Traveling and Eating Across Asia: 3 Favorite Food Cities and 1 to Skip

From bustling street stalls to iconic hole-in-the-wall gems, Thailand’s culinary landscape has pulled me in a dozen times over.

Beyond the conventional pad thai and mango sticky rice, there’s a deep-rooted legacy of punchy flavors, best washed down with a frothy glass of silky-sweet Thai milk tea.

One of my most memorable encounters happened by chance, when I ducked into a small storefront to escape a sudden downpour. Distracted by the rain, I almost missed the bubbling stockpot, until the sight of Lung Cheay’s signature egg noodles snapped me back to attention. Beloved by those in the know for its dry tom yum, topped with succulent barbecued pork and soft-boiled eggs, the shop is a classic Thai rags-to-riches story. The line that now snakes down the block is worlds away from its humble beginnings as a pushcart.

Other bites I never miss during a visit to Bangkok span melt-in-your-mouth, marinated seafood smothered in a sour and spicy herb sauce at Pa Nee Kung Chae Nam Pla, fried chicken liberally caked in crisped garlic cloves at Polo Fried Chicken, and late-night pilgrimages to Talad Noi Crab Fried Rice overflowing with carb god devotees praying away tomorrow’s impending hangover.

I first visited Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, in 2017 and returned three more times that year alone. The city reflects historical influences from China, Cambodia, France, and the US, culminating in a distinctly southern-style Vietnamese cuisine that bridges bold flavors, ferments, and fresh herbs.

Street food forms the backbone of Saigon, with carts feeding the ebb and flow of passersby like blood pumping to the beat of the city’s pulsating heart. As evening marches into night, city corners transform into impromptu eateries, with portable tables, plastic stools, and motorbikes abound.

I’ve done my fair share of devouring in this street-food mecca. There’s Bún Thịt Nướng — Nguyễn Trung Trực, a no-frills, 30-year-old stall known for heaping bowls of vermicelli topped with grilled pork, crisp egg rolls, pickles, and a bouquet of herbs.

Then there’s Bún Cá Xe Dẩy, a late-night vendor ladling steaming bowls of canh chua — a tangy pineapple, tamarind, and tomato soup laced with fried fish. And at Xíu Mại chén Đèn Dầu, springy Vietnamese-style meatballs are served in a fragrant broth, with a crusty baguette on the side for dipping.

Regardless of how many times I visit, there’s always another miniature plastic chair flanking a buzzing back-alley pop-up waiting for me to take a seat.

Most famous for turning the spice dial up to an 11 through Sichuan peppercorn flakes that vibrate against your lips long after the meal concludes and seemingly innocuous bites that still register on the Scoville scale, eating in Chengdu is an all-out heat offensive.

It’s also my go-to for Chinese culinary travel.

While wontons are ubiquitous within China, only in Chengdu will you find hongyou chaoshou (red oil wontons). Coated in chile oil, these crescent-shaped pockets of joy are omnipresent, each spot tweaking the recipe ever-so-slightly to cause a ripple in the die-hard fandom of one wonton shop over the next.

Warming bowls of wontons sprinkled with friendly shopkeeper chitchat earmark my annual pilgrimages to China’s spice capital.

On the other end of the spectrum, tianshuimian (sweet water noodles) spotlight Sichuan’s signature guaiwei, or “strange flavor” — a seasoning that folds spicy, salty, sesame, sour, and sweet into a single bite. Cord-like, al dente noodles are swaddled in dark and light soy sauce, chile oil, sesame and garlic pastes, crushed peanuts, Sichuan peppercorns, and brown sugar syrup, forming a gravy that varnishes each strand with an addictive, lip-tingling heat.

Sitting with a brimming bowlful of bland noodles in Tokyo, I’ve been left with frustration rather than fulfillment more times than I care to recount. Japan, as a whole, struggles with excess hype and over-tourism resulting from a fetishization of its culture.

It’s in vogue to collect kawaii memorabilia, swap coffee for matcha, and recount every Miyazaki movie ever made. I even have an anime bowl of ramen tattooed on my arm. (Zero regrets)

Tokyo is the epicenter of that trendiness.

Often miscast as the pinnacle of Japanese cuisine, Tokyo tempts visitors, myself included, into chasing viral ramen shops, jiggly pancake cafés, and so-called must-visit markets — places popularized by social media, complete with long waits and inflated prices that rarely justify the hype.

While this dynamic exists in many international cities, I find it far more blatant in Tokyo.

This is in no way a dig at Japanese food; it’s one of my favorite cuisines. From thick fillets of bonito seared over dried straw flames in Kochi Prefecture to bubbling streetside vats of oden in Osaka —daikon, tofu, and fish cakes simmered in an aromatic broth — my travels across Japan have almost always left me deeply satisfied.

But in Tokyo, specifically, I often struggle as an outsider to distinguish between what’s genuinely great and what’s merely hyped.

Still, with Tokyo as my neighbor, there’s always room for a new chapter in my Asian food love saga.