It Turns Out, My Passion for Travel Is Less About Food Than I Thought

I once reveled in traveling, spending days exploring new cities while indulging in cozy izakayas, farm-to-table pizzerias, vibrant seafood markets, and boat noodle spots, chatting with locals and walking for miles. Restaurants have always been my joyful gateway to experiencing a place and its culture. I believed that food was the essence of my wanderlust.

The fading memory of discovering a new city through its cuisine reignited my excitement for travel, prompting a recent road trip from Los Angeles to Corsicana, Texas, with stops in Albuquerque, Amarillo, El Paso, and Phoenix for meals along the way.

To clarify, I don’t endorse unnecessary travel. My journey was driven by a publishing deadline for The Bludso Family Cookbook, which led me to Texas, where I stayed with my dear friend and mentor, Kevin Bludso. Together, we cooked, wrote, tested recipes, interviewed, and, no doubt, enjoyed our share of brown spirits each night (seriously, someone should sponsor him with Hennessy).

For nearly 15 years, I’ve been immersed in the food industry, taking on roles such as bartender, server, chef, culinary director, restaurant consultant, cookbook author, and food writer. My goal had been to balance my writing and consulting while finally launching my own modest restaurant — a cozy, welcoming place where people could connect, featuring genuine food and service, with no ambition for expansion. I consider myself incredibly fortunate not to have opened a restaurant just before the pandemic hit.

Instead, I’ve spent the past few months at home producing a quarantine cooking series with my wife titled Don’t Panic Pantry. It’s been a pleasant distraction, but I felt that a work-related trip through the vast deserts of the American Southwest would serve as a refreshing, meditative escape from what had started to feel like endless purgatory.

I took every precaution, including a nasal-swab COVID test just before I set off. I also hoped to have some antibodies, since my wife and I had both contracted COVID-19 back in March. At the very least, it was courteous to get tested before staying with someone for two weeks.

I planned to drive straight through Arizona from LA, stopping only for gas until I reached New Mexico, relying on a strong mix of cold brew and air conditioning to keep me alert. I had never visited New Mexico before and had spent time on Instagram admiring photos of chile-laden Southwestern Mexican dishes, with enchiladas dripping in melted cheese and vibrant red and green sauces enhanced by filters. My typical pre-trip Google map was stocked with meticulously researched restaurants along my route. In the past, I would have included essential details like hours and must-try dishes; now, my focus shifted to outdoor seating, takeout quality, and most importantly, whether the places were even still open.

I set off with a hopeful heart. However, each gas stop chipped away at my excitement, replacing it with caution. Seeing everyone in masks deepened my gloom, while those without them stirred my anger.

After ten hours, I arrived in New Laguna, New Mexico. I stopped at Laguna Burger, a well-known mini-chain located inside a gas station. It certainly qualifies as fast food, but old photos online showed a counter with stools and a few tables, all of which were now absent, leaving a hollow void in the gas-station dining area. The staff were friendly yet appropriately cautious. I skipped the self-serve Kool-Aid pickle jar, grabbed my food, and sat in my car, feeling emotionally drained and less enthusiastic about trying my first-ever green chile burger — something I had looked forward to for years.

Ordering a burger in a place like this was meant to be a small glimpse into the local culture and character, however minor that sampling might be. Each restaurant has its own emotional atmosphere, a unique vibe, and I had never been more aware of this until I realized it had vanished entirely here. Instead, a heavy blanket of nervous, somber precaution hung in the air — likely compounded by my own anxiety.

So, there I sat in my car with my bag of food, feeling disheartened even before taking a bite. They had forgotten to salt the fries, which felt oddly fitting. In this moment, despite no fault of the restaurant, the food seemed irrelevant. I had piled unrealistic expectations onto the green chile cheeseburger, hoping it would validate a 12-hour drive and ease my anxious mind. But it dawned on me that the food wasn’t what I truly craved.

Later in Albuquerque, I picked up a four-pack of beer from Arrow Point Brewing and received the now-familiar treatment: cautious, polite gratitude. It was a simple exchange, appreciated by both parties but laden with an unspoken tension. I then grabbed a takeout order of enchiladas and a taco from the cherished Duran’s Pharmacy, bringing them back to the motel I had checked into earlier. It was 5:30 p.m., and the enchiladas had shifted in the bag. After taking a bite, I realized: it was comforting, but not nearly enough. It felt like reconnecting with an ex only to find that the spark was long gone — just two empty vessels without a connection beyond a fading memory.

I sipped my beer and fell asleep for an hour. When I woke up, the city was dark, and I knew there was no point in venturing out. Everything felt dystopian and deflated. I had left my cozy, loving bubble to face life alone on the road, and all I wanted was to be back with my wife and my dog.

When my wife and I had COVID-19, we temporarily lost our sense of smell and taste. As my wife described it, it was 'a joyless existence.' Now that I had regained my taste, the pleasure of eating still eluded me.

The enchiladas, resting in a box on the floor of my motel room, were simply enchiladas. Here’s something I’ve realized lately: context significantly influences flavor. The setting, the atmosphere, the people around us, and their moods (as well as ours) truly alter how we perceive taste. A restaurant’s lasagna must surpass your mother’s or that unforgettable one from Italy to evoke even a hint of nostalgia. Smoked pork ribs will always taste better enjoyed from a styrofoam box on your car hood, near a roadside smoker, rather than on a ceramic plate with a tablecloth. I hope to never discover what Waffle House tastes like sober and in daylight.

It seems that in my lifelong passion for food and travel, the food itself may not matter as much as I once thought — not without all the accompanying elements. The grumpy bartender at Reel M Inn in Portland, frying chicken behind the bar while a patron mocks my California roots, is a big part of why that’s possibly the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. The friend of a friend who dropped everything (thanks, Marc!) to drive me around Toronto for two days, showcasing the city’s amazing goat roti from Mona’s Roti and bún riêu cua from Bong Lua, reminds me that while the food is incredible, it’s really the people — eager to share their hometown, its Mytouries, and their community — who make travel truly meaningful.

Would Tokyo still be my favorite dining city if my now-wife and I hadn’t bonded with two strangers in a tiny dive bar, downing cocktails until we both ended up throwing up, only to find ourselves united over late-night grilled pork skewers with yet another stranger who handed me his business card and claimed he had been eating at that stall for over a decade? What is a bar without a bartender? It’s simply home.

The restaurant industry can be both a nightmare and a dream. It pays poorly, demands long hours, and often leaves you broke while cooking for patrons who grumble about the prices. Yet, as Anthony Bourdain often noted, it is the Pleasure Business. It has always served as a hub for camaraderie, human connection, and community. Those elements made the challenging aspects of the industry bearable — and that authentic connection between staff and customers is what I believe everyone truly seeks from the experience. These connections still exist, albeit at arm’s length or through an app now.

I still aspire to open my own restaurant someday. I think. But perhaps I really just want to revive the memory of what it could have been in a different time. I don’t want to become a relic, longing for the past. Yet, I also don’t want to inhabit a world where a third-party tech company mediates the relationship between the restaurant and its customers. I don’t want visitors to my city to think that a robot delivering a sandwich represents our best offering. I refuse to download an app just to order a cup of damn coffee. Human connection, it turns out, is crucial, and we must find a way to reintroduce it into our essential businesses.

In the face of a health and humanitarian crisis, what can we do? We can choose where to spend our money. We support human connections and small businesses. We safely pick up takeout from the places and people we cherish. It’s like applying a bandage to a deep, bleeding wound, but we try nonetheless.

We travel because we need to, whether for work or to escape the mundane. We adjust our expectations, open ourselves to connection, seek out adaptable places, and smile behind our masks, asking each other how we’re doing, if only to show we care.

Upon arriving in Corsicana, Texas, with a large bag of dried red New Mexico chiles, I was enveloped in a warm hug from Kevin Bludso; it was the first genuinely comforting moment of my trip. I melted into my friend's embrace, feeling reconnected to something special.

I relished two wonderful weeks in that comforting bubble, alternating between Peloton workouts and vegetable smoothies, recipe-testing dishes like Fried Whole-Body Crappie and Ham Hock Pinto Beans, researching Kevin’s family history, and, true to form, enjoying rye (for me) and Hennessy (for him) before heading home. Kevin’s exceptional food was elevated by the time we spent cooking together. So as I prepared to hit the road again, my expectations shifted. I realized the food could only do so much.

This pandemic has illuminated and intensified all our vulnerabilities — and the restaurant industry is no exception. It has long been fraught with issues, already on the verge of significant change; COVID-19 merely sped up the process, and all the platitudes, Instagram posts, and empty optimism won't resolve anything. Good restaurants and bad ones have always coexisted, and that remains true now. However, it seems a bit harder to give and be open to the human connections that make the experience meaningful.

I set out early on my journey, and after about 10 and a half hours, powered by caffeine, Christopher Cross, and Bonnie Raitt — with one disheartening pit stop in El Paso at the famous H&H Car Wash, where an irritable old man insisted I remove my mask before entering — I reached La Nueva Casita Café in Las Cruces. I called ahead, hoping to avoid a wait so I could quickly grab my meal and continue my trip. My defenses were still up, but the woman on the other end of the line was so warm and friendly that I relaxed instantly. She kindly recommended the chile relleno burrito (“it’ll be the easiest to eat in the car”). Moments later, I walked in to pick up my order, and the two women behind the counter were genuinely delightful. After paying, I was handed my food with sincere gratitude for my visit. The burrito was fantastic.

Fueled by the kindness of strangers, I drove another five and a half hours to Phoenix. As a passionate pizza maker (I had the incredible luck to train with Frank Pinello at Best Pizza in Williamsburg and help launch Prime Pizza in Los Angeles), I was eager to try Chris Bianco's new 18-inch New York-style fusion pizza at their Pane Bianco location on Central.

Just like at La Nueva Casita Café, the staff here was friendly, sincere, helpful, and kind. In hindsight, it took so little effort but meant so much. When I mentioned I needed caffeine, they directed me next door to Lux Central for a large iced coffee, where the barista chatted with me from a safe distance, wished me a safe journey, and even gave me a free blueberry muffin. Even eaten in my car, Chris’s pizza was exceptional — crisp, thin, and flexible, perfectly achieving the New York-modern Neapolitan (ish) fusion that often ends up as a soggy mess in lesser hands.

I drove the final six hours home, feeling uplifted by these last two dining experiences, thrilled by what the best in our industry can still offer despite the challenges. It was truly inspiring to witness genuine interaction, care, and kindness in this new reality.

This reminds me of my mother. I recall when I was a child, she'd call a restaurant or Blockbuster Video with a question. I’d often hear her say something like: “Hi Randy! How are you today?” and I would ask, “Mom! Do you know him?” to which she’d shake her head. Then she'd say, “That’s great to hear, Randy. By the way, what time do you close today?” My brother and I used to tease her for trying to connect with someone she didn’t really know beyond a simple transaction. Now, I intend to do just that, whenever and wherever possible.

Noah Galuten is a chef and a James Beard Award-nominated author of cookbooks, as well as the co-host of Don’t Panic Pantry. Nhung Le is a freelance illustrator from Vietnam currently residing in Brooklyn, NY.