The challenge

I'm one of those people who likes trying new things, particularly when it comes to food. Even if one of my favourites is on a menu, I'm always going to pick the thing I haven't eaten before. To me a great dining experience isn't about eating the same thing week in week out, it's about trying something new and exotic, ideally in an odd location with even odder decor. It's not about starter, main then pudding it's about the extraordinary ways you can eat your food or have it served. How it can be found, grown, killed, harvested, cooked and eaten using a variety of complex and foreign devices which baffle your average Englishman.

I've travelled a bit, and eaten some odd things in some odd places, but I’ve been thinking. Why do I have to go abroad for these experiences? Surely I don't need to go to Nepal for my Momo, Ethiopia for my Tibs Wet or Peru for a bit of Guinea Pig? I wonder... can you experience every culinary experience right here in London? There are a lot of restaurants in London... absolutely loads, but is there a restaurant for every country in the world?

More importantly, if you ate food from every country in the world, which would be the dullest? Which would be the spiciest? All in all, which would be the best?

This blog is my attempt to find out.

I'm going to attempt to eat my way around the world without leaving Britain's capital city. I'll be going in alphabetical order, Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, using the list of UN countries here and adding Taiwan (who aren't in the UN), Scotland and Wales for good measure. Obviously I'm going to struggle to experience all 195 of them (do you know of an Andorran restaurant, a Kiribatian cafe or a Panamanian diner?) but I'm going to have a very good go. If I miss any, and there turns out to be a place somewhere I didn't know about, then I'll go back and cover it again, I'll also go to any place that'll serve me the national dish for any country with no restaurant.

If you can help me, I'd be most grateful. If you know of a restaurant representing an obscure country somewhere like Djibouti, Liechtenstein or Micronesia, then please get in touch to help me towards my goal. Obviously I won't be needing help with China, India or the USA, but if you want to suggest an obscure cuisine you've enjoyed then post its name as a comment.

And to begin… Afghanistan