Woken up in garbled sweats, wondering if today is the day that i'll find a salvational bowl of Pho, more often than not disappointed by a hundred promises and only a handful of deliveries. Christina at Den Bar had overheard me talking about my love for Pho and Ramen, and interrupted to excitedly detail the existence of a hidden pho bar on the outskirts of Odesa, in an area surely no travellers trod. In a small hallway of a junk-market a 20 minute drive from the pretty downtown, I took it upon myself to hunt it out.

I started eating at places Bourdain went to years ago, knowingly wanting to see what his palate was like, or if his local friends were short-changing him. On some occasions the food met with muted grief, on others divine raptures of falling angelic gang-bang euphoria shaking the very foundations of my soul. ​

You find treasures in the oddest places. Having lived for 14 years in the capital, Oslo, and struggled to find anything above a decent Falafel (Gaza Kjøkken), it would never have occured to me that the holy grail was hiding in the city of heroin and herring. Strung beside a grocery store on Haraldsgata, this tiny Syrian eatery offers everything from lambs hearts, pizza, shawarma, falafel and manakish. ​