I’ve been to over 70 countries - these 5 places have the best food

The first time a city fed me like it knew my name, I was sitting on a plastic stool, sweat sliding down my back, spoon in hand, and every neuron clapping like a crowded bar.

That has happened to me in more than a few places now. I’ve eaten in over 70 countries—at white-tablecloth temples and on cracked sidewalks at midnight—and five places, again and again, make me feel like I’m cheating at life.

Not because the food is expensive or rare, but because the average bite is outrageously good. I’m a former restaurateur; I respect fireworks, but I worship consistency.

These five places deliver both.

Here’s my very biased, very hungry list—and exactly why each one wins.

1. Japan makes precision taste like joy

Japan is the only place where I’ve had a life-altering meal in a convenience store and a subway station in the same afternoon. It’s not just “sushi.” It’s a national conspiracy to make everyday food excellent.

Onigiri at 7-Eleven with still-snap peas inside. A bowl of shoyu ramen where the broth carries a six-hour sermon and the noodles snap like a good joke. Yakitori smoke curling into the alley while a man with the patience of a surgeon turns chicken skin into confetti.

As an ex-restaurant guy, the technical discipline blows my mind. Knife work that would pass a NASA inspection. Rice treated like a protagonist. Even tempura eats like architecture—light, shattering, then gone.

And yet the vibe isn’t sterile. It’s playful. The best tonkatsu place I know gives you a mortar to grind sesame seeds at your table, so you smell the sauce before you taste it. Street stands in Osaka yell “Irasshaimase!” like they’ve been waiting for you personally.

One night in Tokyo, I wandered into a ten-seat counter bar where the chef did nothing but fry pork cutlets and make whisky highballs. He breadcrumbed like a metronome, dipped, fried, rested, sliced, and handed me a plate that looked like a perfect fan.

The first bite was a fairy tale about crunch. He nodded once, like we had both agreed on the truth. That’s Japan for me: the joy of repeating something until it becomes magic.

2. Thailand serves Tuesday like a festival

Bangkok is the city that convinced me “street food” is a misnomer; this is outdoor fine dining with plastic stools. A morning bowl of jok (rice porridge) with ginger and a soft egg resets your nervous system. Som tam (green papaya salad) is a percussion section—lime, fish sauce, palm sugar, chilies—that slaps you awake in the best way. Pad krapao arrives so fast you think they were cooking it for someone else first. They were. There’s always someone else.

What wins here is range. A $2 boat noodle in a market tastes like a family secret. A charcoal-grilled fish stuffed with lemongrass and sealed in salt flakes tastes like a beach vacation you can eat. The country is a map of moods: Isaan spice when you want chaos; southern curries when you want a slow burn; central stir-fries when you need a clean hit and a nap.

I once stood under a mess of power lines at midnight, watching a woman cook pad see ew in a wok that sounded like applause. She used three ingredients and heat like a weapon.

I ate on the curb and forgot every email I owed the world. Thailand does that: turns an ordinary corner into a ceremony. The respect for crunch, for herbaceous punch, for balance that hits every receptor—this is culinary therapy disguised as lunch.

3. Mexico treats hospitality like a competitive sport

Mexico is a chorus of grandmothers arguing in your favor. It’s also the only place where I’ve been scolded for not taking seconds, then handed a third helping before I could mount a defense. From Mexico City’s taco stands to Oaxaca’s moles to Yucatán’s sour-orange everything, the baseline flavor is “alive.”

Tacos al pastor are choreography: the trompo spins, the knife flicks, pineapple rains down like a garnish from heaven. Tortillas matter here—corn that tastes like a field, pressed seconds ago, soft but resilient. Pozole arrives as architecture you finish at the table, with radish, lettuce, oregano, and lime supplying the brass section. And then there’s mole, which is less a sauce than a novel. Bitter, sweet, smoky, and deep enough that you feel smarter after the second bite.

A woman in Oaxaca once watched me taste her mole negro and said, “That one has twenty-six ingredients and a decade.” I believed her. Mexico cooks like it remembers. Every region offers a different thesis.

In Baja, the fish tacos collapse into themselves, cabbage and crema and salsa doing a three-person handshake with fried perfection. In Puebla, cemitas that could humble a sandwich snob. Even fruit in the park—mango with chili, lime, and salt—smacks you with the idea that simple can be supreme.

4. Italy proves restraint is a superpower

Italy is the loudest argument for fewer, better things. The food is generous without being fussy, and the focus is almost moral: good bread, serious tomatoes, olive oil that hums, salt that knows where to sit. In Naples, pizza eats like a referendum on smoke and dough. In Emilia-Romagna, prosciutto tastes like time dressed as silk. In Rome, cacio e pepe yanks your attention into the present with pepper and pecorino behaving like they were born to be married.

What Italy taught me when I ran restaurants: shop well, don’t mess it up, season like you love people. I once spent a week in a tiny town where dinner was a plate of grilled vegetables, a wedge of cheese, and a heel of bread that broke clean and blessed. No fireworks. Just integrity. Even the coffee is principled. A macchiato stands there like a short poem and won’t apologize for being small.

The best bite I’ve had in Florence was not in a trattoria. It was at a butcher’s counter—porchetta sliced to order, tucked into bread, kissed with salsa verde. I ate standing up, grease on my hands, history on my tongue. Italy does not need to perform. It just is. And if you insist on performing for yourself, fine—stand at a bar, order a spritz, and accept the bowl of crisps like a sacrament.

5. Vietnam balances chaos with clarity

Vietnam cooks with precision and speed, like a drummer who can also play violin. Hanoi’s pho is a ceremony of restraint—broth clear as glass, herbs that smell like a garden just grew in your bowl, beef sliced so thin it’s basically an idea.

Saigon’s street food throws elbows in the best way: banh xeo that shatters like stained glass, bun thit nuong with smoke breathing through the noodles, banh mi where pâté kisses crunch and cilantro acts like confetti.

What gets me is balance. Sour, sweet, salty, spicy, bitter—nobody negotiates those levers like a Vietnamese auntie with a ladle. Fish sauce is not a weapon here; it’s a diplomat. Fresh herbs are not a garnish; they’re policy. And texture matters. A single bite wants contrast—soft and crisp, cool and hot, polite and loud.

There’s a lady in District 3 who makes a crab noodle soup I would move countries for. She set the bowl down and added a spoonful of chili oil, then stood there until I tasted it, like a principal waiting for a confession. “Now you are ready to talk about your day,” she said. She was right. Vietnam doesn’t just feed you. It organizes your feelings.

What these five have in common

They all believe food is part of the social fabric, not a solo performance. They honor ingredients, sure, but they also honor moments—the quick lunch, the late-night snack, the family table that grows when someone knocks.

They’re affordable at street level and transcendent at the high end. They reward curiosity but don’t require a manual. And the average bite—a dangerous metric I take seriously—is absurdly high.

You can eat badly anywhere if you insist. In these five places, you have to work at it.

How I judge a great food place (the boring, useful criteria)

Everyday excellence: Is the baseline bite at a random stall a minor miracle.

Range: Can I eat softly when I need gentle and loudly when I need chaos.

Technique: Do cooks know why they do what they do, not just how.

Texture literacy: Is crunch treated like a civic duty.

Grandma energy: Does tradition show up to enforce standards and comfort.

Access: Can a curious visitor eat well without needing a fixer and a trust fund.
These five crush all six.

Two quick scenes I still taste

The midnight noodle rescue in Bangkok.

I’d had a day that felt like a stack of receipts. Somewhere past 11 p.m., a cart appeared near the skytrain with a wok and a line of tired people who had remembered they were hungry. Pad krapao, two stars of heat, fried egg with a lacy edge. I sat on a curb and ate a plate of relief. A man next to me sighed and said, “Better than therapy.” For one minute, we were friends. Then the train rumbled and the city pulled us back into ourselves. That plate is why Thailand sits on my list forever.

The Tokyo station lunch that humbled me.

I was between trains, hungry, and suspicious of anything that looked too easy. A stall selling tempura over rice looked like an airport trap. It was a clinic. The batter was ghost-light, the shrimp tasted like the ocean remembered my name, and the rice supported the whole arrangement like a perfect sentence supports a punch line. The tray cost less than a cocktail back home and improved my mood for four hours. Precision does not require pretense—that’s Japan’s other national dish.

Places I love that nearly made the list 

Spain, Turkey, and Lebanon sit on my bench, stretching. On a different day I could swap one in and not feel wrong. But a list is a list. The top five hold because the average Tuesday wins there, not just the Saturdays.

How to eat like you belong (even if you don’t)

Learn five words: hello, thank you, delicious, please, sorry in the local language.

Watch a line for 60 seconds: how do people order, pay, season their food. Copy respectfully.

Eat what the place is proud of. Don’t order a burger at a temple of noodles.

Cash, small bills, a smile. The holy trinity of street food.

If there’s a condiment bar, go slow. Those chilies do not owe you mercy.

Tip or not, according to custom. Generosity can be cultural, not just financial.

Final thoughts

After seventy countries, I don’t chase “the best meal” anymore.

I chase places where the floor is high and the ceiling is still open. Japan, Thailand, Mexico, Italy, Vietnam—different languages, similar promise: the average bite will be honest, the great bite will be sublime, and strangers will help you find both. Those cities and towns taught me to respect the Tuesday plate, the paper bowl, the grandmother’s simmer, the cook’s wrist, the market’s morning. They taught me that excellence doesn’t need to be loud to be unforgettable.

If you’ve got a ticket and an appetite, start with any of the five. Pack humility, an extra napkin, and the phrase “I’ll have what they’re having.” Then eat your way toward the kind of happiness that does not depend on the reservation you didn’t score. The best food in the world is often waiting at a counter you can lean on, sizzling and unapologetic, ready to turn your day into a story.