Michael Portillo Quotes

A good spicy challenge strikes a balance between flavour and fear.

For me, I don't expect to have a really amazing meal each time I dine out. Having a good meal with your loved ones - that's what makes the experience.

Any free meal is a good meal, you know?

My first Eurotrip, I want to fly into London and take a train to all the traditional must-see cities.

I ran away from my home in Gwalior and bought myself a ticket to Delhi. That was the nearest metro, and the cheapest ticket was for Rs 74.

What is it about trains that makes food taste so good? Some of my happiest memories are of prolonged lunches between St. Moritz and Zurich, Bordeaux and Paris, and even between Coimbra and Salamanca.

Trying mirchi vada was like an achievement for me as it's too spicy!

Cooking a fantastic meal is therapeutic. I like the entire process-the chopping, the stirring. At the end, hopefully you get to enjoy a great meal with a friend or loved one.

Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it

In America, we happen to be living in a third world country from the point of view of economic and social development. I came back from New York yesterday and I took the fastest train in the country, the Acela. My wife and I took the New York-Boston train sixty years ago - it wasn't called the Acela then - and I think it's improved by about fifteen minutes since then. Any other country in the world would be about half the time. In fact when it's riding along the Connecticut turnpike it's barely keeping up with traffic, which is just scandalous.

I take the subway because I don't like having someone else driving. It's hard for me to be in a cab, because the traffic makes me feel insane. On the subway you're getting there faster and it's easier.

Imagine all the food mankind has produced over the past 8,000 years. Now consider that we need to produce that same amount again — but in just the next 40 years if we are to feed our growing and hungry world.

It's not fashionable but I like to spit out of the window of a moving train.

Last time I went Intercity there were a couple across the aisle having sex. Of course, this being a British train, nobody said anything. Then they finished, they both lit up a cigarette and this woman stood up and said, Excuse me, I think you'll find this is a non-smoking compartment.

Bessie: 'Why don't you get married?' Zooey: 'I like riding in trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window anymore when you're married.

But my point is that competitive eating is a real sport, and I considered taking it up. But when I thought about what this would mean sitting around for hours, stuffing my face with unhealthy food I realized it was basically the same thing as journalism.

I sought trains; I found passengers.

I, unfortunately, take the subway a lot. It's not my preference, but it is my lot in life.

I don't travel by airplane. I mean that because when my wife, my kids and I travel on trains or boats, we meet a lot of people and we talk to them.

A motel is where you give up good dollars for bad quarters.

At some point I will try balut. I will make sure that I will film it

Take a chance and try my fare! It will grow on you, I swear; Soon it will taste good to you!

The economy is so bad that bedbugs are now infesting sleeping bags and tents, because they can't afford to stay in hotels anymore.

I vill eat nine Snikuhs bahs visout bahfing