Who Is Joey Toledo, and Why Is He Doing A Blog?

Well, I asked the same question myself. Everyone keeps saying I should maintain a blog. Now I am finally doing one because my sister had gifted me with this website for my birthday, and the subscription will be wasted if I don't use it. (No pressure at all, hahaha!) Since I am not a technical person, it is only now that I managed to overcome my fear of website design to be able to post.

I live in the Philippines, and I work in finance in the broadcasting industry. I can say that I am addicted to travel. At worst, sometimes I travel almost every weekend (darn all those promo airfares from budget airlines!). I am also a sucker for lists. The first list I tried to finish was the 21 Finalists of the New Seven Wonders of the World. I only got to 20, because the 21st is Timbuktu in Mali, and it is extremely difficult to go there with its current political conditions and security concerns. Maybe one day I will finish that list. I am still trying to go to all of the countries in the world, and currently I have been to 70.

As to my love affair with gourmet food, it started because my mom had liked watching cooking shows such as "Iron Chef". So I brought her to gourmet restaurants for her to see whether the food indeed tasted as good as it looked. Then when I discovered the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list, I started to tick them off, until I was able to do 44 of the 2018 list. Unfortunately, some of those restaurants fell off the 2019 list, so I am currently down to 38.

The World's 50 Best Restaurants list is a bit more challenging because of the logistics. But I have been to 16 restaurants in the 2018 World's 50 Best list (and 29 out of the Top 100). Still not bad!

So I decided to finally start my blog to share not only my impressions about the food, but also some of the interesting experiences -- and people -- behind it. Although I have a lot of upcoming restaurant reservations, I will still write about some of my past experiences. Of course, they all come with the caveat that my impressions are based on MY taste and on the dishes that I managed to order that day. 

I hope this will help you to become as inspired as I am to travel, and to travel for food!

P.S. - Please also visit my sister's blog http://www.pinoyroadtrip.com . She writes about her tips and travels particularly for those with families.