Finding Your Favorite Food Abroad: How to Eat Well in a New Country

Nobody warns you about the food part. You spend months preparing your visa paperwork, packing your belongings, and saying goodbye to friends. Then you land in your new country, walk into a grocery store, and realize you cannot find a single brand you recognize. The soy sauce tastes different. The bread is not the same. The cheese aisle makes no sense. And suddenly, you are standing in a fluorescent-lit supermarket feeling more homesick than you expected.

Food is personal. It is tied to memory, comfort, and identity. When you move abroad, losing access to the meals you grew up with can feel like losing a piece of home. But it does not have to stay that way. With some effort and creativity, you can eat well in almost any country.

Why food matters more than you think

When people talk about adjusting to life abroad, they focus on language, culture, and work. Food rarely comes up. But think about your daily routine at home. You probably have a breakfast you make without thinking, a lunch spot you visit every week, and a dinner recipe that feels like a hug. Those small rituals keep you grounded.

Take those away, and the effect is real. Studies on immigrant well-being consistently show that access to familiar food is one of the strongest predictors of how well someone adjusts to a new country. It is not just about taste. It is about feeling like yourself.

Finding ethnic grocery stores and international markets

The first thing to do when you arrive in a new city is find the specialty grocery stores. Almost every mid-sized city in the world has at least a few shops that cater to immigrant communities.

Start with a simple online search: "Asian grocery store in [your city]" or "Latin American market near me." Google Maps is surprisingly good at this, and many stores have reviews that mention specific products they carry. If you are looking for Asian ingredients in Europe, cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin all have established Chinatowns or Asian districts with large grocery stores. In smaller cities, look for Turkish or Middle Eastern markets, which often carry a wide range of international products including rice, spices, sauces, and legumes.

For Latin American ingredients in unexpected places, check out stores that serve the local Brazilian, Filipino, or Indian communities. These shops often carry overlapping products like plantains, dried chilies, tamarind paste, and coconut milk.

If you keep halal or kosher, look for neighborhoods with Muslim or Jewish communities. In many European and Asian cities, halal butchers and kosher delis are well established but not always visible on main streets. Ask at your local mosque or synagogue for recommendations.

Online ordering and specialty import shops

When you cannot find what you need locally, the internet is your friend. Many countries have online specialty food stores that ship hard-to-find ingredients directly to your door.

In Europe, websites like Asia4You, TRS Foods, and various Amazon marketplace sellers carry products from dozens of countries. In Southeast Asia, platforms like Lazada and Shopee often have imported Western goods. In Latin America, MercadoLibre sometimes has imported food items.

Some expats organize group orders to split shipping costs on bulk imports. Check Facebook groups and expat forums for your specific city. You might find someone who already runs a monthly group order for Mexican hot sauce or Japanese curry blocks.

Learning to substitute

One of the most practical skills you can develop abroad is learning what to use when your go-to ingredient is not available. This takes some trial and error, but it opens up your cooking in ways you did not expect.

If you cannot find certain chili peppers, learn which local varieties have similar heat levels and flavor profiles. Gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) can work as a substitute in many Mexican recipes, and smoked paprika can stand in for chipotle in some dishes. If your usual soy sauce brand is not available, try the local version and adjust quantities. Coconut aminos work as a soy-free alternative in many recipes.

For baking, flour types vary significantly between countries. American all-purpose flour, British plain flour, and German Type 405 flour are all slightly different. Learn the local equivalents and adjust your recipes.

Connecting with diaspora communities through food

Some of the strongest friendships you will make abroad will start with food. Diaspora communities in every country organize around meals. Potlucks, holiday dinners, cooking classes, and food festivals are all ways that people from similar backgrounds find each other.

Search for "[your nationality] community in [your city]" on Facebook, Meetup, or WhatsApp. Many of these groups share tips about where to buy specific ingredients, and some members even bring back products from trips home and share them with the group.

If you are vegetarian or vegan, this can be both easier and harder depending on where you move. Countries like India, Thailand, and Israel have excellent plant-based options built into the local cuisine. Countries with heavy meat traditions, like Argentina or Mongolia, require more creativity. Look for local vegan groups online. They will know which restaurants and stores cater to plant-based diets, and they often share recipes adapted to local ingredients.

Food apps and delivery services

Most countries now have food delivery apps that give you access to a much wider range of restaurants than your immediate neighborhood. Apps like Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Grab, Rappi, Zomato, and Wolt operate in different regions and often feature restaurants from dozens of cuisines.

Beyond delivery, apps like HappyCow help vegetarians and vegans find restaurants worldwide. Yelp and Google Maps reviews, filtered by cuisine type, are useful for finding authentic ethnic restaurants that locals from that community actually eat at, rather than tourist-oriented versions.

Learning to cook local cuisine

Here is something that surprises most people who move abroad: the local food, the stuff that seemed boring compared to your home cooking, eventually becomes one of the things you love most about your new country.

Give yourself time to learn. Take a cooking class. Ask your neighbors what they make for dinner. Visit the local market and buy something you do not recognize, then look up how to cook it. Some of the best meals you will eat abroad will be the ones you learned to make from scratch in your new kitchen, using ingredients you had never heard of six months earlier.

Food is one of the fastest bridges to local culture. When you learn to cook a country's dishes, you start to understand its history, its values, and its people. Sharing a meal with neighbors or coworkers is one of the most universal ways to build connection, regardless of language barriers.

It gets easier

The first few weeks are the hardest. You will miss your mom's cooking, your favorite restaurant, that one snack you used to buy without thinking. That is completely normal.

But over time, you will build a new food routine. You will find the store that carries the right rice. You will discover a local dish that becomes your new comfort food. You will learn to make your grandmother's recipe with whatever ingredients you can find, and it will taste close enough to bring you home for a moment.

If you are thinking about moving abroad and want to know what daily life is really like in different countries, including food culture, cost of living, and community, create your free Passpoort profile and explore countries that match your lifestyle. The more you know before you move, the easier the transition will be.