Exit Row Seat

Thoughtful travel helps us understand the world we explore but often we stand in front of a famous site with only a superficial understanding of why it is famous. On those occasions, my kids would hear my twisted histories to fill in the gaps. Let me share one with you in my first travel comic.

An interesting interview with Rick Steves during a recent visit to New York that introduces his new book Travel as a Political Act. It should be an interesting read for every traveller who likes to be challenged.

The walk around Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra takes you past many of the best sights in the Capital and is great way to see and meet the locals. Allow yourself 2-3 hours to walk from Kings Ave bridge along the foreshore to Commonwealth Ave bridge and then back along the foreshore to Kings Ave (see map below).

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Restaurant Magazine and S. Pellegrino have announced the World’s Fifty Best Restaurants for 2008, a who’s who of the culinary world but are they the best or just the most famous? Did any Academy voting panel consider the simple joy of a neighbourhood restaurant that produces great local food? Probably not, and that is a great pity because for most of us dining at just one of the Fifty Best Restaurants is unlikely to occur more than once in a lifetime.

The Number One choice (three consecutive years) is El Bulli, the innovative home of Ferran Adrià whose approach to culinary excellence is inspirational for foodies like me. However, his favourite restaurant is a small one man seafood place that only cooks the best, freshest seafood and does not open if the markets produced an inferior catch that day. Maybe it deserves consideration for this honour? To that end, I nominate the following restaurants for our consideration to be one of the Fifty World’s Best Restaurants in 2009:

1. Banana Leaf Apollo – Singapore
2. Salumi – Seattle
3. Robert et Louise – Paris
4. Soho Spice – London
5. Yarrow Bay Grill – Kirkland (Washington, USA)

Exit Row Seat is featured in two blog carnivals today, and both contain a wide variety of interesting travel articles. I have hosted Carnival of Cities in the past and it always produces some great reads. The Carnival of Australia contains a few good travel pieces and broad range of other Australian topics.