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

Beetroots

Bojangles fried chicken in North Carolina

Homemade foie gras prepared in salt

Green gnocchi with cheese sauce

Yaniqueque near the beach

Quail with raisins

Fruit in Siena

Frituras, fried salami and plantains for breakfast

Sea Urchin at Mercado Central de Abastos in Cádiz

Lentils stew with chorizo in Buenos Aires

Handmade Mexican tortillas at a Pueblan home in DC

Ćevapčiči with Ajvar

Crayfish in DC

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

Lobster in Rockport on the North Shore

Slicing up Roman pizza

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

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

Cheek is the best part 🙂

Chilling in San Gimignano

Pljeskavica and Šopska salata

Muffaletta sandwich in Washington DC

Being me in Mexico

Pizza with Swiss chard, potato and mozzarella

Patacó in the town of Alforja

Dim sum in Hong Kong

Fish crudo

Ethiopian cuisine in washington dc

Street food in Mong Kok

Turkish coffee

Caragols (snails) in the town of Porrera in Priorat

Green apple dessert at Logis de la Cadene

Russian salad in DC

Typical asador outside River Plate stadium

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

Pasteis de nata and coffee in Lisbon

Lángos fried dough

One of the whole trinity of Argentine asado: costilleras

Salty sardine…

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

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

Ethiopian cuisine in washington dc

Wine Service at Bodegas Nieto Senetiner

Fertilized duck embryo in Hong Kong

Lahmacun, flatbread with spicy minced meat.

Bunyols de Vent

A corndog at a fair in North Carolina

Fresh stuff by NOLA

Mexican tacos on the streets of Tijuana

Tortelli All’affumicata at Da Leo in Lucca

Morcilla black sausage

Headcheese (tete de veau) in Paris

Salmorejo at La Parisien in Cádiz

Lamb roasted on metal cross

A pinguino of red wine in Buenos Aires

Tortellini al brodo at Osteria Broccaindosso in Bologna

Durian in Hong Kong

Cafe gourmand at Logis de la Cadene

Chicken on bed of corn at La Cagette in Bordeaux