimes those are sold next to signs that warn folks not to consume the whole thing.
Jay from Palo Alto and I once sampled some of that yield there at the famed rock club, The Melkweg (Milky Way).
Both of us eedyawts were just then nursing broken hearts from recently bad romances back home. We expressed that sorrow with the manly tradition of ignoring warning signs---we both ate the whole damn thing.

I am done. the loooong night

crellston

What a great thread!

We always try new foods wherever we go, indeed we actively search them out. Food is a major part of travel. There is no better way of engaging with a culture or a country's people than through food whether that be eating, buying, cooking or just talking about it.

If you are going to eat meat (which I always am) then I am a fan of the "nose to tail" approach - someone mentioned beef cheeks - Yummy! Though I wasn't too fond of the cow face soup we had in Peru. No waste and the less well known /cheaper parts are often the tastiest. We make a point of learning all about other countries food and trying things we have never seen before. A few things we have just walked away from - raw duck embryo in Laos, dog, again in Laos (we are dog lovers), raw monkey brains (Hong Kong),Mondongo tripe (cow stomach) soup in Colombia wasn't great!. An unofficial delicacy when we lived in Sierra Leone was bush meat aka various types of monkey/chimpanzee - no thanks. We have eaten snake, many types of insect (inc ants, locusts, crickets, guinea pig) many types of raw fish. Formerly "exotic" meats like Kangaroo, Alpaca, Ostrich are readily available in restaurants and supermarkets here in London

We have spent countless hours in cookery classes in countries all around the world have major stashes of herbs and spices that we use to create dishes we have tried on our travels.

You do have to draw the line somewhere though. For me that is Macdonalds, BurgerKing and KFC....

Bokhara2

I can buy alpaca, crocodile, kangaroo, venison, rabbit, quail, emu, duck, guinea fowl, and other game locally, both at a supermarket and specialist "game gourmet" outlets. I have both whole and boned quail in my freezer at the moment. I haven't seen pheasant locally on the Gold Coast, but there was a farm in the Barossa that specialised in them, so I imagine they are still available. I occasionally bought goose in Sydney, but either the goose wasn't prime quality/grown or the chef (me) didn't do it justice. Possibly leaning towards the latter. I'd be keen to have another go at cooking it if I can find a good supplier.

Lamb is quite expensive in Australia, but I can often buy a rack (8 points) for around $22-$24 on special. Mlgb - for comparison, Aldi loin chops are AUD 21.99/kg in the advertisement that came up when I googled just now. About AUD $10/lb.

mlgb

The ones I bought at Aldi were not nice loin chops but rather shoulder chops. They were Australian source at $US 7.50/lb.
Vons has loin chops on sale at $9/lb for the next week but not sure of the country of origin.
Sprouts supposedly has NZ loin chops at $15/lb but whenever I go into that store I never see any.

cigalechanta

whatever the locals are eating because it's a good way to understand another country..

MmePerdu

Yes, that. I'm currently traveling in Asia, OD-ed on Indian & a good burger in an upscale restaurant here in Penang, which I rarely eat at home, was just the thing. A couple of days earlier lunch of lamb stew at the E&O.

Guenmai

I agree.
My Kiwi friends were able to have lamb as their farm had around 3,000 sheep, I think it was. I was there on the farm in the mid-90s in Te Houka on the South Island. I went during two different years. I remember the first morning that I woke up at their farmhouse and opened the fridge to a big piece of lamb dripping blood. It had just been slaughtered in the early morning, but due to jet lag, I didn't wake up until noon. I had prepared some beans and rice the day prior and put each into separate bowls and thank goodness had stuck a plate on top which caught the dripping lamb blood. My friends ate a lot of lamb the entire two weeks that I was at their farm. They were my parents' ages and their kids were my age. We would go out on long driving trips and they would pack up their car with a cooked leg of lamb stored on a wooden board and load it into the truck with bags of tomatoes, cucumbers, loaves of bread, hardboiled eggs, etc. They grew and raised a lot on their farm as it was massive. There were no places to stop to eat a meal in a lot of areas where we would be driving. So, it was take a whole meal and beverages along with us.

On Christmas Day, there was lamb, but my friend and his son-in-law got up early and went fishing and caught fish for me for the Christmas dinner. Delicious fish. I totally gave up meat in 1976. But, even when I ate meat, I detested the taste of lamb and I've been an adventurous eater since a child. My parents would cook leg of lamb and serve it with mint jelly which would turn my stomach. We ate all kinds of meat/poultry from venison to rabbit to cornished hens and about everything else as I grew up on a wide range of food. I remember a rattlesnake meat sandwich when I was around four years old and even though we lived in cities, we had different kinds of available meat/poultry.

In my early years of vacationing entire summers in Denmark and before I stopped eating meat, there was both pigeon (duer) and horse meat. I've eaten a lot of unusual food, even chocolate covered ants and grasshoppers bought right here in California when I was growing up.

Happy Travels!

mrwunrfl

I was disappointed by a steak in Scotland. I might have to go back and choose the restaurant wisely.

Best steak ever: Argentina. It is worth flying to Buenos Aires just for the bife de lomo. One day I had it for lunch, dinner, and then second-dinner around midnight after a tango show.