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Prana began as a low-profile boîte, short on tables but long on creativity. Word spread quickly and soon, long lines trailed out the door. Prana then merged with O Quintal Zen, a health-food restaurant in one of Rio’s most charming neighborhood, Jardim Botânico, and the result is a winning fusion of vegan food, meditation, and serious yoga classes. In the new larger space, the focus is still on quality. Every day, the chefs offer two vegan, gluten-free specials alongside several heathy desserts, so you can enjoy a great lunch before a trip to the Botanic Garden or the beach.

Opened in 2004, the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art seeks to bridge the past, present, and future of art. The sleek complex consists of two wings, one dedicated to traditional Korean works and the other to international contemporary art. The traditional wing is shaped like a reverse cone, with a spiraling walkway that winds through galleries of ancient paintings, calligraphy, and crafts. In stark contrast, the glass-and-steel contemporary wing was built without supporting posts, encouraging viewers to move freely among distinctive works by Basquiat, Olafur Eliasson, and Takashi Murakami. The experience continues outside on the parking lot deck, where there is a polished sculpture garden.

The architecturally striking Jewish Museum is the best place in Berlin to get an overview of German-Jewish relations and to understand the nature of the integration of the two cultures before the Holocaust’s horrors. Designed by Daniel Libeskind, the building is clad in polished silver metal and features severe angles and thin window slits that create a deliberately jarring impression. The interior is equally intriguing, especially the three long, intersecting corridors that lead to installations addressing aspects of the Holocaust: a garden of pillars meant to disorient; a windowless Holocaust Tower; and a space filled with thousands of grimacing iron masks that grind together as you walk on them. Across the street, the Jewish Academy (open to the public) has a related research center, library, and educational institution.

Mexican food is extremely varied, and even just considering the cuisine of the state of Oaxaca, there is great diversity. The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is where the land thins to the narrowest strip between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Here the weather is hot and sultry and the food has its own distinct flavors. Zandunga restaurant in Oaxaca city serves specialties from the Isthmus region, including some seafood dishes, and a few kinds of mole. You’ll also find an impressive list of over 60 types of mezcal. All meals begin with complimentary totopos (the regional tortilla chips) and minilla (spicy fishmeal), and salsa. Then take your pick of items from the menu. Maybe some molotes de platano or garnachas to start, and then the enchiladas with two types of mole for the main course. It’s all muy sabroso.

One of the country’s largest Asian markets, this massive complex has anchored the International District since 1928—and contains a Japanese bookstore, a 12-station food court, and a Taiwanese hot-pot hot spot: The Boiling Point. Its shelves stock everything from curry to durians and juicy kalua pork, plus surprisingly good, affordable freezer bags to preserve your haul on the way home. Fancy a quick bite in the food court first? Hit Uwajimaya’s Asian deli last and pay at the express lane. While one-stop shopping rocks, fans of Asian curios and calligraphy supplies may want to wander to nearby Kobo (koboseattle.com) or Deng’s Studio and Art Gallery.

For 20 years now, the Spring Mountain corridor north of the Las Vegas Strip has been a hotbed of hot pots—and every other Asian dish under the desert sun. When celebs such as Anthony Bourdain and Penn Jillette raved about the real-deal northern Thai cuisine at Lotus of Siam, chowhounds followed. Tell your friends you’re finally making the trip out to the strip mall and they’ll tell you to avoid the items you can order from the takeout joint at home: no pad thai, no chicken satay. They’re right. Dive into the last page of the menu, the one about dishes from Northern Thailand, then entrust your tastebuds to the award-winning hands of Chef Saipin Chutima and try her larb or the jackfruit curry, anything with ground pork sausage, the khao soi (egg noodles and meat in a coconut curry sauce), the nam prik ong (a chunky mix of pork, tomato, and red chili, served with lettuce and raw vegetables), or the whole fish with chilis. The food is spicy, yes, and the afterburn is serious, but the depth of flavor is sublime enough to make you weep with regret the next time you have to call your local takeout place for delivery.

The resplendent Raffles Hotel reopened in late 2019 to great fanfare after two years of restoration. Originally built in 1887 as a 10-room hotel, it now features 115 suites with oriental carpets and teak floors to complement four-poster beds and colorful Peranakan-tiled bathrooms. An in-room tablet controls everything from the mood lighting to calling your butler for a glass of bubbly. All have a private veranda to enjoy balmy evenings outside.




The building was declared a national monument in 1987, so the façade has changed little, but the hotel’s food and drink concepts have been revamped with a focus on marquee restaurant collaborations with the likes of Jereme Leung (yi) and Hawaiian-born Jordan Keao (Butcher’s Block). Not forgetting Singapore’s rich food culture, the hotel offers a self-guided Raffles Singapore Hawker Food Trail video hosted by hawker champion and Makansutra founder KF Seetoh. Raffles also offers an exclusive private tour of the Intan, a home museum filled with more than 1,500 objects from Peranakan culture.





The famous Singapore Sling continues to be a draw at the evocative 1920s Malayan-style Long Bar and its peanut shell-covered floor. The iconic drink now has sustainable twist: the hotel plants one native tree in the Kalimantan or Sumatran rain forest for every 25 Singapore Slings ordered.

Husband and wife team Braden Perkins and Laura Adrian opened this restaurant in the “très Brooklyn” style that’s so popular in Paris now. The food is of American influence, but is made with fabulous French ingredients. We love going here.

Verti Marte is at heart a cramped, bare-bones deli. But any effort the owners have failed to expend on stocking the shelves or sprucing up the decor they’ve put into making excellent food. Head to the small counter in the back and make your request; while your sandwich is being assembled, forage for chips or soda. Verti Marte is known for its oversize po’boy sandwiches (shrimp, dressed, is among the more popular), along with muffulettas and tasty side dishes, like smothered cabbage and Brussels-sprout salad. Still hungry? Nobody has gone wrong by ordering the bread pudding and pecan pie.

The Sugar Palm restaurant is the first Cambodian restaurant that many visitors to Siem Reap try, and it often becomes a favorite. The food is some of the most delicious, traditional, home-style Cambodian food in the country. It also happens to be served in a very traditional, Khmer teak-wood house, with high ceilings and wide verandahs—oozing atmosphere.


Everything on offer is scrumptious, from the amok trei or fish amok, to the hearty Cambodian chicken curry. If you’re not a fan of pungent and sour flavors but want to try one of Cambodia’s quintessential ingredients, prahok (fermented fish), then this is the restaurant to do it. The prahok k’tis (a minced pork dip made with prahok) is a fairly tame albeit still very tasty iteration of the dish. The owner-chef, Cambodian-New Zealander Kethana Dunnett, is often around if you have questions about the cuisine. Kethana is the go-to person for celebrity chefs -- from Gordon Ramsay to Luke Nguyen -- when they are in the country filming food programs, and she certainly knows her stuff.

When a place has not only the longest wooden bar in Texas (100+ feet) and is the oldest watering hole on the Riverwalk, you just know it’s worth a visit. But rather than rest on the above laurels, Esquire Tavern churns out some terrific and thoughtful scratch-made eats and drinks. From starters like pink peppercorn-flecked deviled eggs and mashed potato-filled tacos con papas to heartier fare like burgers, chicken mole and shepherd’s pie, the food takes comfort foods to the next level with fresh, well-sourced ingredients and modern executions. And as the icing on the culinary cake, the craft cocktail program here is award-winning and endlessly interesting. Plan for some enjoyable late nights at the Esquire on your next stop in SA.

This popular Mexican-food mainstay in the heart of San Francisco‘s Mission District is one of two places in the city that claim to have invented the Mission-style burrito (the other is El Faro): a hefty, elephant-leg-size wrap distinguished from other burritos by its size and the inclusion of rice and other ingredients. The restaurant was first opened as a meat market in 1967 by Mexican immigrants Raul and Michaela Duran, who are said to have served their first burrito in 1969 after noticing that local workers needed a substantial yet portable meal. The Mission Burrito was born, containing most of the food groups: protein, vegetables, dairy, and grains. The Durans converted their meat market into a full-time restaurant in 1972. Taqueria la Cumbre offers a full menu of Mexican food, all made fresh. The burritos are made assembly-line style. (Fun fact: When the Durans first came to San Francisco, they hired a high school kid to make flour tortillas before school. The kid, Jorge Santana, would go on to be a popular musician, like his brother Carlos.)

The Salt Cellar is perched at the top of Gold Hill in Shaftesbury with sweeping views across the Blackmore Vale. This very picturesque hill is really steep and has been used in films. This is a very popular cafe with locals and sits underneath the town clock in Shaftesbury.When visitors come to look at Gold Hill they often walk by without noticing the cafe. If only they turned around. There are benches outdoors and highly sought after window seats indoors with views to enjoy. And then the food. Delicious locally produced salads, sandwiches, daily specials and coffee and cakes. Worried about the calorific value of any of this food? Just walk up and down that hill a few times.

For those of us used to seeing chicken cut into parts, wrapped in plastic, and cooling in supermarket refrigerators, a trip to a local Peruvian market is fascinating and a bit daunting. At the biggest market, San Pedro, just up the street from the Plaza de Armas, you’ll find fruits, vegetables, alpaca charqui (the Quechua source of our word jerky), pig’s heads, herbs, fruit juices, weavings, and much, much more. You’ll see a fair number of foreigners wandering here as well, so for an experience that feels more authentic, try San Blas Market or Rosaspata, both off the tourist track.

The Carmel Market is the largest outdoors market in Tel Aviv and sells everything from toiletries, clothes, meat, fruit and vegetables and some delicatessen cheese. Like in a lot of outdoors markets, the fruit and vegetables are displayed in such a way you can touch, smell and sometimes even taste it before you buy. The outdoors markets (shuk) are busy, noisy and crowded but they are also a micro-cosmos sometimes of the country’s nation. Markets in Israel are opened quite early in the morning and close around 7 or 8. Friday before the Shabat, is mostly the most busiest days as people in a hurry to get food for the weekend. Saturday Shabat the markets are closed. Almsot every city in Israel has an outdoor market (shuk). Some of the well known ones are: Kerem Hateymanim, a a small neighborhood named after the immigrants from Yamen. The most famous shuk in Jerusalem is Machne Yehuda, which is quite a big outdoor place, very busy with a mix crowd of Jews, Muslim, Christians, Orthodox and seculars. In Haifa the shuk is in the arab quarter in Vadi Nisnas, the market has bakeries, fish and seafood stores and grounded arabic coffee. In recent years some main cities have Farmer markets, which take place mostly on Fridays.