We Indians are more than ready to experiment with local cuisine while on holiday abroad. This is according to a survey by travel planning site, TripAdvisor, where 91 per cent of respondents (among 1,000 people) confirmed that travel habits are surely changing. Then you have food shows on TV, be it Masterchef Australia or TopChef Masters, which find a dedicated audience among us. All this has egged on travel agencies like Ezeego1.com and Thomas Cook to come up with food specific holidays in Australia, Singapore, France and other countries.
The fork, your guide
It is common knowledge that Italian and Far Eastern cuisine are favourites. But there is an interesting development. According to Hotels.com’s latest poll, featuring 27,000 global respondents, Japanese cuisine followed on the heels of Italian and French food. ‘‘Customers can meet their needs by considering each country’s culture-specific cuisines. Every destination has of ferings l ike vineyard trails, beer gardens and cheese factories,’’ says Madhav Pai, CEO, Leisure, Thomas Cook.
Australia
The first step to planning a foodcentric holiday is by browsing through blogs — often an honest look at the food scene. Tourism Australia suggests some blogs — notquitenigella.com and thefoodpornographer.com offer a calendar of food-centric events. Coming up is the Crave Sydney International Festival (October 1-31), while earlier this year, we had IGA’s World’s Longest Lunch.
Stretching the rupee
As Indias, we are definitely price-sensitive and tend to convert meal prices into Indian Rupees. However, being experimental is the way to go when it comes to finding quaint eateries, and one can stretch the rupee in such cases.
Italy
Fine dining aficionados can check out the 4D/5N Thomas Cook wine package of Piedmont, Italy. The itinerary includes Barbaresco and Barolo wine tastings, (marchesidigresy.com, marchesibarolo.com), a session on making wine and a stay at a wine spa hotel.
Singapore
For those of you who don’t have the time to plan, the Singapore Tourism Board has launched customised itineraries, with cooking workshops. According to the Singapore Tourism Board, Shermay’s Cooking School and Palate Sensations Cooking School offer workshops focusing on Asian techniques and baking sessions. If cooking is not your thing, you can still get the best of street food with the Makansutra Food Safari Tour (think laksa, bak kut teh and rojak) and the Singapore Food Trail, for ice-balls and kachang puteh.
Book your trip
Gerhard and Chandra Schanz of Mumbai-based The Wine Culture Tours offer a 9D/8N package to Germany and France.
Details: 8527481343.
For something closer home, we recommend Vineyard Discovery’s packages, which offer a one night, two-day tour in Nashik’s vineyards, at `9,500 per person, cour tesy thewineclub.com