Pete 2010, the Year in Food

January in Asia (Cambodia and South Korea) provided me opportunities to try tarantula, bull's penis and blowfish. In all cases the bragging rights far exceeded the culinary pleasures.

I don't want to know how many calories there are even in the quarter of a ricotta-nutella dessert calzone I had at Toby's Public House.

The transplanted Montrealers at Mile End bring the classic smoked meat sandwich to Brooklyn, quite possibly the best deli sandwich in New York at the moment.

My love for the non-vegetarian cuisine of the Indian state of Kerala was consummated at 5-Star Indian, in New Hyde Park. Equally satisfying was Hoysala, in central Jersey, which serves food from the neighboring state of Karnataka.

As a birthday present to myself I spent a weekend in Flushing, sampling a cornucopia of Chinese regional specialties at food courts and restaurants.

A birthday dinner also introduced me to one of my new favorite restaurants, Antibes Bistro, on the Lower East Side.

A number of trips to Elmhurst solidified Chao Thai's standing as my favorite Thai restaurant.

I threw caloric caution to the wind when I had gelato on a brioche at Villabate, a Bensonhurst bakery.

I first had alambres when I visited Mexico City in 2009, for Thanksgiving weekend. After combing Sunset Park menus for the dish, I finaly found it at a place with the unlikely name of Gan Eden.

In San Francisco I sought out some of the city's most historic restaurants, and fell in love with Swan Oyster Depot.

Other domestic travel gave me the chance to try two national cuisines that were new to me: Cape Verdean in Boston and South African in Charlottesville.

In Spain I had fabulous tapas as well as this duck and apple still life.