Marry in Macau – but bring your own food

Most travel books and travel websites describe Macau as a gourmet’s paradise.
After having been here for a week, I can’t really agree.
And I suspect that all those rave review about the great Portuguese and Chinese food you can find in Macau must somehow have been masterminded by the Macau board of tourism.
Where’s the beef?
For the [...]

Life is good for animals in Bhutan

Most Bhutanese are devout Buddhists. And one of the cornerstones of Buddhism is that it’s wrong to kill animals because they are part of the divine creation.
Unfortunately, most Bhutanese also like eating meat. And that opens up a dilemma: if you want to eat meat, you have to slaughter animals.
But what can you do as a [...]

The hidden restaurants of Thimphu

There are a lot of good restaurants in Bhutan’s capital Thimphu.
For non-locals, the question is just how to find them.
At home in Europe, I’m used to most restaurants being on the ground floor, usually with an illuminated sign and a welcoming doorway.
They’re easy to find, vying for my attention (and my money, of course).
Not so [...]

German is good in Ulan Bator

Believe it or not, but you can see a lot of German influence in Mongolia’s capital Ulan Bator.
Everywhere you go, you’ll come across advertisements for Khan Bräu, for instance. The Khan Bräu brewery has been around since 1996. It’s run jointly by a German and a Mongolian.
Khan Bräu makes its beers in Mongolia, but they’re [...]

Sorry, we’re out of dog meat

There will be no dog meat in Beijing restaurants during the Olympics.
According to this weekend’s edition of China Daily (the country’s English language newspaper), the city’s 112 officially designated Olympic restaurants have been banned from selling dog meat during the Olympics.
The paper continues that non-designated restaurants have also been encouraged not to serve the meat.
“Dog [...]

Lunch at the palace

Lunch at a royal palace is something pretty unusual for me. But on my last day in Bangkok, Dusit Palace is really where I had my lunch.
O.K. – so it wasn’t exactly a 15 course state lunch with the Royals at one of the palace’s banquet halls. It was a modest snack at a [...]

Hot dinner in Hanoi

In Hanoi, there are some eating places you go to because of the decor and others that you go to despite the decor. Cha Ca La Vong is one of the latter kind.
The place is any decorator’s nightmare with its neon lights, green walls and wobbly tables and chairs.
But – oh – the food! [...]

Dinner doggie-style

I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat meat. And though I don’t like the smell of raw meat at butcher shops, it usually doesn’t bother me very much.
But when I looked around an open-air market in Hanoi today, I did get slightly nauseous in one corner of the market. I came across something that I [...]

A Taste of Colonial Vietnam at Hanoi’s Indochine Restaurant

One of the great things about being in Hanoi is the food. It’s amazing. So many great restaurants!
The Indochine at 16 Nam Ngu Street in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem district is one of the favourites among expats and tourists.
It’s tucked away in a little alley and if you don’t know where to look, you’re [...]

Kissing a man with a beard…

“Kissing a man with a beard is a lot like going to a picnic,” Minnie Pearl is quoted as saying. “You don’t mind going through a little bush to get there!”
Well – I didn’t kiss a man with a beard today, but I did have a picnic. The first one of the season.
Perfect [...]