There’s an obvious correlation between countries that are known for beer production and countries that are known for bad food.  Take America, for instance… we drink a lot of beer, and our national foods are hamburgers and hotdogs.  Then you have the Czech Republic, renowned for their Pilsner, not-so-renowned for their meat and potatoes diet.

Well, the correlation applies to Germany too.  We’ve all heard about Germany’s superior brewing skills.  Unfortunately, the same skills don’t apply to cooking.

Much like the Czech Republic, meals in Germany are big and hearty plates that aren’t good for your heart.  German dishes are designed to fill you up and keep you warm — that’s about it.

German Dishes

Sauerbraten, which translates to “sour roast,” is considered the national dish of Germany.  It’s a pot roast made of beef marinated in vinegar, water and seasonings.  Sauerbraten is often served with the two most popular side dishes in Germany: sauerkraut and potatoes (either boiled, mashed or fried).

While more popular in the south of Germany, it’s not uncommon to find a spatzle dish on a menu.  Spatzle is an egg noodle that can either be served as a side dish or eaten as a main dish like spaghetti.

Popular spatzle dishes include Käsespätzle (spatzle grated with cheese and fried onion) or Linsen, Spätzle und Saitenwürstle (spatzle with lentils and a whole sausage).

There are also sweet versions: Kirschspätzle (spatzle with cherries, butter, sugar and cinnamon), or Apfelspätzle (spatzle with apples, butter, sugar and cinnamon).

The food you’ll find the most on a German menu is schnitzel, which is simply a deboned meat cutlet that’s breaded and fried.  Usually the meat is veal or pork, contrary to what Wienerschnitzels in America will have us believe (wienerschnitzel is actually fried pork).  Schnitzel is usually served with French fries.

Another hearty food that can be served as a meal or a side dish is Klöße, which is poached or boiled dumplings made from either potato or bread.

If you’re lucky enough to be treated to a traditional Christmas meal in Germany, you’ll savor Rouladen, a thinly sliced piece of beef that is rolled around bacon, onions and pickled gherkin, then cooked low and slow until the meat is tender and juicy.

Currywurst

Wursts (sausages) are insanely popular in Germany, probably because it’s a cheap, hearty, flavorful food that can be found at any bar, fast food joint (called an imbiss) or restaurant.  By far the most popular wurst in and around Berlin is the currywurst.  In fact, it’s so popular that it even has a museum.

Currywurst XXL at Barlin Curry 37 in Berlin

A currywurst is pork sausage smothered in curry-flavored ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder.  It’s what I imagine an Indian hot dog would taste like if they ate hot dogs in India (which they don’t and that’s why Indian food is damn good).

Currywurst became instantly popular after it was invented in 1949 by a food stall owner named Herta Heuwer.  According to Reuters, Germans eat about 800 million currywursts every year.  The oldest and supposedly most popular currywurst stand in Berlin is Konnopke’s Imbiss, a small food stall underneath the train tracks at Eberswalderstrasse station.

German Desserts

The two most popular desserts are:

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, which you may know as Black Forest Cake.  This is dense cake featuring layers of chocolate cake, whipped cream and cherries.  A cherry liquor called Kirschwasser is often mixed into the cake batter to give the cake a little bite.

Even if you can’t read German, you won’t have a difficult time finding apple strudel on a menu; it’s called Apfelstrudel.  Even if you’re not a fan of apples, you can’t resist the taste of warm cinnamon-coated apples wrapped in a sleeping bag of fresh and flaky dough that’s been sprinkled with powdered sugar.  If it’s a little too warm, you can cool it off with ice cream ala mode.

World famous Apfelstrudel at Cafe Einstein in Berlin

Argentina is one of those rare destinations where the food rivals the tourist attractions.  You’re likely to spend as much time eating or recovering from a food coma as you are snapping photographs of monuments and attractions.  Since a good portion of your day will be dedicated to consuming unheard of amounts of food, it’s beneficial to know what you’ll be eating so you can plan your method of attack.

There are a few things you have know before the gluttony begins.  First, whatever diet you’re currently suffering through… forget about it.  You’ve only got one life to live, so you might as well knock off a few months and indulge in all the greasy, fatty, salty delights that Argentina has to offer.  Argentine food is a combination of Spanish and Italian cuisines, two countries that produce a lot of recipes you won’t find in a healthy eating book.

Second, I’ve got some good news and bad news for vegetarians.  The bad news is, you won’t be eating much.  Seeing a vegetable in Argentina is about as common as seeing a shooting star.  But the good news is, starvation is a great way to lose weight fast, right?  No?  Oh.  Well, then there is no good news then.  Sorry, vegetarians.

Here’s a list of the staples of the glorious Argentine diet…

MEALS

Steak

Steaks in Argentina aren’t like the kind you get at the Sizzler — or even (gasp!) Outback — down the street.  They’re thick, juicy, tender and perfectly cooked every time.  You won’t need to drown your steak in a bottle of A1 either.  The meat from the grass-fed cows speaks for itself, with only a light sprinkling of salt and pepper accentuating the natural flavor.  If you like a little more flavor, chimichurri is almost always available as an accompaniment.  Chimichurri is a tangy sauce made of garlic, parsley, red pepper and olive oil.

Seeking out an amazing steak in Argentina isn’t tough either — the most common restaurant is a parilla, or barbeque, and each one serves up every cut of cow you can imagine.  The best part is, these delicious steaks can be found at many parillas for less than it would cost to buy an expiring steak at your grocery store.  Side dishes most often include potatoes, either mashed or fried, and corn, either creamed or grilled on the cob.

Fire Pit & Rotisserie Meats

With steaks this good in Argentina, it’s hard to imagine eating an animal other than cow, but if you must, you have options such as white meat and the other white meat.  Many parillas have two different cooking areas: a grill for steaks and a pit for pork, where butterflied pig carcasses crackle and pop over an open fire.  If you don’t want suckling pig or pork chops, you can get well-seasoned though often dry chicken at a rotisserie.

Sausage

Argentines eat a lot of animal, which means there’s a lot of nasty left over stuff that doesn’t normally sound delicious.  But take all that bloody mess, put it in an intestinal casing with some seasonings and offer it to me as a sausage, and I’m in.  The most popular sausage in Argentina is chorizo, a pork sausage that’s smoky and fatty, and very heavy for an appetizer.  Another popular sausage is morcilla, a blood sausage made of congealed cow or pork blood.

Empanadas

Mankind’s greatest and most useful invention, behind modern medicine and Super Soakers, has to be stuffed pastry.  Empanadas are pastries stuffed with meat like ground beef or chicken, then deep fried and served with a side of chimichurri.  Other fillings include ham and cheese, corn, squash, or even dessert items like chocolate.  Empanadas are generally fried, but the greasiness can sometimes be overwhelming.  That’s why we went crazy for the oven baked empanadas at a restaurant called Cumana in Buenos Aires.  Although empanadas are considered street food or appetizers at best, we ordered 7 or 8 empanadas each at Cumana and ate ‘em as a meal.

Provoleta

Barbequed cheese.  Those two words don’t sound like they should go together without there being a world of problems (and for us there was because we tried to recreate this Argentine treat at home with messy and dangerous results).  But somehow, someway, the magic-wielding chefs in Argentine parillas managed to find a way to grill an inch-thick slice of provolone cheese over an open fire without the disc melting away.  The crispy, grilled-marked shell of the provoleta protects the delicious, melting cheese on the inside, creating a massively unhealthy but sinfully delicious appetizer.  Sometimes the provoleta is cooked on the same grill as the steaks, so the cheese picks up a faint meaty flavor, though usually the oregano and olive oil coating masks the taste.

Pizza

The debate over which pizza is superior — thin crust or deep dish — has a new competitor, and it’s literally right in the middle.  Pizza is popular in Argentina thanks to a large Italian population, but it’s a little different than you’re used to.  Argentine pizza is a fork-and-knife concoction that looks like a Chicago style deep dish even though the crust is generally thinner like New York style pizza.  What makes the pizza so dense is the thick layer of cheese and liberal toppings like the mountain of onions you’ll find on the unique fugazetta pizza.  You can read about our two favorite pizza places in Buenos Aires here.

Italian Classics

Pizza isn’t the only popular Italian dish in Argentina.  Italian restaurants are widespread in Buenos Aires and they serve all the traditional dishes you’d expect to find: cannelloni, ravioli, and pasta.  But by now you’ve realized that Argentines like their food unhealthy, and that’s why the most common dish is Milanese, which is any kind of breaded and fried meat, most often chicken.

DESSERTS

The dessert menus in Argentine restaurants are usually short and sweet (pun intended) with no more than a handful of options.  If the provoleta and the steak didn’t fill you up, a flan will do the job.  Flan is a sweet and dense custard pie topped with a watery layer of crème caramel.  If, on the other hand, you’re looking for something lighter, you can’t go wrong with helado.  Helado is more similar to gelato than ice cream, and comes in all the flavors you’d expect, such as chocolate or dulce de leche, a classic South American flavor closely related to caramel.

BEVERAGES

Malbec Wine

You’re gonna need a nice red wine to wash down all that red meat, and Argentina has plenty to offer.  Their national variety is Malbec, a dark, robust and fruity wine that comes from the Mendoza region.  We’re no wine experts… actually, we barely qualify as wine drinkers… but the Malbec in Argentina was so delicious, we left behind some of our belongings to make room in our bags to bring home a few bottles.  Ok, we didn’t, but we would have if needed!

Natural Coke

Coca-Cola is the most famous brand name in the world, yet despite all its wealth, the company decided to increase its profit margins in 1985 by cheapening its product.  Instead of using natural sugar, Coca-Cola switched to the much sweeter high fructose corn syrup in most markets.  However, Argentina is one of the few markets that retained the original recipe.  So pick up a glass bottle and try Coke the way it was originally intended – naturally sugary.

Mate

It’s early in the morning and you stumble out of your hotel in search of coffee.  But there’s no Starbucks.  There’s no Coffee Bean.  There’s not even 4-day old gas station coffee.  Don’t worry, you can find a cup of pick-me-up in the form of mate.  It’s just as potent and just as addicting!  Read more about mate here.

The Dutch know how to make some pretty tasty things.  Cheese.  Chocolate.  Beer.  But when it comes to actual meals, they aren’t as proficient.  Here’s what to eat in the Netherlands…

Before we list the very limited selection of meals available in the Netherlands, we’ll admit that we didn’t eat any regional cuisine (besides desserts) when we visited Amsterdam.  There weren’t that many restaurants serving Dutch cuisine to begin with.  As a result, we ate at an Indian place, a Thai place and an Italian place… and sadly, those weren’t very good.

Breakfast

A typical Dutch breakfast is loaded with carbs.  Fresh bread is served with a myriad of toppings: butter, jam, cheese, and even chocolate sprinkles (called hagelslag).  There’s also ontbijtkoek, a cake containing clove, ginger and cinnamon.

Lunch And Dinner

Stammpot is an inexpensive and dense dish comprised of boiled potatoes mashed with vegetables, the most popular being kale, endive or sauerkraut.  It’s usually accompanied by a fried speck, a type of bacon similar to prosciutto, or rookworst, which translates to “smoked sausage” even though it’s not actually smoked.

Boerenkoolstamppot, a variety of the stammpot, is kale mixed with potatoes, gravy, mustard and rookworst.

Hutspot is particularly bland dish of boiled and mashed potatoes, carrots and onions.  It’s typically accompanied by a smoked or cured meat like bacon or sausage.

Hete bliksem, which means Hot Lightning, is boiled potatoes mixed with green apples and diced speck, served with syrup.

Slavink is one of the few popular meat dishes.  Take a mixture of ground meat and pork, wrap it in bacon, pan fry it in butter, and you’ve met all your daily requirements of fat, cholesterol and sodium in one dish.

Balkenbrij is a meatloaf of pork liver and other left over parts of the animal mixed with oatmeal and seasonings, served with gravy.

Vegetable stews are prominent in Holland and can either be served for meal or as a side dish.  Popular soups include red cabbage with apples, red beets, and the most popular, snert, a thick pea soup that includes pork or sausage.

Frikandel is a deep fried minced-meat sausage that’s served at lunch with French fries (called patat frites).  Other fried lunch goodies are kroket, a croquette of meat covered in breadcrumbs, and bitterbal, a deep-fried meatball served with mustard and mayonnaise.

Zoute haring is raw, salted herring, often eaten with chopped onions and gherkin (pickle).

Uitsmijter is a sandwich made with bread and cheese topped with a fried egg.

Dessert

The most popular dessert in Holland is vla, a milk custard that is often flavored with vanilla, chocolate, nuts or fruits.  Hopjes-vla is an alternative flavored with coffee and caramel, and bitterkoekjes-vla is custard mixed with almond biscuits.

A more elaborate version is the vlaflip, which are layers of custard, yogurt and syrup.

This is not to be confused with vlaai, which is a fruit pie.

Poffertjes are freshly baked mini-pancakes covered in melted butter and icing.

Zoute drop is an unusual sweet and savory combination: licorice covered in salt.

Broodpap, or bread pudding, is another popular dessert, as is appelflappen (apple fritters) and ontbijtkoek (ginger bread).

You can never go wrong with a stroopwafel, which basically translates to waffle and syrup.  The syrup, a mixture of brown sugar, butter and cinnamon, is tucked between two halves of the waffle, creating a dessert sandwich.

Historically, the Czechs have spent more time perfecting the art of beer than the art of food.  There are literally more beer recipes than food recipes.  But the few Czech dishes that exist can be quite tasty.

The Czech Republic is limited by what I like to call “the cold weather diet”: soup, meat and potatoes.  That’s about it.  The food is dense and hearty and it gets the job done without much style.  Here’s a list of what to eat in the Czech Republic (it may be a small list, but everything tastes good after a few beers, right?):

Soup

You can’t go wrong with a cup of garlic soup.  Each restaurant and pub serves it differently — some with chunks of pork, some with croutons.  I had it almost everywhere and it was always delicious, especially on a cold day.  The great thing is, it’s cheap — about $1 a cup.

Other popular soups are potato, beef with liver dumpling, onion, goulash, and a carp soup that’s served around the holidays.

Meat

There’s really only one popular Czech dish: vepřo-knedlo-zelo, which is pork, dumplings and cabbage.  Sounds boring, right?  But there is some variety: dumplings can either be potato or bread, cabbage can either be sweet or sour, and pork can either be grilled, pan fried or slow-cooked brisket-style.

Almost every meal I ate in Prague — lunch or dinner — was vepřo-knedlo-zelo.  Surprisingly, I never got tired of it because every restaurant served their own unique version of the dish.

The only other common dish is svíčková, a slab of roast beef covered in a creamy sauce and topped with… get this… whipped cream and fruit compote.  The juxtaposition between the hot, savory meat with the cold, sweet whipped cream and fruit was… interesting.  It was hard to wrap my mind around eating a dinner item and a dessert item simultaneously.

Sausages and bratwursts, called klobásy, are common in pubs.

Potatoes

The most popular side dish is cmunda, which is basically a hash brown — a greasy, fried potato pancake spiced with garlic, salt and pepper.  Sometimes it’s topped with sweet cabbage or slow-cooked pork.

Other potato side dishes include boiled potatoes that are sliced and called dumplings, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potato wedges and potato salad.

Dessert

Just about every European country serves some kind of crepe and the Czech Republic is no different.  Their version is called palačinky.

The most popular dessert is ovocné knedlíky, a fried dumpling filled with whole fruit like plums or apricots and topped with powdered sugar.

Other dessert options are medovník (a honey cake), jablečný závin (apple strudel) or zmrzlinový pohár (a typical ice cream sundae).

For a country with over a thousand years of history, you’d figure there would have been plenty of time to learn how to cook.  Unfortunately, the early English people passed over cooking lessons in favor of learning how to build a more effective torture device.

Most of the food we ate in England was forgettable and not even worthy of the paltry amount of photograph space it would take up on my digital camera.  Some of the food looked good, but sprucing up dishes with a more artistic presentation doesn’t make it taste any better.  And the boring taste certainly didn’t justify the high prices.

Perhaps we just didn’t find a good restaurant serving British food.  (Then again, I’m not forking over £100 a plate to have Gordon Ramsay yell at me.)  However, there really aren’t that many restaurants serving British cuisine anyway.  London is ethnically diverse and the most popular foods are Chinese and Indian.

We loved two Asian chain restaurants: Ping Pong (a dim sum house) and Wagamama (a ridiculously named restaurant with ridiculously good modern Asian food).  And we found our absolute favorite Indian joint in the world: The Punjab Restaurant (read our review here).

Outside of exotic cuisine, we can’t vouch that your taste buds will be happy with English food.  But here’s a brief rundown of what you can expect to eat if you are so daring:

Fish and chips — the quintessential food of England.  Is it good?  Well, yeah, it’s pretty hard to screw up anything fried.  We ate fish and chips a few times.  The crust was always golden brown with a light crunch, and the fish (usually cod) was flaky and moist.  There wasn’t much flavor, but that’s where the malt vinegar comes in handy.  Don’t get English “chips” confused with American chips; “chips” are just French fries.

The full English breakfast is a sloppy, terribly unhealthy hodgepodge of incongruent items such as fried tomato, baked beans, eggs, bread and black pudding (which is blood sausage).

By the way, the definition of “pudding” means two shockingly different things for Americans and Brits.  American pudding is a smooth, creamy dessert item.  But in England, pudding can be anything from sausage to bread.  There’s generally nothing smooth or creamy about any food with the word “pudding” in it in the UK.

Bangers and mash is an English sausage the size of a bratwurst served over mashed potatoes and gravy.

Meat pies are basically like chicken pot pies, with steak and kidney pie being one of the most popular.  Shepherd’s pie is slightly different: the crust is made from mashed potatoes instead of dough.

I got these types of pies confused with something called a mincemeat pie, which is a really deceiving name.  I expected to cut into it and witness a sea of broth with chunks of meat floating like islands.  Instead, my mincemeat pie was a room temperature concoction of sweet dried fruits and nuts that was way more appetizing than the name suggests.

The Sunday roast is a traditional dish usually served on… get this… Sunday.  It’s a hearty plate of roast beef, steamed (and therefore tasteless and limp) vegetables, roasted potatoes and Yorkshire pudding.  Again, don’t be fooled by the word pudding.  There’s nothing pudding-like about Yorkshire pudding, it’s simply a biscuit.

Beef Wellington is beef tenderloin wrapped in a puffy pasty and baked.  I’m used to sweet cream in my pastries, not meat.  But I can get used to this.

Jellied eels is exactly what it sounds like: chunks of eel in a clear, pungent Jell-O that takes like the ocean.  It’s not as popular today as it was in the 18th century when it was cheap food for lower class citizens.

Ploughman’s Lunch sounds nothing like a real man’s lunch.  It’s a piece of cheese, a pickle, pickled onion and a slice of bread.  Ploughman’s Lunch is usually served in pubs.

Haggis is more prominent in Scotland than in England, but we saw it on quite a few menus.  Haggis is all the left over parts of sheep, seasoned and molded into a ball with oatmeal, then shoved in its own stomach and boiled for hours.  Sounds delicious, right?

Lancashire hotpot is like a stew; it consists of meat and vegetables that’s slowly cooked in the oven all day, then draped with sliced potatoes or pastry.

Sticky toffee pudding is a popular dessert made with a rich, nutty cake (like a bread pudding) and covered in warm toffee sauce.

You’ll find the word “rocket” on many menus.  Rocket is just a cooler name for arugula, a sharp tasting lettuce.

When all else fails (and it probably will), British tea is always delicious, full-bodied and reliable.  High tea is a great way to take a break, try a few teas with milk and indulge your sweet tooth with pastries.  Just remember that afternoon tea is considered more touristy than traditional (and that means pricey).

If Hungarian cuisine could be boiled down to one word, it would be… paprika.  This smoky spice is used in just about everything.  I think the only thing we didn’t find paprika in was ice cream (but I wouldn’t be surprised if that existed somewhere).

Paprika is made from ground up red peppers and comes in two varieties: sweet and spicy.  More often than not in Hungary, spicy paprika is used in everything from soups to entrees to breads.

The meals are generally big, heavy and revolve around meat.  Here’s what you can expect to eat in Hungary:

Soups

Goulash is a soup you’ll find in practically every restaurant.  Goulash is an appetizing dish for such an unappetizing word.  It’s a hearty meat and vegetable stew seasoned with… you guessed it, paprika.  It could be an appetizer or an entree.

Halászlé is a bright red, hot and spicy fish soup.  But since Hungary is a landlocked country, the fish in the soup is mostly carp pulled out of the river Danube.

Hideg meggyleves is chilled sour cherry soup.

Entrees

Főzelék is a traditional thick vegetable stew.  It’s usually topped with bacon or cooked with bacon fat.

Paprikás csirke is chicken served in a pungent, tangy paprika sauce.

Töltött paprika are peppers stuffed with ground meat and rice.

Pörkölt sounds like it would be a pork dish, but it’s a meat stew that’s most commonly made using beef (though pork can be used too).  It’s similar to goulash.

Töltött káposzta is cabbage stuffed with meats, rice, vegetables and seasonings.

Snacks

Hungarian bread and salami, served in an open face sandwich, is the most common type of snack.  There are a plethora of salami and cold sausage options.

Desserts

You know ‘em as crepes, but in Hungary they’re called palacsinta.  These thin pancakes can be filled with sweet items such as fruits, jams and chocolate, or filled with savory items such as meats and cheeses.

Rétes is strudel that is similar to palacscinta in that it can be savory or sweet.  It was common to see sour cherry or apple rétes, but we also tried a cheese and chive strudel, and a cabbage strudel.

Dobos torte is a rich and elegant layered chocolate cake that is covered with a thin blanket of chocolate glaze and, occasionally, ground nuts.

Beverages

Hungary is well-known for producing high-quality, full bodied wines.  The red wines really complimented our already “red” meals of paprika and meat.

For the love of whatever you believe in, do NOT drink Theodora water.  Even though it’s “still water” (no gas, no bubbles), it’s aerated.  We’ve read up on the aeration process, but still don’t fully understand it.  But regardless of the process, the end result is water that tastes like what you’d think hydrogen peroxide might taste like.

We weren’t sure if it was water or acid.  Out of sheer thirst desperation (and an overall fear of foreign tap water) we probably drank two or three small bottles of this stuff at restaurants, and can attest that our stomachs DIDN’T dissolve from the inside out.  So while completely disgusting tasting in our opinion, it’s not unsafe.  Just be aware that if you order “still bottled water” in Budapest, you’re probably going to end up with a bottle of Theodora.

One of the best things about traveling is tasting authentic foreign cuisine.  And there’s no better place to broaden your gastronomic horizons than France.  Here’s a list of what to eat in France:

Breakfast In France

It’s only slightly healthier than a doughnut, but a croissant is a great way to start the morning.  Or get your sweet fix with a baguette topped with smeared jams or Nutella (a chocolate-hazelnut spread that is to the Europeans what peanut butter is to Americans).

Lunch In France

Parisian sandwiches will leave you wondering why we’re stuck with mediocre sandwich joints like Subway and Quiznos.  The most famous French sandwich is the croque monsoir.  It’s a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with the meat on the inside and melted, chewy cheese on top of the bread.  There’s also an alternate version called the croque madame, which has a fried egg on top.  Sandwiches are usually served with pomme frites, which sounds way more elegant than “French fries.”

Pâté is a mixture of ground liver and fat that’s cut into blocks and spread onto a piece of bread.  Doesn’t that make butter sound healthy?

French onion soup is perfect on a cold day.  Onions are stewed in a beef broth for hours, then get topped with croutons and a golden layer of melting cheese.

A quiche is basically an egg, cheese and meat (or vegetable) pie.

The running theme here is:  tastier means fattier.

Snacks In France

Who needs a pretzel when you can have a crêpe?  Crêpes come in two varieties: sweet or savory.  A sweet crêpe are filled with fruit spreads or a chocolate sauce like Nutella, then sprinkled with powdered sugar.  Savory crêpes are kind of like sandwiches; they can be filled with just cheese or cheese and sliced meat.

A baguette and cheese is one of the staples in France.  Baguettes are always soft and chewy on the inside with a crispy crunch on the outside.  The most common cheese you’ll find in France is either brie or camembert, both of which are soft and creamy.

Dinner In France

Frog’s legs and escargot are two traditional French delicacies that aren’t as gross as they sound.  Both foods are cooked in a buttery garlic sauce that overwhelms the flavor of the meat and softens the texture.  Read about our first time with escargot here.

Foie gras is the enlarged liver of a duck that’s been fattened due to force feeding.  The liver is then sliced like a pâté and pan fried to create a crispy exterior, or just served cold and spread onto bread.  Foie gras has such a high fat content that not even an entire walk around Paris would not burn off the calories.

Duck confit is the cured leg of duck that’s slowly poached in a vat of its own fat.

Ratatouille is a stew of vegetables such as onions, zucchini, bell peppers and eggplant, made famous (at least outside of France) by the Pixar movie of the same name.

If you like cioppino, you’ll like bouillabaisse.  It’s a traditional stew containing fish and shellfish, and flavored with herbs.

My favorite thing to eat in Paris was beef bourguignon, a stew of beef braised in red wine, usually served with roasted or mashed potatoes.  The meat is juicy and tender and the broth is thick and rich.  It’s a dish that’ll keep you stuffed for hours.  Our favorite place to get beef bourguignon was at Polidor.

Coq au vin is basically the same thing with chicken — it’s chicken stewed with wine and vegetables.

Raw beef is shockingly popular in France.  We often saw people eating steak tartare, which is raw ground beef served with a raw egg and steak sauce.  We tried the less threatening beef carpaccio, which is raw beef sliced paper thin and served with cheese.  It tasted like a cold steak, but it was hard to enjoy because all I kept thinking about was e. coli.

Desserts In France

A tart is a fruit pie without all the junky filling.  It’s a soft, flaky crust filled with sliced fruits, topped with glazed or powdered sugar.

Éclairs make my arteries say “no” but my mouth say “yes!”  They look like long doughnuts filled with cream and topped with chocolate icing.

Mousse is a dessert that looks light and fluffy and airy, but once you put a spoonful in your mouth, you realize how dense all that egg, cream and sugar really is.

Soufflé is a lot like mousse: its looks are deceiving.  Soufflé is mixture of custard and egg whites that’s cooked in a container the size of a cupcake.  The finished product explodes out of the cup, creating an airy and fluffy cake.

A madeleine is a light and sweet pound cake in the shape of a shell.

Dining In France

Dining in France isn’t like dining in the U.S.  Restaurants in America want you to eat your meal before you get too comfortable and get out as quickly as possible.  It’s the opposite in France.  Meals can last hours and waiters generally won’t return to your table after your food arrives.  They’re not being rude or ignoring you. They give you privacy because they think it’s rude to interrupt your meal.  When you need the waiter, it’s your duty to signal him.

Where To Eat In France

Eating establishments in France fall into four categories with each one being more expensive than the last.  The bottom rung of the eating ladder belongs to the cafe.  Cheap and quick, it’s the best place to grab a soup or sandwich.  Brasseries are a little fancier than cafes and most are open 24 hours.  They serve snacks and meals that are similar to American bar food.  Bistros are the next step up.  The food is moderately priced and the meals are generally traditional foods like stews and slow cooked meats. 

Restaurants are the most expensive options.  They tend to serve higher-class food in an elegant setting.  Expect the full dining experience in a restaurant:  fine food (that means small portions), plenty of wine (that means an expensive bottle) and niceties like table-side service, musicians, and a coat room (that means more people you have to tip).

What happens when you can’t find an eatery that’s open?  Find out here.