I am lucky enough to have traveled a lot and live in a city (Vancouver, Canada) with restaurants from all over the world.

I will highlight two dishes that I suspect most readers have not tried that are particularly worth tracking down. If you're interested in more suggestions, please let me know.

Georgia.

The small Caucasus nation of Georgia is considered the culinary capital of the former Soviet Union, what French cooking is to Western Europe. However, due to geographical and political reasons, Georgian food rarely reaches the Western world, but it is one of the best foods in the world.

Here are some examples of dishes:

Hachebli - a grilled flatbread stuffed with butter and cheese. It's kind of like a strong cheese pizza, but super buttery, and the cheese (usually a mix of imeruli and sulguni) is more like feta cheese. No, it’s not a health food, but it’s not something you need to eat every day. Different regions of Georgian style of khachapuri have their own trademarks, with different overall shapes, different grains used for the dough, a mix of different cheeses, sometimes an egg baked on top, or beans or meat, but I like the one of Megruli khachapuri (pictured) The best because it is beautiful.

Chinkali – Georgian soup dumplings filled with meat and broth. Very flavorful.

Grilled meat - Sold under many different names and combinations, Georgian cooks are masters of grilled meats, often served with luscious pomegranate or berry juice.

Wine: Finally, Georgia’s climate makes it one of the best wine producers in Asia. If you notice a bottle of wine stamped Georgia in a wine store, it's worth buying. They grow some grapes unique to the region (Saperavi, Rkatsiteli, etc.).

2 Myanmar

Myanmar is one of the less famous and less common foods in Southeast Asia, also for political reasons (Myanmar has been under a brutal dictatorship for many years), But they taste absolutely amazing. They're particularly well-versed in the concept of umami, that delicious mushroomy, fishy, ??gravy-like flavor that makes some foods so satisfying. They achieve this with a rich-flavored fish paste called Ngapi, which is the base of many Burmese dishes. Here are some of the top results:

Burmese Chicken Biryani – Not too different in appearance from the biryani served in parts of India (chicken with seasoned rice), but makes Burmese Chicken Biryani different from What makes the difference is the fish sauce I mentioned. The chicken here is rich in sauce (no biryani like dry fried rice here) and delicious.

Fish Bangyu (Burmese Fish Soup) – Like biryani, there is nothing particularly exotic about the concept of fish flatfish. It's a fish noodle soup with a variety of vegetables and spices. But just as the Vietnamese have a simple name for pho but are so satisfying in beef noodle soup, Myanmar also has pho in fish slab soup. A perfect lunch on a cold rainy day.

Lahpet Thoke (Fermented Tea Leaves Salad) - This is where the ingredients become exotic. Fermented green tea, crunchy roasted soybeans, tomatoes, onions, peanuts....nothing tastes like it. Just don't eat it before bed as it contains a lot of caffeine.

Second Prize

I don’t have time to give you more delicious dishes, but if you like these suggestions, here are some others that I also recommend, some specific dishes:

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Tibetan: butter tea, momo dumplings

Uzbek: Plov (mutton rice), samsas (their version of curry samosas), Thai chicken, coriander salad

Also, I think cuisines like Malaysian, Ethiopian, and Brazilian are pretty mainstream right now, but if those are also outside of your experience, I highly recommend them. Go for some Malaysian beef rendang, roti canai and laksa, or sample Ethiopian vegetables with some doro.