Like all stomach-led travellers, I live in terror of wasting a meal abroad. Every calorie consumed has to be calculated for maximum impact, according to a mental metric that combines deliciousness and authenticity. This means no eating on the aeroplane or at the hotel. It means dodging the busiest tourist hotspots, unless they can be caveated with a statement like, ‘It’s touristy, yes, but it’s still worth it.’ Avoiding bad meals can be as important as securing the good ones. It is not enough to have a croissant or a pizza: one must have the best croissant or pizza. Nonsense, isn’t it?
Things came to a head towards the end of last year, when I went to Houston for work. As always, I spent long hours beforehand looking up the best places to eat. I sought advice on social media. I scoured websites and local press. (Just as you would hope, one Texas publication has employed a full-time barbecue correspondent, a job that must produce fantastic business cards to make up for the gout.) Sadly Houston, which is as friendly to pedestrians as central London is to petrol cars, is an unforgiving place for the epicurean rambler. I looked at a map and found what I thought was a charming local coffee spot, recommended in a guide, only to discover on closer inspection that it was eight miles away. Still, I dutifully got an Uber. Was the coffee charming enough to justify the trip? Absolutely not.
Undeterred, at lunchtime I got back in a cab to a branch of Frenchy’s, a small, local fried-chicken chain. I had it on good authority this was Beyoncé’s favourite. Half an hour later I was there, eating fried chicken that was no more than passable, wondering what I was doing with my life. What was the point of all this? Nobody was giving me points for eating Beyoncé’s favourite fried chicken. As far as I knew, the singer was unaware of my patronage. No higher authority had been in touch to ask if I would accept an honour for my act of service. Other diners looked at me with curious pity as I arranged my tray of chicken for a photograph, in the same way I look at tourists filming squirrels in Green Park: how sad, to be so enthralled by something so mundane.
I posted a picture on Instagram, in the hope that someone would recognise my foodie nous. But nothing. By the time I got back to the hotel, bloated and sleepy, I had spent $50 on taxis and $20 on lunch, with nothing to show for it except a vague sense of regret. This was no way to live. I could have sat by the pool, had a cold Coke and a burger, and been twice as happy.
All the same, this stomach-centred approach to travel is difficult to shake off. Thinking ahead to the summer, I’m already wondering about which remote and unpromising spots I will haul my unappreciative family to. Deep down, I still believe that restaurant research, and its twin, booking ahead, can drastically improve a holiday. Some cities – Venice springs to mind – punish the unprepared.
Like other kinds of snobbery, pretentiousness about food can also be a way to get around the cash issue. I can’t afford to stay in five-star hotels, but with judicious preparation I can feel superior to those unthinking millionaires who chow down on whatever swill is suggested by their concierges. In Paris or Rome or Bangkok, a meal remains the best way to learn a place’s history. Perhaps the real issue is that in Houston, a burger and a Coke is as authentic a local experience as any other.
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