28.06.2004

Fine dining

Posted by justin

If there's one thing we'd like to share with our international audience of sensible readers, it's this common-sense travel tip: do not under any circumstances eat on the streets. Our travel insurance travel tips card authoritatively advises that you should avoid eating on the street lest you get sick. I imagined the office worker who spent July last year working on the travel-tips card and knew she was probably a very sensible person too.

To our amazement it seems the majority of backpackers and westerners heed this general advice. That we do not is just another sad, tragic, and unfortunate illustration of the powers of addiction at work.

At first we fretted that our permanent street-eating habits may not be sensible and that it is different and different is wrong. I nervously convened a couple-decision-making conference with Danielle in an Italian restaurant making questionable pizzas and pasta to determine whether we should email my sister, Gemma, to see what free counselling we could obtain - her being in the psychology scene and all. We were getting hungry.

Our hushed discussions instead resulted in a joint announcement to ourselves that we would obtain dietary advice from my brother, Adam, who is at uni studying how alcohol can reduce the side-effects of an all-pizza diet.

Unfortunately our deliberations were debilitated by the fresh, local, aroma of some damn good street cooking. The primary health issue with street cooking is that the cooking is done on the street. This means you can actually see the kitchen in full-boil action and watch your food being prepared and cooked at every step - a clear negative in any consideration of hygiene.

The crafty chef who purveys her germ-infested fare manages to attract and fool repeat local customers over many, many years through providing extremely fresh produce bursting with flavour, combined with the right amount of herbs, and topped off with a generous supply of chillis and limes. It is just another tactic in her quest to erode a large customer base through providing a third-rate product. Other deceitful tactics include price-undercutting through offering meals for fifty and even forty cents a hit. In the grip of a fierce addiction I am unable to resist a second hit at every sitting.

No, it's much better to save your custom for western-oriented restaurants; where the kitchen is out of sight, the cooks don't care, and the customers are one-meal-and-gone wonders. The weightier price tag is only oh-so-heavy on the traveller budget because it represents higher hygiene standards.
We implore you to avoid the little street corner setups, where conversational encounters with locals are highly probable, and satiated senses are assured.

Sit just over there next to that insurance office worker, and leave us poor, miserable, fools alone.