Gritty and ugly, elegant and mysterious, monkeys crawling on rooftops overlooking crowded city streets, Sikh temples, red clay mosques, poverty and sickness, beggars in the streets, serene parks, gracious hosts, outrageously good food…Delhi is a city of incredibly diverse character- an international mega city where travelers can be found in great numbers. With a population of over 13 million people it the second largest city in India (after Mumbai) and there are dozens of indigenous ethnic groups and religious cultures from all parts of the country who can be found here. Mix in the ex pats, and a thriving tourist business, and you can see why Delhi is a pretty potent cultural masala. From some of the best restaurants in the world to humble everyday cafes, the Delhi food scene represents the national cuisine.

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Posted by Andrew Zimmern at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Few people in the world have a more passionate relationship with food than the Chinese. And thanks to the large-scale emigration of Chinese from the southern province of Guangdong to elsewhere in the world, Cantonese is by far China’s best-known cuisine. Cantonese food originates from Guangzhou, the city that used to be called Canton. Today, Guangzhou’s food culture is known as one of the cuisines that worships unusual foods in China. In fact, a popular saying describes Cantonese food like this: “Anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies is edible.”

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Of all the places I have visited so far this year, Chile is my favorite. You are always only an hour away from snow capped mountains or stunning beach-scapes. The wine scene here is second to none and is easy to plug into, much different than in the USA or in Europe. The countryside is rustic, with teeny beach towns that remind me of the way Malibu must have looked 100 years ago. The people are friendly, the weather is perfect and the food is fantastic. I could live in Chile!

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Flying into the highest major city in the world is a little bit of a misdirection play. You land at the airport, gasp for air and if you need it you avail yourself of the free oxygen tanks while you await baggage delivery. The 10 minute trip across the plateau leaves you wondering where the heck La Paz is. After a few miles more you turn a corner and begin the descent down into the valley and can see the entire city in one magnificent vista, framed by snow capped Andean peaks and you can’t help but feel a spark of excitement. La Paz is simply thrilling.

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Posted by Andrew Zimmern at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Proving once again that the most bizarre foods and adventures are usually found right in your own back yard, I give you my whirlwind tour of my adopted home state, Minnesota. I could have shot an entire show in one day in the Twin Cities alone actually. Tongue tacos on Lake Street at Pineda Tacqueria, fish maw and spicy pig intestines at my favorite Chinese restaurant (Shuang Cheng, Little Szechuan and The Teahouse all rock these dishes), homemade head cheese at Kramarczuk's. I could go on and on.

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My first day in Russia was a disaster. We landed at the airport at 5-ish, and checked into our hotel, hit the sack and got up early only to find that the night before the Stones had played in the town’s main square and we could have bought general admission tix for a few dollars each. I was crushed, that would have been a hot show to catch. But it was all downhill from that point on…

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Posted by Andrew Zimmern at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

I fell in love with Iceland last summer. Here are a few of the reasons why….

Amphetamine Effect…long days and short nights (2 hours) mean plenty of time to get things done. After 17 hours of daylight, you don’t even feel tired, you eat dinner, grab a steam and a schvitz in a public bath and shazam, you are ready to hit the hot spots all night, I mean twi-light, long. I have never had as much energy as I did during my week in Iceland.

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Posted by Andrew Zimmern at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

I love China … the crowds, the smog, the food, the scenesters, the temples, the Forbidden City, the shopping, the growth, the confusion, the serenity, the people ... I love China.
Ten years ago, check that, even 5 years ago on my second visit there, I only saw the tourists China, but mostly that was because that’s all there was to see. Not that there was only a tourists China that was extant, but because the real China was hard to access in Beijing. Today, with an explosively developed middle class, there are stores and hotels, restaurants and nightclubs, young scenesters in the parks and business men on lunch breaks. Beijing is a happening baby.

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Posted by Andrew Zimmern at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (56)

Vietnam is a country on the move. A thousand years of Chinese rule, a hundred years of the French, a couple decades of us. These people have something to prove. Vietnam is a country essentially self-created over the last thirty years, but nobody in this long, toothpick-thin nation is interested in abandoning any of their traditional food pathways. In fact, modern restaurant culture is just beginning here in Vietnam and it seems to be solely the domain of the business traveler and tourist. But I digress.

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We Arrive

Flight to Amsterdam: Shedd’s butter spread and no cheese or ham on my mock McMuffin - I guess cutbacks are rampant on NWA and the only thing missing in coach were the chickens on people's laps …

Sunday I took off for Spain with five of us in our U.S. contingent, including Shannon, our producer from Tremendous Entertainment, the Minnetonka-based production company charged with keeping me in line. Tremendous CEO, Colleen Needles Steward is along for the trip; we have a PA and a shooter here as well; and two Spanish TV producers are acting as fixers for the week, keeping wheels greased, scouting locations, translating and the like.

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The FLNA is massing on the border with Colombia; coca farmers are rioting in neighboring Bolivia; and I am having dreams about erupting volcanoes as we descend under a moonlit sky into the Quito airport. A night landing in Quito is about as good as it gets ... You descend and fly 20 miles straight through the Avenue of Volcanoes, which line either side of this long, thin plateau that the city is built on, high above sea level but nestled in the notches of dozens of dormant and active volcanoes. The moon seems so close you could almost reach out and touch it. Boy, is that ever a tortured cliché! My apologies.

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Posted by Andrew Zimmern at 5:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)

Moroccan Mo and More Mo

Flying in over Marrakech for the first time, you can't help but be impressed with the riveting contrasts of the North African landscape ... rugged mountains, stunning coast line, hard rocky deserts, verdant oasis and sandy dunes. Oh yes, there’s also a satellite dish on every rooftop. So we land in Morocco around lunchtime, and meet a guy who we’ll call Mo No. 1. He will be our guide, fixer, translator, problem solver, problem creator, con man and raconteur for the next 10 days. He is a piece of work. Six-and-a-half feet tall, and every inch the walking, talking cliché of the savvy souk (market) negotiant. Need a rug? Mo has a cousin. Need a camel for a TV shoot? Mo knows a guy. Of course, once you drive halfway across the country to get your camel or your rug, the deal has changed, the rules have been re-negotiated and Mo is now fully in charge.

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I love Southeast Asia. Returning there for our shoot in the Philippines makes me feel like a raindrop entering the river. So naturally I am out of bed earlier than usual today. Nineteen hours (layovers!) later, I am driving into Metro Manila after landing at Aquino Airport and I get my first look at the local paper. Welcome back big fella … Let’s see what’s news today. Well, it’s the 61st anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb, anyone caught with drugs will be punished by death, it’s going to be a scorcher out there today, it’s humid and, oh yeah, I can smell the city before I see it. Turn the page … Mount Mayon is erupting, there are earthquakes in Fiji, Mr. Janjalani, the Abu Sayyaf’s head troublemaker is being hunted here in Mindanao, and I have to eat my first balut when I wake up in the morning. So off I go to Pateros, just outside Manila, for my Balut fest. If you haven’t eaten fertilized duck embryos, then you haven’t lived. They taste like teeny iron-y liver balls with a duck burp on the back end. I need to get to the countryside.

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Posted by Andrew Zimmern at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (129)