The 50 Best Foods in the World

Saturday, 19th September 2009

As Ezra Klein says it would be remiss not to give this transparently link-whoring Observer list of The 50 Best Foods in the World and Where to Eat Them the attention it so desperately craves. And like Ezra I've only had two of them: the pastrami-on-rye at Katz's deli in New York and currywurst in Berlin's Prenzlauerberg. Each was good; each easily replicated elsewhere in their respective cities. Or at home, for that matter.

I don't eat fish, so I don't know about the Fish & Chips at the Wee Chippy in Anstruther. My favourite chips, however, are to be had at Leo Burdock's in Dublin. For that matter, I'm sure that the steak at El Carpicho in Spain is pretty good, but for ordinary folk I reckon you'd be hard-pressed to beat the beef you'll find at any one of a couple of dozen places in Buenos Aires.

I also dispute the Observer's assertion that the best pizza is found in New Haven, Connecticut but more importantly - and unaccountably - missing from the list: where can you find the world's best deep-fried pizza?

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dearieme

September 19th, 2009 4:39pm Report this comment

There is very fine fish'n'chips to be had in the market square at Ely (Petrou Brothers), and it leaves you only a short toddle from a wonderful cathedral. I confess my astonishment at finding such good f&c so far south. It's even more mystifying that the shop is an offshoot of a chipper in Chatteris.

ndm

September 19th, 2009 6:59pm Report this comment

Like Ezra Klein I've only eaten at two places on the list: ( upstairs at) Chez Panisse and Babbo. Unlike Ezra I preferred the latter. I've never eaten downstairs at Chez Panisse and don't have any particular desire to - I don't feel a need to fork over a whole bunch of dollars to have Alice Waters tell me what to eat that night. I thought that kind of stuff went out with the fall of the Soviets.

While these lists are fun what this singular focus on food seems to miss is the quality of experience. I suspect many people would get more enjoyment from eating a sandwich in a blizzard at the top of Ben Nevis than they would get eating at many of these restaurants.

porkbelly

September 20th, 2009 4:54am Report this comment

You dispute that New Haven has the best pizza - but have you ever eaten at Pepe's?

Fergus Pickering

September 20th, 2009 7:55am Report this comment

I went to Texas for a week last year. All the food was delicious except for a rather disgusting hot dog I tried to eat at a ball game in Hosuton. But the geatest gustatory exepience was eating seafood down by the seaside close to Louisiana, in a restaurant up on stilts looking out on the pelicans. Those Texans know about food, all of them. That is doubtless why they are so reassuringly fat, the black people fattest of all.