The one with the cheese and meat juice oozing out.
The one without the crust, the one with most sauce.
The crispy, caramelized one. The one hardest to share.
That one.

As a child I used to sneak into the kitchen and skim the caramelized layers of cheese and sausage off the top of my mother´s potato gratin. With friends I ate the toppings off pizza, leaving the crust and doughy base behind. When offered a bite of someone´s sandwich I wait until both edges of the thing have been nibbled off and attack the soft exposed center where the fillings dangle out like the steamy entrails of freshly felled prey. When sharing fries I go exclusively for the thin, extra crunchy ones and ignore the beefier wedges altogether. Or I go for the one with most condiments or spices sprinkled on. I´ve always been particular about which bite of which dish I want, if not the whole thing. And the more I travel the more I find this concept applies to trying food in new regions.

When I go to the Dominican Republic, for example, I don´t just look for the “best seafood restaurant¨ because I don´t want mussels in white wine sauce on a touristy boardwalk with a guy playing an accordion and another peddling me packets of tissue paper. I care about how to track down That Best Bite of the DR. And it´s the same everywhere else. I seek out the bite that makes me feel part of a place, no matter how much of a tourist I may look like while eating it. That bite of chicharrón with icy cold Presidente beer in some roadside stall under the afternoon sun or that late-night bite of a local favorite sandwich with a morir soñando milkshake after a tad too much rum. That choripan in Argentina, that completo with guac in Chile, that frikandel in Amsterdam, that ıslak burger in Istanbul. That bite of toasted pain d’épices with butter on Christmas morning in France. That bite of cheek meat at a village pig slaughter in Hungary. That place, that bite I´ll remember as the best of my trip there.

That Best Bite.

An assortment of cheeses at a brilliant restaurant in Uruguay

Pizza with Swiss chard, potato and mozzarella

Headcheese (tete de veau) in Paris

Crayfish in DC

Being me in Mexico

Ćevapčiči with Ajvar

Wine Service at Bodegas Nieto Senetiner

Patacó in the town of Alforja

Yaniqueque near the beach

Sea Urchin at Mercado Central de Abastos in Cádiz

Bojangles fried chicken in North Carolina

Ethiopian cuisine in washington dc

Lahmacun, flatbread with spicy minced meat.

Innards on a stick in a street food market in Hong Kong

Turkish coffee

Midye Dolma, mussels stuffed with seasoned rice. Sold as streetfood.

Fertilized duck embryo in Hong Kong

Durian in Hong Kong

Tortellini al brodo at Osteria Broccaindosso in Bologna

A pinguino of red wine in Buenos Aires

Ethiopian cuisine in washington dc

Pasteis de nata and coffee in Lisbon

Fruit in Siena

Salmorejo at La Parisien in Cádiz

Handmade Mexican tortillas at a Pueblan home in DC

Chicken on bed of corn at La Cagette in Bordeaux

Caragols (snails) in the town of Porrera in Priorat

Lentil and couscous salad with eggplant, tomato and goat cheese at La Cagette in Bordeaux

Homemade foie gras prepared in salt

Fresh stuff by NOLA

Pljeskavica and Šopska salata

Salty sardine…

Chef Humm’s NY-NY Tasting at Eleven Madison Park

Beetroots

Lángos fried dough

Lentils stew with chorizo in Buenos Aires

Green apple dessert at Logis de la Cadene

Frituras, fried salami and plantains for breakfast

Lamb roasted on metal cross

Cafe gourmand at Logis de la Cadene

Fish crudo

Mexican tacos on the streets of Tijuana

Cheek is the best part 🙂

A corndog at a fair in North Carolina

Quail with raisins

Egg 5 ways in butternut squash soup at Logis de la Cadene

Muffaletta sandwich in Washington DC

Green gnocchi with cheese sauce

Slicing up Roman pizza

Dim sum in Hong Kong

Street food in Mong Kok

Russian salad in DC

Typical asador outside River Plate stadium

Tortelli All’affumicata at Da Leo in Lucca

Lobster in Rockport on the North Shore

Morcilla black sausage

Chilling in San Gimignano

Bunyols de Vent

One of the whole trinity of Argentine asado: costilleras

She even makes a few lewd and hilarious double entendre’s that the boy doesn’t seem to be old enough to understand.