Calorie-conscious on foreign holidays? Fret no more!

By Rupali Dean

Enjoy delicious and healthy food when visiting Australia, Dubai, Fiji, Japan & Denmark:

AUSTRALIA

Australia has many food markets wherein the food halls are truly exceptional. The fresh water Barramundi fish is delicious as are the Yabbies (blue crayfish), ask for steamed or grilled. Both the Kangaroo and wallaby are lean and protein rich meats and are quite organic in nature hence is used as an alternate to red meat.

Go for salt and sugar cured Kangaroo, seared fillet of Tasmanian wallaby or the smoked Emu. Try the oysters shucked onto hot coals causing the lid to open with a whiff of smoky flavour. And yes, there are absolutely amazing salads and grilled vegetables to opt for! Lemon scented myrtle is a divine native Australian herbal tea with amazing health benefits.




Try oysters with a smoky flavour in Melbourne

JAPAN

This country boasts of a varied range of delicious offerings in all its four seasons. There are innumerable varieties of seaweed, mushrooms and fish. Fish is an essential part of the Japanese diet. You could pick from live, raw (Nama or Sashimi) to grilled (yaki). There are plenty of vegetarian options too in Japan.

Try the wonderful mountain vegetable soup, and tofu galore. Go for salted steamed Edamame they are extremely healthy as a snack and you can keep sipping on the Matcha (green tea) whole day long. Grocery stores also always keep sushi and yakitori to go as well as other standard store foods.

DUBAI

One of the delights of eating in Dubai is its diversity. Awesome produce, astringent and piquant spices, olive oil, and some meat. Meals are not served in courses like in the West. There is a splendid array of appetisers to be enjoyed known as 'Mezzeh', which are the inexhaustible and highly flavoured range of irresistible nibbles served as either appetisers or as a meal itself.

Hummus, Moutabel, Tabouleh mashed beans, hot and cold salads, grilled seafood and meats and pickled vegetables being the most popular. The other accompaniments like the Kebabs usually brought together with the Mezzeh on the table are great too and you can easily skip the bread.


Indulge in cold salads served in Dubai

FIJI ISLANDS

Ingredients run the gamut from sweet pineapple, ripe papaya to locally caught lagoon fish, crab, prawn and lobster, which are divinely fresh, locally grown and prepared with a lot of passion. The traditional 'Lovo', which is the native way of cooking is by far the best and easiest.

In this case, food is wrapped and cooked in a shallow pit oven, which has been dug in the sand and placed in between heated stones (no fire). This is then covered with fresh leaves and green grass in a pit, which is loosely filled with sand and takes out delicious dishes like Multigrain Breads, Seafood, Palusami (corned beef, tomato, onion and garlic wrapped in taro leaves).

Freshly cooked Duruka (quite like Asparagus) and Kokoda, which is the Fijian version of ceviche, are examples of foods to eat when on a diet.


Traditional 'Lovo' — a shallow pit oven in Fiju

DENMARK

Restaurants and street food vendors in Denmark give special emphasis on the cooking style, which is not in any sense traditionally Danish. However, chefs pay heavy attention to local ingredients. And in Denmark this movement in gastronomy has caught on where the focus is towards a cuisine that is above all natural, but also generally fiercely local, seasonal and with a focus on superior ingredients.

For example, even the hot dog sausage that you would get on the streets is steamed, then grilled and the bread is made from leaven and rye. Also don't miss the Smorrebrod, bite sized open sandwiches (rye bread) with a topping of your choice.

(The author is a Delhi-based Food & Travel writer.)