Food tastes better with sand between your toes. - Anthony Bourdain
You don’t have to be a beach bum to relate to this mantra. It explains how all senses, beyond taste, smell, and sight, play a part in the enjoyment of eating and drinking. I, for one, believe that hip-hop, and especially A Tribe Called Quest, seasons food to another level. No disrespect to Salt-N-Pepa.
The “best” restaurants in the world, at least according to the haute critics, often achieve their success by incorporating all five senses into their cooking. The irony is that while rockstar chefs and restaurateurs push their boundaries of creative expression, indigenous casual dives pull it off organically. Somehow, like magic, everything, including the necessary kitsch, is in its rightful place, without the slightest indication of intention. You know these places are unique because even time respects them.
Every enlightened country has one. An institution for the people. One where humanity’s differences are thrown into the fire, fryer, and freezer. When you experience one, your senses activate, but perhaps none more than the sense of place. They are local landmarks of culture, conviviality, and cuisine - the essence of sensory dining in its humble glory.
Selecting a handful of my favorite indigenous casual dives on the green part of this planet was no easy task. I love these places. So enamored, in fact, that I keep a running list of them in my iPhone notes. Not only because they are invaluable pillars of cultural preservation, but because they are always the gracious hosts of honest food & drink, people, and great fucking times. Times so memorable that sometimes I fail to recall details the following morning.
Bia hơi (Vietnam)
Bia Hoi is not a physical location as much as it is culture on draft. The term refers to the low alcohol beer that flows like water through a hose that never shuts off. It is a celebrated centerpiece of friends meeting for a few rounds with compatible culinary sidekicks. Bia Hoi is a fitting intro to these modest treasures because it establishes an essential consistency amongst them: drink and food are treated with equal measure.
Tastes: cold beer, simply steamed calamari and clams, spicy dipping sauces, fresh cilantro, and squeezes of fresh lime. Mop it up with a fresh baguette. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better one in the world - including France.
Scents: notes of worn beer pong tables and the unmistakable fragrance of thick Vietnamese air, often with something sizzling over a nearby roadside grill.
Sounds: endless chitter-chatter and clinking of glasses, with an occasional verse or two of Vietnamese pop music or television. Until the light turns green and revving engines monopolize your ear space.
Sights: curious passersby, cyclos aplenty, even more beer, colorful low plastic stools.
Touch: sweaty beer glasses, smooth wooden chopsticks, and aforementioned plastic stools doing their best to leave impression marks on your legs, backside, and soul.
Meyhane/Taverna (Turkey & Greece)
You may call it blasphemy to consolidate the respective Turkish and Greek indigenous casual dives. But I do so only in name because parts of Turkey, such as İzmir, say taverna to describe their meyhane. Who doesn’t enjoy mezze, the collective term for siblings of freshness and flavor that share the spotlight on your table? Much of the time, they are a local expression of someone’s personal Garden of Eden - above or below the sea.
Tastes: olive oil, crisp vegetables, fresh herbs and ground spices (hello, parsley and sumac), washed down with anise-tinted “lion’s milk” that varies in name, depending upon location. Rakı (Turkey), ouzo (Greece), arak (Middle East)…the list goes on.
Scents: more fresh herbs and spices, grilled fish, toasted bread. Need I say more?
Sounds: lively folk music, footsteps on cobblestone, “oohs and aahs” in anticipation of whatever lands on your table next.
Sights: colorful food and tableware against the neutral canvas of wooden tables, family and friends of all generations enjoying each other’s company
Touch: a warm vessel of coffee or tea, napkins wiping your face, hands holding - or clapping to the tunes.
Izakaya (Japan)
The word itself is a portmanteau that loosely translates to “sake shop stay.” Instead of simply purchasing sake, you can post up at one of these usually small establishments and go to town on snacks that pair exceptionally well with…you guessed it.
Tastes: rice wine (duh), cool picked cucumbers, meat and fish of the grilled, fried, braised, and raw variety.
Scents: aged wood, charcoal smoke, and tobacco smoke. It is an intoxicating olfactory cocktail.
Sounds: the loud traditional greeting of guests (“Irasshaimase!”) and the even more uproarious laughter and banter of salacious salarymen.
Sights: tables of aforementioned salacious salarymen, the occasional blacked-out salaryman, the relaxed and concentrated posture of a grillmaster, and smoke. Lots of smoke.
Touch: smooth wooden chopsticks, spiky yakitori skewers, and subsequent finger-licking happiness.
Boteco (Brazil)
The one where I could spend - and have spent - entire days and nights.
Tastes: fried. Pasteis (Brazilian empanadas for lack of better description), coxinhas (battered and deep-fried balls of shredded chicken), and the beloved caipirinha, made with every tropical fruit under the sun.
Scents: Can ‘fried’ be its own aroma? Why yes, it can.
Sights: brightly colored tiles (and ones stained with overlapping sandal-prints of Havaianas), relaxed conversation, trays of draft beer (“Chopp”), colorful condiments to decorate your monochromatic golden brown morsels of goodness, and of course, a futebol match on the television.
Sounds: the ultimate collision course of passionate football commentators, smooth bossa nova, the thud of frosty mugs hitting anxious tables, and a forthcoming ‘saude’ (cheers) amongst groups of friends.
Touch: speaking of frosty mugs, Brazilians take their cerveja very seriously. It goes back to the days of the European diaspora and emigrés exporting their most valuable skills. The essence of beer drinking in Brazil is summed up in one of my favorite words of any language: gelada.
Gelada refers to that perfect temperature and texture in which your beer is so cold - almost to the point of freezing - that the glass takes on a slick gel-like texture. When the borderline-crystallized brew stings your tongue, you already know you want another. Beer served bem gelada (“well ice-gelled,” so to speak) is the perfect antidote to the roof-of-mouth-searing bites fresh out the fryer. So particular are Brazilians with their beer that many taps are wired to a digital thermometer. It provides peace of mind to the consumer that their refreshment will arrive in the only acceptable condition: bem gelada.
Honorary mentions go to the konoba of the Balkans, Imbiß of Germany, dhaba of India, cantina of Mexico, and chiringuitos in Spain. They are all sensorily beautiful in their own ways, yet not always on the aesthetic front. Remember, anywhere on the green part of the globe has a unique interpretation of the indigenous casual dive. I encourage you to experience and appreciate them with every sense.
What and where are some of your favorite indigenous casual dives? Please share, preferably, with WORD UP Nation - or at least with me personally.
AHHH, my love language! :) Thanks for sharing this!!