Travel’s 11 most overrated (and 12 most underrated) food experiences

One person’s caviar is another’s disgusting fish eggs. When it comes to food and drink, there’s no accounting for individual tastes. Nevertheless, our writers have taken a look at some of the popular trends in global cuisine and decided which ones are worth your time and which should be resoundingly ignored in the following list of overrated and underrated foods, dishes and drinks.

OVERRATED

Afternoon tea

The awkward timing of afternoon tea means you either have to skip lunch and arrive ravenous or have a “light lunch” and be unable to manage anything more than a sandwich. And while a treat-filled tower is aesthetically pleasing, can anyone consume six sandwiches, a scone, four cakes and a litre of tea without needing a lie-down? And don’t get us started on the price.

Sushi

Sushi… popular, but is it really that good for you?Credit: Getty Images

The world is apparently not over its long-running sushi craze yet, even though sushi is just sweetened white rice, a sliver of fish and a few splinters of vegetable wrapped in seaweed paper that sticks to your teeth. Even worse, it looks like a healthy option but is actually mostly refined carbohydrate, and full of sugar and salt.

Hamburgers

From a New York pastrami sandwich to banh mi and stuffed focaccia, the world is full of satisfying sandwiches. Then comes the burger: a greasy meat patty, two lettuce leaves, a slice of limp tomato and too much sauce in a boring white bun. Hamburgers are grotesquely overrated, and yet have taken over the world. Why?

Bougie grocery stores

Erewhon grocery store, California.Credit: Getty Images

When travelling in the US, lunch on the hop may seem like a price and time-effective option. But when a tiny (albeit delicious) pre-packaged salad and a (celebrity endorsed) smoothie at one of the new breed of upmarket grocery stores – I’m looking at you, Erehwon – sets you back more than $US40 ($61), one has to question the economics of fresh and organic.

Georgian wine

Despite 8000 years of practice (Georgia claims to be the world’s oldest wine-making culture), traditional Georgian wine is what you might call an acquired taste. Made by fermenting grape juice, skins, pips and stalks in large, egg-shaped clay pots called qvevri, the result is a funky, cloudy amber affair. Its lip-pursing flavour makes you wonder if it’s all just an elaborate joke.

Floating breakfasts

A water breakfast does not float everyone’s boat.Credit: Getty Images

It’s a trend you can’t miss on Instagram and TikTok. Attractive influencers love to pose with “floating breakfasts” of artfully arranged fruit, eggs and pastries on a buoyant tray. What a great opportunity to show off their bikini bods and glamorous hotel pools. In reality, it’s just wet, cold and messy to eat croissants in the water.

Burrata

Burrata… aka bland and boring.Credit: iStock

Trigger warning: wildly unpopular opinion about to be shared. Isn’t it time we got over the burrata craze? The obsession with the soft, milky udders of cheese made from mozzarella and cream is getting out of hand. Burrata this, burrata that, burrata with a cherry on top. It’s mostly just bland-tasting cream. Let’s hear it for havarti and halloumi.

Sharing plates

In theory, sharing menus are a great idea. You taste little bits of a lot of things and enjoy the conviviality of “family-style” dining. In practice, why does this trend feel like an excuse to make us order and pay for three-to-five tiny, overpriced dishes a person? And we’re still hungry at the end of the meal.

Wine tourism

If you enjoy clomping around muddy vineyards, inhaling the aroma of 100 oaky barrels and listening as a winemaker goes on (and on and on) about acidity, terroir and the weather forecast, then wine tourism is for you. The rest of us would just like a nice glass of vino and a sit-down, thanks all the same.

Degustation meals

Ever finished a four-hour 12-course tasting menu and not felt bloated and sick? Me neither. And did you genuinely love every dish? Probably not. Stick to the a la carte menu, order what you actually want and spend the money you save on wine.

The signature dish

So often a country or city’s “signature dish” is an underwhelming disappointment. The guide book raves about the khinkali dumplings in Tbilisi but when they arrive they’re rubbery and bland. New York’s famous pastrami on rye turns out to be a plain ’ol meat sandwich and if there was ever definitive proof that you can have too much cheese, it’s Swiss fondue.

UNDERRATED

Las Vegas food scene

You need to steer clear of the overpriced Strip and its celebrity chefs and their overly busy eateries if you’re going to find genuinely enjoyable, inspiring cuisine in Las Vegas. Take a taxi to Downtown, or the Arts District, or even the city’s west, and sample Vegas food at its finest, cooked by talented chefs with no celebrity, but plenty of passion and ideas.

Starbucks’ cafe latte

Obviously, everyone is supposed to hate Starbucks, particularly Australian coffee snobs. Fair enough, we’re not going to recommend Starbucks in Australia, or any other nation that does decent coffee of its own. But plenty of countries do not have decent coffee of their own – and Starbucks, as sacrilegious as this sounds, is the best option. Get the smallest cafe latte they’ll let you order, with no flavourings. It’s not terrible.

Eating yakiniku in Japan

Yakiniku… richly marbled steak grilled in front of you.Credit: iStock

Everyone goes to Japan for sushi and maybe even ramen, but surely the most enjoyable cuisine in the Land of the Rising Sun is richly marbled steak grilled at the table in front of you. This is yakiniku, inspired many years ago by Korean barbecue, in which diners cook steak, seafood and vegetables on grills set into their table. It’s a social, enjoyable way to dine – and the quality of the produce is incredibly high.

Tasmania’s wineries

There’s a common assumption that the Barossa Valley is Australia’s premier wine region, and the likes of Margaret River and the Yarra Valley offer the best tourism experiences. But want to know a secret? Tasmania has the best of both. The best sparkling wines, plus chardonnay and pinot noir. The most beautiful locations. The friendliest cellar doors. Sensational. See discovertasmania.com.au

Peruvian food

Matria in Lima, Peru, is a heralded restaurant where it’s actually easy to get a table.

This South American nation is now globally recognised for its culinary excellence, its high-end restaurants picking up swags of awards in the likes of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. However, Australian travellers who haven’t been to Peru still have a hard time understanding just how good the food is here. From the most modest, no-frills eatery to the finest of fine-dining cuisine, Peruvian food really is world-class.

Sober-curious movement

The trend towards more mindful consumption of alcohol and a re-evaluation of when and how much we drink has led to the invention of delicious new alcohol-free wines, beers and cocktails. We’re waking up with fewer hangovers, more money in our pockets and a renewed zest for life.

Australian native ingredients

Lemon myrtle… native foods are key to unlocking real Australian cuisine.Credit: iStock

What is Australia’s national dish? Meat pies? Roast lamb? Pavlova? Add to these traditional dishes some Australian native ingredients, and we’re on the right track. As more chefs discover the alluring flavours of the Aussie bush – from lemon myrtle to Davidson’s plum, rosella to saltbush – perhaps we can really start to define an Australian cuisine that stands apart from the rest of the world.

Happy hours

Discounted bevvies and bar snacks – what’s not to love? Happy hours are my happy place, providing an affordable light dining option and the promise of an early night. I’m particularly enamoured with the socially acceptable sit-at-the-bar format of the US, ideal for solo travellers who don’t want to be “the lonely dude” at a table for two.

Sicily’s cannoli

Cannoli heaven… Sicily.Credit: Getty Images

One of Sicily’s most popular desserts is cannoli – tubes of fried dough stuffed with sweet, whipped ricotta and decorated with everything from candied cherries and orange peel to crushed pistachios and nubs of chocolate. As you travel around the island off the toe of Italy’s “boot’, you’ll note sizes and fillings vary – but they’re inevitably delicious.

Sommeliers

A criminally underused resource. Rather than just ordering the second-cheapest bottle from the wine list, enlist the help of the sommelier. Not only do they know the menu inside out, but they have also spent years perfecting the art of pairing wine with food.

Vegan restaurants

There was a time when vegetarian or vegan food meant flavour-free and barely edible dishes to be avoided at all costs. But the world has changed. With so many people now having both a passion for food, and for animals, these specialist restaurants can offer innovative thrills even for dedicated flesh-eaters. Cauliflower steaks and Brussels fricassee can be an entree to a whole new world.

Tassie oysters

Reignite your adoration of oysters by slurping just-shucked-out-the-back briny beauties at Blue Lagoon Oysters. This no-frills farm-gate, fronting Boomer Bay near Dunalley on the state’s east coast, specialises in premium Tassie Gold Pacific oysters (named for the hue of their shells) and native Angasi oysters (available May to September only). Add a squeeze of lemon – stairway to heaven. See bluelagoonoysters.com.au

CONTRIBUTORS Ben Groundwater, Belinda Jackson, Brian Johnston, Katrina Lobley, Kristie Kellahan, Rob McFarland, Julie Miller, Tim Richards, Sue Williams