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Guide · Printable
A food bucket list, 60 boxes long.
This one is about food, not restaurants: dishes to taste at least once and ways of eating worth trying, from a bowl of hand-pulled noodles to a durian you have been avoiding. Print it, stick it on the fridge, and fill in the line next to each box when you finally do it.
Free on iPhone and Android. No account, and it works with no signal.
In short
A food bucket list template is a printable list of dishes and food experiences with a box to tick and a line to note where, when and with whom you tried each one. This one has 60 items in six groups — street food, noodles and dumplings, breakfasts, sweets, drinks and ways of eating — plus blank rows for your own.
Checked
Which list
Dishes, not places.
A restaurant bucket list names places you want to go. A food passport collects cuisines, one stamp each. This list is the third kind: specific things to eat and ways to eat them, wherever you find them — in your own city, on a trip or at a night market.
Visiting one city? The New York, London and Singapore lists are built for that.
How to use it
Print it, then fill one line at a time.
- Print it.Use your browser’s print, portrait, and switch background graphics off for a clean black-and-white sheet. Each group is its own table, so it breaks neatly across pages.
- Cross out three.Strike anything you already love or will never eat. A list you can finish beats a list you admire.
- Write in five.Use the blank rows for dishes from your family’s home town, a friend’s favourite, or something you saw once and never found again.
- Fill the line on the day.Where you had it, the date, and who was with you. Those three details are what you will want years from now.
- Pick the next one by season.Cold months for soups and hot pots, hot months for shaved ice and cold noodles.
Group 1
Street food and market bites.
| Done | Try this | Where, when, with whom |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Something grilled on a stick, eaten standing up | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Takoyaki, too hot to bite, bitten anyway | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A taco from a cart, with the salsa you were warned about | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Fresh spring rolls rolled while you wait | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A bowl of noodles at a plastic stool | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Fried chicken from a market stall, in a paper bag | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A crêpe folded on a hot plate in front of you | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Satay with peanut sauce, smoke still on it | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Fresh coconut, opened with a machete | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A dumpling from a steamer stack taller than you | ____________________ |
Group 2
Noodles, dumplings and bowls.
| Done | Try this | Where, when, with whom |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Hand-pulled noodles, watched being pulled | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Xiao long bao — sipped, not squirted | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Tonkotsu ramen with the broth that took all night | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Pho for breakfast | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Laksa that makes your nose run | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Dolsot bibimbap, scraped for the crust | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Fresh pasta in the region that claims it | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Pierogi, dumplings’ Eastern European cousin | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Momo with a chilli dip | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A noodle soup you had never heard of before that day | ____________________ |
Group 3
Breakfasts from somewhere else.
| Done | Try this | Where, when, with whom |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | A full English, eaten slowly | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Kaya toast dunked in runny eggs | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A Turkish breakfast spread that covers the table | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Dosa as long as your arm | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Congee with every topping offered | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A silog plate with garlic rice | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Shakshuka, bread torn straight into the pan | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Japanese breakfast set: fish, rice, miso, pickles | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Chilaquiles, crunchy edges and all | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A croissant still warm from the oven | ____________________ |
Group 4
Sweet things.
| Done | Try this | Where, when, with whom |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Halo-halo with every layer | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Gelato, two flavours you can’t pronounce | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Pastel de nata, still warm | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Mango sticky rice in mango season | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Baklava with tea, not coffee | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Churros dipped in thick chocolate | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Bingsu big enough for three | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A durian dessert, if not durian itself | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Mochi pounded fresh | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A birthday-sized slice of somebody’s grandmother’s cake | ____________________ |
Group 5
Things to drink.
| Done | Try this | Where, when, with whom |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Teh tarik, pulled from height | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Turkish coffee, with the grounds left alone | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Fresh sugarcane juice pressed in front of you | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Matcha whisked at the table | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Thai iced tea, the orange kind | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Horchata on a hot day | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Kopi from a hawker stall, ordered in the local words | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Mint tea poured from a great height | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A lassi, sweet or salty — your call | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Hot chocolate thick enough to stand a spoon in | ____________________ |
Group 6
Ways of eating, not just dishes.
| Done | Try this | Where, when, with whom |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Cook your own at the table: hot pot or Korean barbecue | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Eat with your hands, the way the dish is meant to be eaten | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Share a whole fish, head and all | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A meal served on a banana leaf | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Crack a crab with your hands and a bib | ____________________ |
| ☐ | Pick dim sum off a passing trolley | ____________________ |
| ☐ | An omakase counter: you sit, the chef decides | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A boodle fight down a long table | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A picnic made only from one market’s stalls | ____________________ |
| ☐ | A dish cooked by a friend from their family’s home town | ____________________ |
Your rows
Five rows for your own.
| Done | Try this | Where, when, with whom |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | ____________________ | ____________________ |
| ☐ | ____________________ | ____________________ |
| ☐ | ____________________ | ____________________ |
| ☐ | ____________________ | ____________________ |
| ☐ | ____________________ | ____________________ |
Tick it in the app
When you finally eat it, keep it.
Paper is good for wanting things. For remembering them, snap the table in PlateDiary: each dish is cut out into its own save and filed with the place and the night, and it lands as a pin on your food map without you typing anything. Make a collection called “Bucket list, done” and add each save as you tick it — by the last box you have a whole album of firsts, with who you shared them with.
Questions
Questions people ask.
What should be on a food bucket list?
Specific dishes and ways of eating you have never tried: a street food, a regional noodle soup, a breakfast from another country, a dessert, a drink, and an experience like hot pot or an omakase counter. Leave room for your own.
Is there a printable food bucket list?
Yes — this page prints as a clean list of 60 items with a box to tick and a line for where, when and with whom, plus five blank rows.
How is a food bucket list different from a restaurant bucket list?
A restaurant bucket list names places; a food bucket list names dishes and experiences you can find in many places. Many people keep both.
How many things should be on a food bucket list?
Enough to last a year or two: 30 to 60. Cross off what doesn’t excite you and add your own so the list stays yours.
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