Trippin | Inner Mongolia

Inner Mongolia might be the mutton capital of the world. I ate a ton of mutton while I was there. A ton! Mongolian cooking in a lot different from Chinese cooking and I'm glad I got to try it all. I love Chinese food in the States. It was going to be my first time in China and I didn't want to burst my food bubble, so I was a little reluctant to go. (Thank G-d, I didn't read this article by David Sedaris before I went.) 

Restaurant Review | Le France

Location | Place de la Loge  66000 Perpignan, France

Somehow, I decided we should go to Perpignan. Primarily because Aer Lingus had a cheap flight there back to Dublin.  It's a decent-sized town very close to the border with Spain. It is in the Catalan region, so there's a lot of Catalan pride. However, no one really speaks Catalan. And unfortunately, no one spoke Spanish either, so we were still stuck with pointing to menu items and saying s'il vous plait. Le France was around the corner from our hotel, so we decided to hang out there to have some drinks and tapas. This is the place we became addicted to chorizo iberico.

Trippin | French Junk Food

Surprisingly, the French love McDonald's. We drove through the South of France last month and made a pit stop to have McDonald's per recommendation. Luckily, there are kiosks to order from and you can choose many languages to avoid struggling with French at the counter. I got a Big Mac and it tasted like a Big Mac from home. I really enjoyed the French side salad. The Old Man ordered some kind cheeseburger and it had horseradish sauce on it. It was surprising, but I think he enjoyed it. Because we were on the road so much, we ate lots of French junk food.

Restaurant Review | Le Table Marocaine

Location | 14B, Chemin de Tivoli 13800 Istres, France

If for some reason you find yourself in Istres, check out Le Table Marocaine. My brother (who plays basketball in Fos-sur-Mer) can't figure out if he likes couscous, so he brought us here so he could try it again. 

Restaurant Review | Le Cosi

Location | 12 Rue Suquet  06400 Cannes, France

It was our first time in Cannes, so we did what any good American would do - eat! There's a little winding street (Rue Suquet) with tons of little restaurants. The hotel didn't give us any specific recommendation, so we just walked a bit and picked one. We chose Le Cosi.

Trippin | Hawaiian Cuisine

Just got back a few weeks from my first trip to Hawaii. We flew to Oahu, and stayed in Waikiki.

I was hoping for lots of fresh seafood and Hawaiian cuisine. What I got was pancakes and processed meat for days. Ham, bacon, Portuguese sausage, spam... with eggs and rice, or even better all together in fried rice.  Many of the tourists flocked to Egg 'N things for large portions and macadamia nut pancakes, or to Duke's for some "Hawaiian" inspired food. From what I noticed, locals did eat a lot of Poke, which was always fresh and pretty good. We also had shrimp scampi and shaved ice at the popular spots in North Shore, still a bit underwhelming considering all the hype. Pictured above is a plate from a Hawaiian Luau dinner show; fried chicken thighs, Mahi-Mahi in cream sauce, sweet bread, salad, mac salad, pasta salad, rice, kalua pork and poi.