Voracious Grazer

Huxtable Restaurant

2010-12-13T02:32:00.000-08:00

There are quite a few places in Melbourne that I have been meaning to visit for some time and one of the places on this list is Huxtable Restaurant. One of the reasons for this is that their menu is based on the way I like to eat, divided into Bites (small individual portions) and "To Share" (larger, more substantial dishes designed for sharing). I like shared plates because they mean that you can try several different items as a group and everyone gets to try them all (if they want). So when a Saturday came up and there was not much else going on, we got a group of 4 together and headed down to Fitzroy. My good friends A & R and L (I promised I'd use their initials).

All being (relatively) adventurous eaters, we were eager to try a good mix of dishes from the menu and to start with we liked the idea of the Jalapeno and Cheddar Croquette.

Deep fried cheesy spicy goodness is the best way to describe these, although I would have liked more of a kick from the jalapeno, it was crispy on the outside and gooey and soft on the inside. All in all, a good mix of textures and flavours.

Next I chose the Rice Flour Crusted Oyster Po'Boy, Iceberg, Sriracha Mayo. This I really enjoyed, the oysters were deep fried and crispy and the lettuce was a nice and fresh and helped balance some of the richness of the fried oysters and mayo. Speaking of the mayo, that was definitely the star of this dish for me, smooth and spicy with some of the kick I missed from the jalapeno (sriracha is a Thai hot chilli sauce). I'd definitely go back for another one, but be warned - if you don't like oysters, so wont like these (as my friend A found out) as even with all the flavour from the mayo, the oysters still stand up for themselves.

So far you might be mistaken into thinking that Huxtable serves only American flavours, but you'd be wrong as they do cover a wide variety of cuisines and show a lot of influence from all around the world. The next dish showed a bit of Japanese influence - the Tempura Eggplant Prawn Fritter, Shiso. I really like deep fried eggplant, it turns almost into a delicious, savoury fairy floss and the combination of this with prawns was something I wouldn't have put together, but worked really well. The tempura batter was light and crisp.

Next up was the most controversial dish of the day, with R, L and myself all wanting to try it, but A was dead set against it. We didn't mind, that just meant more for us! Here it is, Veal Tartare, Soft Boiled Egg, Soldiers. I've had a few different tartares and this was definitely one of the better ones, a bit on the acidic side, which I quite like and plenty of onion and herbs too.

I'm not sure if R chose the next dish because she wanted to bring something healthy to the meal or not after all the fried food, but I'm sure glad she did. Quinoa w Zucchini Flowers, Pomegranate, Goats Cheese was a great combination, every element was distinct and stood out on its own, but together they were really good. The fresh spring taste of zucchini flowers balanced by the creamy tartness of the goat's cheese and the occasional burst of brightness as the pomegranate seeds popped in the mouth was a great foil to the rest of our rich menu choices.

Next in line is the Roasted Duck Breast, Soy Braised Daikon, Sour Plum. Before this dish, we were discussing how we all liked the food and what might be our least favourite dish. I was struggling to come up with one dish that was any less than the others, all the dishes had been very good and well prepared. Then this dish came out and I finally had one. It looked awesome and while the duck was cooked well, the fat crisp and rendered, it was slightly overcooked for my taste. The whole dish had good elements, but overall the impression I got from it was bland. I expected more as I'm a big fan of duck, but I wouldn't order this again in a hurry.

The last dish I want to talk about was the Korean BBQ Pork Ribs, Spicy Slaw, Chilli Gherkin. The skin on the ribs was crisp and the meat was sweet and delicious. The "Spicy" slaw was not so spicy and the "Chilli" gherkin had a distinct lack of heat. Even without the implied heat, this was a very good dish and who doesn't love pork?

Overall, Huxtable does things very well and the food is great and varied. I don't know if the chef is holding back on the heat deliberately, but with so much influence from around the world I would expect a bolder hand with the seasonings. Especially when dish components are described as spicy or chilli, we know what to expect when we order it, in fact in most cases it's why we order it. Why not deliver?

The waitstaff were friendly and knowledgeable about the menu and were happy to make recommendations. When it comes to the decor, even though the floor is stone or concrete, the furnishings are well designed to keep the noise level down. The layout feels good and there are several different seating options available - stools at the bar, or high tables and stools near the window which are great for people watching, or normal tables at the back. I would definitely go back again, as there are still a good number of dishes I would like to try.

Asparagus Soup

2010-10-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite things to do is go the market and look for inspiration for something delicious. Spring is a great time to do this as there is something new almost every week and what caught my attention this time was asparagus. I love the taste of asparagus and it matches well with a few other flavours I really enjoy, like bacon and garlic.

I'm also a big fan of soup and with an almost infinite number of possible combinations, it is one of the cooking methods I use most.

This asparagus soup is really one of the simplest dishes to make and explodes with intense, fresh flavour.

I began by setting a pot of salted water to boil, then cleaning the asparagus and cutting of the bottom 4 or 5 centimeters of each stalk. You can tell where to cut by picking up one stalk and holding the middle with one hand and bending the base with a thumb and forefinger until it snaps. Use this level as a guide for cutting the rest of the bunch. The part that snaps off is usually discarded, but if you're making a soup or stock, keep these to add flavour.

Next I sauteed the asparagus offcuts with some onion, garlic and a couple of bay leaves in a little butter to start the stock base.

To finish the stock I put this into a small pot with some vegetable stock and brought it to a simmer.

Once the salted water in the other pot had come to a boil, I dropped in the asparagus to cook.

Once it was tender, but still had a little bite to it, I picked out the asparagus and put them into an ice bath to stop them cooking and to keep the bright colour. It's a good idea to keep the cooking water until the soup is finished just in case you didn't make enough stock to get the soup to the consistency you like. That water has been flavoured by the asparagus and is a much better option than using plain water.

To finish the soup, I simply took the asparagus out of the ice bath and placed them into a blender with a small amount of the strained asparagus stock and blended this until it was smooth before adding more stock to get it to the right thickness. This was also the perfect time to taste and season the soup. Once this was done, I returned the soup back to a clean pot to reheat before serving.

To garnish, I gently fried a few strips of Jamon Iberico (but you can use bacon or prosciutto too) and a few drops of a really bright, grassy olive oil. Another garnish to make it extra decadent would be finishing it off with a dollop of creme fraiche.

A very easy, bright coloured soup with lots of fresh flavour and a smokey, salty hit from the Jamon Iberico. I'll definitely want to make this one again before spring is over.

...and we're back!

2010-10-13T04:59:00.000-07:00

I don't even know how to start this post, but I figure after almost a year I should start out with something spectacular and mind blowing. Unfortunately I don't have anything like that...

What I do have, however is something of a retrospective. With the 20 year reunion of my high school graduation (yes, I AM that old) only weeks away and getting in touch with people I haven't spoken to or seen in that length of time has got me doing some serious self inventory. I know it's not really the point of this blog, but I promise to include some food related things...:)

Looking back, I've been thinking about my earliest food memories and probably the first food memory I can think of is learning to make crepes with my grandparents when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My grandmother - who did all the cooking - taught me how to mix the batter with a hand mixer and how to adjust the consistency of the batter until it was just right. My grandfather, who was always the one who liked joking around, was the one who taught me how to flip the crepes by shaking them to the edge of the pan and giving a sharp flick with my wrist. I'm sure many of them ended up on the floor, but it was a lot of fun learning. I still make crepes the same way (except with an electric mixer) and remember my grandparents and their kitchen each time I do.

Experimenting with food was also a significant part of my childhood, as I'm sure it was with many kids. Making crazy combinations of ingredients for a sandwich or proving I could eat the grossest things was a common theme as a teen. Ice Cream with Tomato Sauce anyone?

My strongest food memories are always those that involve other people and often the strongest memories of certain people have to do with food (or drinks) we shared. With Christmas right around the corner, I think back to all the huge gatherings that are a staple of that time of year. I am part of a very large extended family, with my parents having 6 or 7 siblings each. This makes for a lot of cousins - about 50 or so at last count.

For several years running, one of my dad's sisters and her husband would host a big family get together with an enormous spread of food. Seafood, roasts, salads, cakes, and of course copious amounts of alcohol. They were a great chance to catch up with members of the family that I almost never got to see at other times of the year and we would talk and laugh and reminisce until late into the night and continue relationships from right where we left off the previous year without missing a beat. Everyone understood that there were constraints on people's time and that it wasn't always possible to see each other often, but we made the most of the time we had and relished each others company and the brief time we had knowing we might not see each other again for another year.

Later, I remember our Christmas gatherings got a bit smaller as many of us who were teenagers eventually turned 18 and got our licenses and had other commitments and party invitations which at the time seemed more important, but it wasn't long before I started to miss those family feasts.

For several years at Christmas, we would open the doors of our house to friends who didn't have plans for that day, either because they lived far away from the rest of their family or because they had nowhere else to go that day (or maybe after the first time we did it, they heard about it and wanted to come...) and my parents would put on an impressive spread of food and we would spend a day sharing and enjoying the company of others and remembering what Christmas was all about.

In fact it wasn't just on special occasions that this happened, our house was always full of visitors and my parents were always welcoming. They opened the doors of their house (and their fridge) to a long line of friends of mine and my two brothers when we would show up at any hour of the day or night with groups of people in tow and they would almost never complain. Except for the noise when they were trying to sleep...:)

I guess that the example of my parents was very significant in the way I feel about hospitality and I like to think that in many ways I show that same spirit of acceptance, sharing and love that they taught me through their actions even though I probably show it in a different way.

In the last few years, I started getting a lot more serious about food and cooking and have made some effort to revive the traditions that I grew up with. Christmas is a big deal at our house and I start thinking about it months ahead of time. I always try to make it a big deal, not just for myself, but for family and friends. I hate to do a post without pictures, so I've included a couple of shots of some of the finger food I made last Christmas.

Mini salads served in garlic croutons

Mini pizzas with Olive Tapenade, Caramelised Onion and Goat's Cheese.

The relationships I have with other people are the reason I am who I am. Of those people who I hope will one day read this post, some of you have been lifelong friends, some I have reconnected with after a long time and some are new friends, but you are all part of who I am today. I guess in a lot of ways I like to cook for people because I feel that it shows that I care about them, that they are important to me and that I want to do something special for them because they are a significant part of my life.

I'm sure some of you will think this was a bit sappy, in fact I just re-read it and even I think so, but hopefully I've done what I wanted to do which is explain a little about why I feel the way I do about cooking.

Slip of the Tongue

2009-12-15T04:39:00.000-08:00

So if you've been reading this blog much, you'll know I don't mind eating things that some people may find strange or unappetising. I have no problem eating offal and I firmly believe that if an animal dies to feed me, I should use as much as possible, not take only the "best" bits and kill another animal. This attitude has caused our society to breed chickens with enormous breasts (wakka wakka) and tiny legs who can hardly walk and grow at twice the speed and are pumped full of hormones so that we can have a larger breast fillet. We like to blame the farmers who are so greedy that they selectively bred these animals to make more money when the truth is that they are struggling to keep up with our demand for the bits of animals that we want.
Wow, I didn't mean to get all ranty like that, but it's a good introduction to what I want to talk about today, the wonderful world of offal. I love to experiment with food and when I found that one of my friends was butchering a cow on his farm, I was eager to try to get some of the parts of the animal I hadn't had much opportunity to work with and give them a go. What I brought home was about 1.25kg of liver and the tongue.

I'd never cooked tongue before, but I had eaten it on many occasions and quite like it. After searching the net and many, many recipes for cooking tongue, I came across this Colombian preparation that sounded like it might be worth trying.

To begin with, tongue takes a lot of cooking, and is not something I would do every day. Rubbing the tongue with cut lemon halves and boiling it for an hour reduced some of it's toughness, ready for peeling. Surprisingly easy to do, removing the outer layer of skin (with the tastebuds) left me with this result.

Back into the pot with some aromatics and stock to simmer away for another 3 hours and the cooking still wouldn't be done. During this time I topped up the liquid as it evaporated.

Then remove the tongue and reduce the liquid.

I was preparing this as part of a lunch for a function of about 20 people, with this as the appetiser and a beef goulash as the main course (more about that next time). I was hoping that at least the few people who were a little more adventurous would try this and perhaps a few other too. Once the liquid was reduced, I strained it and refrigerated it and the tongue for finishing the next day.

The next dish I was working on for the function was a beef liver pate. Once again, the internet was my friend and rewarded me with many recipes from which to choose. I decided to combine two of the recipes that I found and which looked like they would taste great. This one formed the base of this recipe with some additions and substitutions from this recipe which is actually linked in a comment to the first one.

Prep work for this dish is quite easy, I simply chopped the onion, garlic and herbs and cubed the liver (not really worrying about the size or shape of the dice since this was going to be processed). This was also a good time to chop the butter so that it was nice a soft when I needed it. Frying the onions until the were soft, I added the chopped liver and fried for a few minutes.

When the liver was cooked evenly I added in the herbs (rosemary and thyme) and let it cook for a little longer.

After this, I transferred the whole lot into the food processor and blended it until it was a fine paste. I then added a little butter:

As the paste reached a consistency that I thought was about right, I poured in some cognac and gave it a few final spins in the processor.

I then poured this into several large ramekins and covered them with melted butter. These went into the fridge overnight.

The next day at the function, I served the pate with morning tea and it went over very well.

The flavour of the liver itself was strong and really held it's own alongside the complimentary herbs and cognac. I was very pleased with the results.

Now it was time to finish of the appetiser for lunch, so I grabbed the tongue and put it back on the stove, this time to brown in some oil in a hot pan.

When it was browned on all sides, I removed it and started work on the sauce. Into the same pan I added the onions, garlic and tomatoes along with the reserved broth from the night before.

After this had simmered away for a little, I added back the tongue and the chopped olives.

I let it braise for about half an hour before removing the tongue and slicing it thinly and spreading the slices on a plate which I topped with the sauce.

If you are comparing this to the recipe I linked before, you will notice I left out the capers. This wasn't on purpose, they were sitting on the bench ready to go into the sauce, but I couldn't find them when I needed them and by the time I found them it was already finished. The result? The plate came back almost empty which I was very pleased with and the comments were very positive, even from people who hadn't tried this particular part of the animal before. The sauce was a real hit with intence tomato flavour with occasional briney bursts from the olives and the meat was tender and juicy, some people even came back for more until the plate was empty.

While quite labour and time intensive, it was a great experience to cook the tongue and while I certainly wouldn't have the time to make this regularly, it was well worth it for the results and to show a piece of meat that is often overlooked for its gross-out factor. The liver pate was very easy and I will definitely be making more of this and playing around with different flavourings to see what works best.

Orange and Szechuan Pepper Icecream

2009-12-02T01:55:00.000-08:00

I have always enjoyed experimenting with different food combinations. Trying unusual things to see if I could find something no one else has found before. Even as a child I put strange things together as I'm sure many people did, fries and thick shakes or twisties in a buttered roll. All sorts of things I wouldn't go near now, but they tasted sooo good then.

So I'm always looking for unexpected flavours or interesting ingredients to try to match with others. One of those ingredients is Szechuan Pepper. It is an amazing condiment and looks very similar to black pepper, but has an almost floral taste and when lightly toasted gives off an amazing aroma. It also does strange things to your mouth, giving a weird sensation almost like numbness. Ever since I first used it, I've wanted to find ways of using it in non-traditional ways and today's dish is one example of that - Orange and Szechuan Pepper Ice Cream.

Now, I can't take any credit for this combination or this recipe, both are from an amazing book which I highly recommend if anyone is interested in making icecream, sorbet or frozen yoghurt. The book is called Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments by David Lebovitz. He also writes an amazing blog about living and cooking in Paris.

Before cooking anything, I prepare all the ingredients and have them ready to go.

Here's a closer shot of the Szechuan Pepper before I gave them a bit of a rough time in a mortar and pestle.

To make the custard, I combined the milk, sugar, Szechuan Pepper and the zest of a few oranges. Now speaking of zest, one of the important things if you want the flavour of the fruit and not the bitterness is not to include the white pith when zesting. The oranges looked like this:

So after bringing this mix to a light simmer, I turned off the heat and let the whole lot infuse for about an hour.

Next I heated up the milk mixture to blood temperature and poured it slowly over a bowl containing the egg yolks, while whisking them to mix it through without cooking them. Then I poured the whole lot back into the pot (technically it is best to use a fresh clean pot).
The next step takes a little practice, but I needed to gently heat the mix while constantly stirring and making sure nothing stuck to the bottom. Waiting until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon, but not so hot or thick that it becomes curdled. If that happens you have to start all over again.

Once it got to this stage, I poured it, through a sieve, into a bowl containing the cream and set in an ice bath. Now it needed to be whisked until it was cool and then placed in the fridge overnight.

The next step is the easy part, pour it into the ice cream maker and churn. Once it's ready comes the hard part....freezing it and waiting....

After waiting and plating (oh look, a rhyme!) this is what it looks like.

How does it taste, you ask? Well, I did let a lot of people try it and hopefully some of them will post a comment about what they thought, but I found it refreshing and bright. The strong citrus flavour cut right through the rich and creamy texture and really had an explosion of intense, slightly bitter orange flavour. I was, however, slightly disappointed with the effect of the szechuan pepper, which I thought was lacking in both flavour and the strange mouth-confusing properties I was hoping for. This may have been due to the fact that the peppercorns I used had been sitting in my cupboard for a while or maybe the flavour would have been enhanced by toasting the pepper before mixing it in. Some of the taste did come through and added a light floral note. I would definitely make this again.

If you were one of the people who got to taste this, feel free to post a comment about what you thought of this dish.

Squid and Chickpea Stew

2009-11-17T03:12:00.000-08:00

One of the dishes that stood out for me from my holiday was the Baby Squid with Beans from La Boqueria and another was the Cuttlefish and Chickpeas from Alta Taberna Paco Meralgo, both in Barcelona.

Both of these dishes were a combination of seafood and legumes which I had never seen together before, but the taste was something that has stayed in my memory and was something I have been eager to reproduce back home.

After looking through some of my Spanish cookbooks, I couldn't find a recipe for either dish and after searching the net for recipes, I combined aspects of several recipes into what I hoped would be close to the flavours I recalled.

Another great thing about this dish is that most of the ingredients were things I already had in the pantry, and the others were very easy to find. In fact I managed to pick up most of the ingredients from one of the local asian groceries.

Let's start with the squid. I bought them whole and had the fishmonger clean them for me, although they are very easy to clean, especially if you're planning on cutting them up and don't need to keep the tubes whole.

Scary looking creatures, aren't they! One part that the fishmonger didn't clean was the beak, which can be found at the centre of where the legs join the head.

These are very easy to remove, just pinch the mouth and it pretty much just pops out. After that, it was a simple matter to cut the legs away from the head and slice the tubes into bite-sized pieces and put them with the rest of the ingredients.

Parsley, the sliced squid, minced garlic, chickpeas and a glass of their liquid, a knob of butter, red pepper flakes and smoked paprika.

In a pot over medium-low heat, I heated a couple of tablespoons of oil and added the chopped butter and let it heat up until it was foaming.

At this point, I added the minced garlic and shortly after, the red pepper flakes.

Stirring constantly, I waited for the garlic to start cooking, but not so much that it started to go brown. Just as the garlic started to colour, I added in the chickpeas and their liquid. I also added in a few pinches of salt and pepper.

Stirring occasionally, I added a few splashes of white wine and brought it to a simmer. At this point, it was time for the squid.

Even though the stew looks quite dry at this point, there was no need to add any further liquid, as the squid cooks, it releases a considerable amount of liquid of its own. Now it as good a time as any to add the smoked paprika.

You can see how much water has been released by the squid and the great colour from the paprika. I kept this simmering away until the liquid had reduced by about half.

All it needed now was a handful of chopped parsley and a plate.

This is not the prettiest looking dish to look at, but what it lacked in appearance it certainly made up for in flavour. This brought the memories of Spain flooding back and was as good as I had hoped. The deep, earthy and savoury elements of this dish combine with the briney, seafood flavour without overpowering it. This combination continues to surprise me with how good it really tastes and I know I'll be craving it again soon.

Squid and Chickpea Stew

Ingredients:

1kg Chickpeas - canned
1cup Liquid from the chickpeas
750g Squid - Cleaned and sliced
4-5 cloves Garlic - minced
Knob of Butter
1-2 tbsp Olive Oil
Dried Red Pepper Flakes - to taste
Smoked Paprika - to taste
Handful of Parsley - chopped

Method:

Read the post again...:)

What's next?

2009-11-03T03:44:00.000-08:00

So, the question arises; "Where to from here?"

This blog has so far been about a single - although extended - trip through Europe. Obviously that can't go on for ever, as much as I would like it to. Now I'm settled back home in Melbourne, thinking about the next step.

What I would like to do with this blog is continue to keep updating it with what I'm doing in relation to food; Cookbooks I'm reading and cooking from, market visits and produce updates, Restaurant reviews and recommendations. There are a few long-term projects I am hoping to do some work on over the summer, but more on those later.

I'm planning to put up a post at least once a fortnight, so I'd love to see you back here again soon.

I also really want to hear if anyone out there has other suggestions about what they would like to see in this space, what you liked about the blog so far or what you didn't like. If you're not from Melbourne - or even if you are - what would you like to know about the food we have in this amazing food town? I've only written one post about something I've cooked so far, how about some suggestions about what I should cook next? What types of cuisine interest you, or what cooking methods would you like to know more about?

Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. If there are enough comments, I will try to organise a prize for the best comment or suggestion!

Sergi Arola Gastro

2009-09-21T07:07:00.000-07:00

First of all, sorry about the delay in getting this post done, I had to gather all my notes and photos from 2 computers and get it all together.

Some of you may remember the name Sergi Arola from a previous post on this blog, he was once the chef of La Broche and left to start his own venture - Gastro - which went from 0 to 2 stars in one review, one of the first restaurants in Europe to achieve this.

The menu at Gastro changes almost completely each month and with several different tasting menus, this represents a huge amount of work, but something that Sergi and his wife Sara are very passionate about. With Sergi running the kitchen and Sara running the front of house, they make a great team and my meal there was a pleasure from start to finish. The staff all spoke very good English and were friendly, informative and knowledgeable about the menu. Another thing worth noting is that Gastro does not have an A La Carte menu, only tasting menus.

The interior is modern and sleek, but at the same time warm and inviting.

After being seated, I was presented with a selection of snacks.

From left to right are: Kalamata Olives, Eggplant pate with small toasts, Cherries marinated in salt and vinegar, mini croquettes, a light aioli and Potato crisps. The potato crisps were completely flat and so thin they were almost transparent and their shattering crunch when I bit them was a great auditory accompaniment to the taste and texture of the perfect potato chip. Dipping them in the smooth and gentle garlic aioli added a new dimension of flavour and my taste buds were starting to wake up and look forward to what was to come. The croquettes were still warm and delicious little nuggets of goodness with a crisp batter and a dense, smooth filling. The cherries were a revelation, soaked in vinegar and salt they were sour, salty and tender, a totally unexpected combination of tastes hat I really enjoyed. The eggplant pate was smooth and well balanced and the kalamata olives were some of the best I have ever had. This was a great way to start the meal and I hadn't even ordered yet.

I decided to go for the full "gastro" menu since who knew when I would ever get another chance to eat here again.

To begin with, I was given an amuse bouche of Mushroom Yogurt.

The white powder on the top was like a freeze-dried yogurt, which disappeared almost as soon as it touched my tongue, leaving nothing in my mouth except the flavour of yogurt, a bizarre and surprising effect which put a smile on my face. The mushroom yogurt underneath was full of mushroom flavour and was smooth and creamy.

The first official dish on the menu was the Cornet: "Gazpacho" with tomato water ice-cream.

A single bite of crisp pastry and frozen gazpacho shaped like a little ice-cream cone, the taste of the tomato developed as it melted and warmed in my mouth.

Next was Cod: Smoked sausage, fennel, horseradish and apple.

Crunchy, crisp, smooth, sweet, smoky with a bite of heat from the horseradish. I wanted more than two bites of this to try to break down all the flavours, but together it was a great combination.

After this came Potatoes: "Bravas" Arola-style.

Arola's take on the common tapas dish is a line of spicy potato cylinders with a creamy garlic mayo.

The dish that followed was one that seemed to combine many of the flavours of Andalusia, Sardines: In olive oil with almond ice-cream, "ecologic" caviar and tomato soup.

Cold almond soup and cold tomato soup (Gazpacho) are traditional dishes from the Andalusian region of Spain and this combination of the two, sandwiching two fillets of fresh sardine with the salty bite of caviar was a great interpretation of these established dishes.

Beetroot: Like a tartar, with mango yolk and goat cheese yogurt.
Made to resemble the french bistro classic of steak tartar, the beetroot was cut into tiny cubes and topped with spherified mango puree. When the "yolk" was broken the puree coated the beetroot like a sauce. A union of the tender root vegetable with the smooth fruity sauce.

After this was another familiar ingredient in Spain, Razor Clams: Sauteed with a veloute and sliced of Iberian ham.
This was my last chance to eat these shellfish and it didn't disappoint. The plate was like a work of art, with the ham sliced extremely thin and shaped almost like a flower, the warm colours added to the inviting appearance of this dish which was enhanced by the aroma of the sauce. The veloute was smooth and buttery, a backdrop for the salty ham and tender shellfish.

Lorito Rao: Semi-pickled, tender garlic terrine, radish and seaweed cream was the next dish.

Parrot fish (sauced after this photo was taken) with vegetables, this was well cooked and while not the most memorable dish of the meal, was still quite good.

The second fish course was one of the absolute highlights of this meal. Black Grouper: With sauteed potatoes and tender onions, coconut soup and vindaloo curry.

A perfectly cooked square of black grouper fillet, sitting on a stack of potatoes and circled by a ring of thick vindaloo curry sauce and the coconut soup poured around it. This was something I could have eaten over and over again, the flaky fish with crispy skin, the sweet coconut soup and the hot sweetness of the curry were sensational and I cleaned the plate dry.

One of the dishes that is a specialty of Arola's is Duck Liver: In our classic "Coca" with roasted vegetables in olive oil.

Alternating cubes of duck liver and roast vegetable stacks sit on a crisp cracker with a topping of chives, the liver was rich and velvety and the vegetables were tender and sweet.

The first dessert course was Apricot: In pastry "kadaif" cake with a soup of green tea.

A lot of thought goes into this palette cleanser/dessert, crisp shredded pastry with delicious ripe apricots sitting in a soup of green tea which clears the mouth in preparation for the rest of the sweets to come.

Watermelon: Pickled with tomato ice-cream and chamomile and hibiscus tea.

Another cold dessert, refreshing and simple, the tea was the star here, floral and aromatic and sweet from the watermelon. I'd love to put this in a mug and drink it on a hot summer day at home.

The last dish on the menu was the Souffle: Of passion fruit with mint ice-cream and "Ocumare" cocoa cream.

Served by the chef himself, this soft, fluffy cloud of passion fruit souffle was placed in front of me and a small scoop of mint ice cream was placed on top and as it started to melt, the cocoa cream was poured over the top. Every element of this dish was strong and each flavour spoke loud and clear, the sweet/sour passion fruit, the herby, bright mint and the warm, base chocolate flavours of the sauce. I didn't have a souffle in Paris, but with this perfect example, I certainly didn't miss out on it.

The petit fours were a delight for the senses.

The madeleines on the left - usually sweet - were olive flavoured, the olives in the middle are actually chocolates, the rocks and pebbles on the right hand side are hard crunchy candies and the green stuff in the jar is an apple jelly. These all had me smiling and almost laughing as I realised that each element was not what it appeared to be, surprising to the last.

All in all, this was certainly one of the best meals of my life, an I would even say it was THE best. Constant surprises and unexpected combinations had me guessing right to the end of the meal and each part of every dish was perfectly executed and thoughtfully prepared. At the conclusion of the meal, I got an opportunity to speak with Sergi Arola himself and he and his wife were extremely courteous hosts and I would really like to take this opportunity to express my thanks for an amazing meal and a fitting conclusion to my European holiday.

A Day At The Museum

2009-08-25T03:01:00.001-07:00

One thing you may not know about me is that I'm not a big fan of museums and art galleries. They're fine in their own way, but I wont go out of my way to visit them and it is with some measure of satisfaction I am able to say that in my travels through Italy, France and Spain I have not spent a single Euro on entry fees/tours to any museum or art gallery. Sure, I did visit a few churches, but not any that had an up front charge.

Having said that, there is one museum which I not only visited, but to which I made repeat visits and happily handed over the ever diminishing notes from my wallet to be a part of what was going on inside.

Followers of this blog have probably very astutely translated the above sign to Museum of Ham, and if you haven't already guessed, I'm a big fan of pork products (I know, some of you may be shocked). So this was certainly not a place to just walk past and ignore. So I'm thinking maybe this is a museum which shows the history of Jamon and the production process that goes along with it. Not a bad idea, but taking a look through the front window reveals a more practical and exciting interpretation of the term "Museum".

Glimpses of hams of all types entice me to take a closer look, the aromas practically wafting me in like a cartoon mouse at the smell of a particularly delicious cheese. In this case, however, there was no large cartoon cat standing just behind the cheese ready to pounce.

Just hundreds and hundreds of legs of jamon. Everywhere I look, more porky goodness and I'm not the only one drawn to this hall of ham on the over 30C degree summer day, far from it. Space is at a premium, with a deli counter on the left selling all kinds of porcine produce and a bar on the left selling cold beer and food, it's easy to see why this place is always packed with people.

Fighting for my place at the bar, I order a cerveca (a glass of beer that costs 1 Euro). When you order a cerveca at Museo Del Jamon, if you don't order any food, you are given a plate with a snack from the selection sitting around the bar. This may include a couple of small empanadas (pasties), olives, small cuts of various hams, etc. I'm not sure if it was deliberate, but without my asking, the server gave me a different snack every time I ordered a beer.

It may not look like the most appetising plate of food in the world, but a few offcuts of ham and other meat products is a great accompaniment to a cold beer. So for lunch, I asked for more of the same.

Served with a generous hunk of bread, or the house tomato bread if you want to order it at an extra charge, this is a satisfying and delicious lunch filled with the smoky goodness of pork.

Other great value meals on offer are Bocadillo del Jamon (a bread roll with jamon as pictured above), paella or many other options you can see on the sign above the bar. There are several of these places scattered around Madrid and I would love to see them scattered around Melbourne some time soon.

Once again, my thanks to all of my readers who have stuck with this blog and for the fantastic feedback you have been giving, there are one or two posts left from this amazing journey (including what was possibly the best meal of my life) and after that, who knows what is next for VoraciousGrazer, stay tuned.

Mercado de San Miguel and Restaurant Botin

2009-08-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I have said it before, but one of my favourite things to do is visit markets. Not only does it give you a great idea of what is fresh, local and in season, but seeing what locals are buying and cooking is a great way to understand the cuisine of a new place. So that's what I decided to do next in Madrid.

I had heard about an old market that had been closed down and renovated to be almost like a food court, but with a great selection of fresh produce to choose from. The Mercado de San Miguel is based on an idea I haven't seen before.

No row upon row of the same thing over and over again, but a spacious area designed for eating and selecting food from one of the specialty providers that surround it.

Mostly there is one of each type of stall, there is a seafood bar selling fresh and cooked seafood.

Another stand sells oysters, priced by size and shucked to order.

Not far away is a deli that sells small rolls with various jamons and other meats for 1 Euro each.

A cheese stall not far away sells samples on bread for 1 Euro each and there are a couple of wine shops selling wine by the glass. This is a great way to put together a lunch full of variety and try several different things.

You then take your plate and find a seat at a table or bench (or wherever you can) and enjoy your food.

For dessert you have a couple of options, there is a cake shop selling some great looking slices of cake and a selection which makes it very hard to make up your mind.

Also, for all my chocolate loving readers, there is a whole shop full of it.

This market is reasonably expensive as far as markets go, but this is more like a combination of a market and a food court which sells incredibly fresh and high quality food.

The next restaurant on my list is, according to Guinness World Records, the oldest operating restaurant in the world. Casa Botin in Madrid has been operating continuously since 1725, almost 300 years. Their specialty is cochinillo asado -Roast Suckling Pig, something I was very much looking forward to.

Walking into the restaurant is almost like walking back in time, they obviously focus very much on keeping the feel of history and tradition alive.

As delicious as that jamon looks, I wasn't here for that. Walking down the stairs into one of the various dining rooms, I had to watch my head on the low ceilings. Looking at the menu, the house menu of Gazpacho, Suckling Pig and Ice cream seemed like the way to go.

The bread and Sangria arrived first.

The gazpacho came out as a bowl of plain, cold soup and the waiter brought around a tray of garnishes to add to it, including cucumber, peppers, tomato and bread.

Bursting with bright, fresh, summer flavours, this was a great cold soup and a delicious was to start a summer dinner in Madrid.

Next came the star of the show, the suckling pig.

Tender, juicy and full of porky goodness, simply prepared in a way that has stood the test of time. No fancy embellishments or showy techniques, just a fantastic, fresh ingredient allowed to speak for itself....and yes, I did eat the tail.

There was also a live band which found their way down the narrow staircase to play and sing during the meal.

For dessert, the menu says dessert is simply "ice cream" and I wasn't expecting much, but whatever was in the chocolate topping they used on it, it was surprisingly good. Unfortunately the photo came out blurry, so I'm not posting it here. Needless to say, I very much enjoyed this meal and if I had more time in Madrid, I wouldn't mind a return visit to try the Roast Baby Lamb or the Baby Squids In Their Own Ink. Another dish on the menu which is worth a mention is the Baby Eels, a traditional Spanish dish of baby eels quickly fried in a small pot of olive oil with garlic and a small dried chili is one of the most expensive side dishes you will see at around 130 Euros per serve. This is apparently due to the rarity of these eels.

Another great day in Madrid and it's not over yet, look out for more updates coming soon.

Madrid

2009-07-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

The last stop on my European journey is Madrid. Looking back over my trip, there were many highlights, no regrets and still one more week in a country that had already been the location for many great experiences. I was hoping that Madrid would continue this trend. Looking at the weather forecast, it looked like my entire stay in this city would be in the 30s. Hot and sunny, a great buffer between me and winter in Melbourne.

I was staying only a few steps from the Plaza Mayor, one of the large plazas in Madrid and a focal point for tourists and street performers alike.

The capital of Spain is well know for its food culture. Even though it is far from any coast, fresh seafood is flown in daily from all over Spain and other produce is available in abundance. While each region of Spain has a unique food identity, Madrid seems to be the place where everything comes together. Even though Valencia is known to have the best paella, I had heard that there was a restaurant in Madrid which was famous for their paella and so I had to give it a try.

The restaurant is La Barroca and is famous for....well, I better let them tell you what they are famous for.

There are several different types of paella on offer here, many with seafood, but I decided on the Valencian, which is with chicken and rabbit.

A very basic, traditional version of the dish, this was not bad, but not fantastic. All the flavours were there, but perhaps I should have had the seafood after all as this just seemed a little too simple.

The next restaurant on my list was one that until recently had two Michelin stars. This last restaurant is La Broche and was started by Sergi Arola and his executive chef at the time was Angel Palacios. They worked together in El Bulli and left to start La Broche. Recently, Sergi has left to start another project and Angel has become head chef here.

While getting a reservation for El Bulli is almost impossible, the influence of what is being done there is possible to see all over Spain. Therefore at La Broche I expected to see modern techniques used to present traditional flavours and maybe a few surprises thrown in for good measure.

The cool, modern exterior leads into a cool, modern, white interior which I found a little sterile, but that may have been due to that fact that I had booked a mid week early dinner (9:30pm) and was the first customer there. Some other customers did arrive later, but only 3 or 4 tables were occupied.

To begin, a snack was placed on the table.

On the far left is a bowl of spherified olives. They look like olives but when you bite them you realise that they are liquid made from olives and then formed into a spherical shape by a chemical process. You get the flavour and shape of the olive, but the texture is purely liquid. The third from the left is Chicken Crackling, the crispy deep fried chicken skin is delicious and crunchy.

The first appetiser course came out in a covered bowl and as the bowl was placed in front of me, the lid was removed and a billow of smoke wafted out. This was Smoked Mussel.

Served on a vegetable "charcoal", this was an interesting dish to watch unfold in front me, but unfortunately the smokiness was so strong that it overcame the whole dish and that was all I could taste.

The second appetiser is called Pizza Margherita.

A playful take on the traditional combination of dough, cheese, tomato and oregano, the base is a cracker with a slice of cheese on top. The red ball on the left is tomato flavoured and tastes a lot like the red sprinkles on Barbeque Shapes (YUM). On the right is a ball of what I assume is oregano foam, because once you break the surface, a green foam comes pouring out. This was fun and tasted great, giving me high hopes for the rest of the meal.

After this came Truffles, Ham and Corn.

A beautifully presented dish reapeating the theme ingredients in several ways, a corn puree, single piece of popped corn, served on a polenta base with paper thin crackling and a small cube of grilled ham. While this was great to look at and try to work out all the different elements, unfortunately it was lacking in depth of flavour and seemed a little bland.

Following this was a cold Strawberry Gazpacho.

A strawberry soup with a prawn in the middle, you'd expect it to be sweet and served at the end of the meal, but instead it was savoury and really brought out another side of the flavour of the strawberry.

The first of the main courses is Ox Crab.

Wrapped in a crepe made from soy milk curd is a gentle, smooth crab filling. Not strongly flavoured with crab, but the texture is silken and decadent.

The fish course is Salmon with Aniseed Flavours.

This is a great way to explore the different ways two tastes can work together, the salmon is perfectly cooked and combined with ingredients which each have a different type of aniseed flavour, including fennel and aniseed flowers.

Sirloin and Garlic is the meat course.

The meat is cooked medium-rare and falls apart at the slightest touch of the knife, tender and juicy. Once again, as with the previous dish, this is an exploration of different ways of preparing garlic to go with the beef. Half a blub of oven-roasted garlic, grilled garlic shoots, a garlic puree and a garlic custard are all on the plate. This was my favourite dish of the meal by far and the taste of the garlic was not overpowering at all, in fact I was trying to get all the different garlic elements into one bite with the meat and when I did it was still not too much garlic.

Dessert time already? The first dessert is a combination of Lemon and Green Tea.

The stick on top is made of green tea and it has a very strong, refreshing taste, the sorbet and gel disc are lemon flavoured and all served on biscuit crumbs. As a palette cleanser this works well and leaves me ready for the sweeter desserts to come.

The second dessert is called Tribute to Principe Biscuit.

Now I've never had or seen a Principe Biscuit and I can't even name all the flavours here, but it was sticky, sweet and delicious with lots of chocolate.

Lastly is a Lemon Jaconde Cake.

A jaconde is a type of sponge and with almond cream and ice cream, this was a delicate, airy and while not bad, not anything amazing as far as taste goes.

Another thing worth mentioning is the coffee selection.

With so many different types of coffee to choose from, coffee connoisseurs would be happy with this list. For me it was too much choice and a random selection, so I chose the Arabic.

As petit fours after the meal, the waiter comes around with a cars filled with six different containers with chocolate inside and asks which I would like to try. You can probably guess my answer already, so here are all six.

Some are filled with lemon sherbet, some with almonds, but the two that stand out are the popping candy inside dark chocolate and the cocoa covered corn. One of my brothers favourite snacks is something called corn nuts, large deep fried kernels of corn coated in a dusting of salty flavouring. The cocoa covered corn is basically the same thing and reminded me of corn nuts in a big way.

At the end of the day, I had a good meal at La Broche and the techniques on display were modern and skillful, but something seemed to be missing. Perhaps an over concentration on the techniques themselves and not enough attention to flavour balance is to blame, but dishes like Sirloin and Garlic are standouts for me.

MB Kursaal and The Spoon

2009-07-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

Of all the places to find great food in San Sebastian, I thought I'd highlight two of my favourites.

There are several Michelin starred restaurants in San Sebastian, one of which is Restaurante Kursaal. The restaurant was unfortunately closed over the days that I was there, but there is a gastro-pub below the restaurant called MB Kursaal that serves great meals at more reasonable prices. As well as the a la carte menu, they offer a degustation menu which includes five courses, a cava cocktail, bread and wine.

As a snack, they serve some small olives which in contrast to their size have a very strong briney flavour.

The cava cocktail was served to start the meal.

Cava is a sparkling white wine and this was combined with fruit juice and was refreshing and perfect on a hot sunny day at the beach.

The appetiser was a Goat's Cheese and Prawn Salad.

The greens here are spinach leaves and the jelly cubes are a muscatel reduction. The green streak across the plate is chlorophyll. The goats cheese is creamy and salty, the spinach fresh and the muscatel jelly sweet and refreshing. The salty and sweet elements play against each other very well, but I think the salad itself may have been over-salted as the balance is not quite right and the overall taste seems to be too salty. Also, I don't think a single prawn is enough here.

The first main course is Creamy Seafood Rice with a Garlic Cream Foam.

Inside the rice are octopus slices and mussels. The Garlic Cream Foam is served in a separate dish as it disolves into the rice shortly after you pour it over due to the heat. The rice is indeed smooth, creamy and well cooked. The seafood is fresh and delicious, but once again a little lacking in quantity. The extra punch of garlic from the foam really gives this dish another dimension without overpowering the other flavours.

Fish of The Day is up next.

On the menu it says this is "served with a rich seafood jus, on a bed of crushed potatoes". Unfrotunately, this dish lacked a lot of flavour. The fish was cooked fine, but had a very mild taste and the "rich" jus was very bland and only served to water down the potatoes which already seemed quite mushy. A very disappointing dish.

The two desserts are served together and they are French Toast and a traditional Sheep's milk dessert.

The French Toast is made with egg yolks and fresh cream and served with a frozen cream and was delicate while being rich. The Sheep's Milk was topped with sugar and bruleed and served with a shot glass of ice-cold apple juice. These were both delicious desserts but the French Toast was my favourite.

This was a good meal, although a little hit and miss in some areas. For the price, it was good value and a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours at the beach on a sunny day in San Sebastian.

The other place that is definitely worth a mention is La Cuchara de San Telmo (The Spoon of Saint Telmo). They are doing pintxos of a high standard and cooked to order.

The first thing that I ordered was the Foie Gras.

This came served grilled slightly, with a dark sauce and on an apple puree with streaks of another green sauce. This melts in the mouth and is delicious and decadent.

After this I was looking at the chalkboard and seeing if I could recognise any of the dishes there or at least individual words which would give me an idea what the dish was talking about. I chose the Moleja a Terniera Asada con "Tximi-Txurri". The words I understood there were "Asada" which means grilled and "Tximi-Txurri" (pronounced Chimmi-Churri" is a sauce I know from many South American dishes that is made of vinegar, garlic and parsley and goes great with grilled meats. This is what this dish looks like.

This was served on an apple puree, just like the Foie...a coincidence, surely that I would pick the only two dishes on the menu with the same accompaniment. This was grilled delisiousness, but I know it was something offaly good from the texture, which was smooth and didn't have the fibrous meat of a steak or other muscle. I asked the waiter to translate it for me and it turns out that this is veal sweetbread. I definitely liked this and will look for it on menus when I get back to Melbourne for sure.

I figured I had been adventurous enough and handed over control of the next couple of pintxos to the bartender (who was also serving me a refreshing beer called Keller 18 I think). His first suggestion was a bacon-wrapped scallop.

This, strangely enough was served on an apple puree with streaks of green sauce. I'm noticing a pattern here. The scallop was perfectly cooked and the bacon was excellent as it should be in a country that celebrates the pig as much as Spain does. Another great dish, but I'm starting to get a little bored of apple puree.

The next suggestion was the veal cheek.

Now this is something I know and love, cheeks are a wonderfully tender meat in any animal, always a favourite of mine. In this case, the meat was so tender it fell apart as soon as my fork touched it, there was no need for a knife at all. This time, as I'm sure you've noticed, there is no apple puree, instead it's a potato puree. Absolutely stunning dish and one I did come back for a couple of days later.

The last suggestion of the bartender's was a grilled cheese. Not a sandwich, just a piece of cheese on the grill.

This is a soft cheese and as it grills it leaves a puddle of darker, more grilled cheese on the bottom. That is what you can see on the top, a disc of dark, caramelised cheese which has an amazing, intense flavour. Unfortunately, as you have so astutely spotted, this also brought the reappearance of the apple puree and green sauce.

That was the end of my first dinner here, but not my last as I came back again, trying to find some more sensational freshly cooked delights from the Spoon.

As I headed back to La Cuchara a couple of days later, there were a couple of dishes I wanted to try which I didn't get a chance to eat on my previous visit. The first of these is a dish featuring an ingredient you will see all over San Sebastian and is quite popular all over Spain. That is Pulpo, or Octopus.

Cooked "a la plantxa" (on the plank) this is baked on wood until tender and pretty much falling apart, this dish has a dense texture without being chewy, a very good example of this ingredient.

The second dish I wanted to try was the Magret de Pato.

This is a perfectly cooked piece of duck breast, but specifically from a duck that has produced foie gras. This is served on a slice of dried apricot which has been rehydrated. These flavours go very well together and the rich, slightly fatty duck is balanced by the sweetness of the apricot.

Spotting a word on the board I don't understand, I dive right in and order the Orejo Iberico Asada y Prensada. The words that I like here are Iberico - the famous pork that produces the best jamon - and asado (grilled). Must be some delicious grilled pork....

Looking at this, I knew it wasn't a cut of pork that is normally served as it clearly has some cartilage that is quite obvious. Quite willing to give anything a go as usual, I cut into this and the taste was smooth and porky, with a crunch from the cartilage and the skin. The translation for the name of this dish is "Ear of Iberian Pork, Grilled and Pressed". I love pigs ears and when they are roasted on a suckling pig are crunchy and delicious, in this case, this is obviously from an older pig and has quite a bit of soft delicate meat on it.

My last dish from La Cuchara was something I had been watching people order constantly on both my visits and that was the Risotto Cremoso de Queso de Cabra.

This is not really a risotto, since it is made with risoni, a rice-shaped pasta. Queso de Cabra is Goat's Cheese and this is a creamy, rich dish which has the slight tang which I love from goat's cheese. Only a few spoonfuls, but absolutely packed with flavour and creamy deliciousness.

I had a wonderful time in San Sebastian, next stop Madrid.

Pintxos me, I must be dreaming.

2009-07-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

San Sebastian is a large town on the northern coast of Spain. Not far from the mountains that border France, this is part of the Basque region.

Basque cuisine has a very long and proud history and here in San Sebastian, there a huge variety of food on offer, including plenty of seafood. Wandering around the old town of San Sebastian, you might stumble across one of the private cooking clubs, called txokos. These are traditionally men-only clubs, where men gather and shop and cook together, often followed by some singing.

The bars, which are everywhere are always groaning with platters of small foods - usually on bread - called pintxos. These are usually one or two bites and often have a decent amount of mayonnaise in them.

The way to eat and drink here is usually standing at the bar. I ordered a beer and asked for a plate. As I enjoy my beer, I reach out and choose whatever looks good from the platters spread from one end of the bar to the other.

The presentation is exceptional and everything looks appetising and exciting.

Some are based on seafood, others on jamon or vegetables. Some bars are better at certain things, so experimentation and window shopping are part of the meal. Ingredients that are very common are octopus, baccalao (salt cod), anchovies and jamon.

At lunch and dinner, the popular places get so crowded that people will squeeze in to order a drink, grab a few pintxos and spill out onto the street to drink, eat and chat. All of the bars have cold beer on tap, one of the most common being San Miguel, a light refreshing beer, great for drinking on a hot summer day. Another favourite is the local cider, usually poured from very high up to incorporate air into it, can be a taste to get used to as it can be a bit sour.

Probably the most surprising thing about most of these places is that they work on the honor system - that is you drink and eat and then tell the bartender what you had and he will charge you accordingly. Most pintxos are served with skewers and the bartender can sometimes just count these and charge you for that number.

San Sebastian is a very popular tourist destination and I heard more English spoken than Spanish as I was walking around the town. There is always something happening and people wander around all day and all night, eating, drinking and dancing.

It's great to hear aussie accents and chat with people about good places around town, but it's important to get past the obvious tourist places and find the exciting places that are doing something a little different and I'll be talking about a couple of these in the next update.

Time to Saüc up the good life.

2009-07-15T06:54:00.001-07:00

Saüc (the local word for Elder Berries) is a one Michelin starred restaurant in Barcelona and head chef Xavier Franco provides a menu which reflects Catalan cuisine using traditional, local flavours and ingredients in a fine dining setting. With several different options in tasting menus and a very reasonable fixed price lunch menu plus a la carte, you can have a great meal at a highly rated restaurant without breaking the bank.

I decided on the full five course tasting menu this also includes two appetisers, a cheese plate and two desserts.

Firstly, the service was excellent, the staff spoke English, were extremely helpful, described dishes clearly and answered any questions. Also one of the staff members was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the menu and mark the dishes I had during the meal. The fact that I accidentally forgot this in the taxi on the way back to my hotel is entirely my fault.

To start, along with the bread I was given a plate of the brightest green olives along with a cracker and a mysterious jelly cube.

These olives were very morish and the cracker was a cheese cookie which was rich and salty and the jelly was a black olive jelly. These make a great snack and would go well on a bar with a few glasses of wine.

The first appetiser was Mackerel with Dried and Marinated Tomato.

Unfortunately, this photo does not do this dish justice. The slight oiliness of the mackerel was balanced with the sweetness of the tomato.

The second appetiser was Roasted Catalan White Sausage with Parmentiere and Pea Cream.

The colour of this dish jumps out at you and while I went straight in and tried the sausage (and it was a couple of bites if meaty goodness) the parmentiere and pea cream was amazing. Parmentiere is a potato puree, but the potatos are usually cooked in butter instead of water.

So that was the appetisers out of the way, now for the first of the main courses. White Asparagus, Razor Clams, Almond Milk and Basil Mayonnaise.

It was great to see razor clams again and the texture of shellfish alongside perfectly cooked asparagus was a good combination and the asparagus certainly held it's own in the flavour stakes. The almond milk was thick and creamy and the vibrant, almost flourescent dash of basil mayonnaise brings the colour that this dish so obviously needs along with a sweetness that complements the other ingredients.

The second main course was Haricot Beans from Santa Pau, Prawn and Funghi Pil-Pil.

Here once again is the common Catalan flavour combination of seafood and beans. The earthy flavours are powerful, but not without finesse, definitely a combination I would love to work on when I get home. Pil-Pil is commonly a sauce made with garlic and hot peppers and this brightens up the dish quite well.

The next course is a "surf and turf" combination and is not on the main menu. Crispy Dewlap Pork, Baby Squid and Wild Mushroom.

More of those earthy Catalan flavours here, the baby squid which if you've been following the posts about Barcelona you will recognise as a common ingredient here combined with a meaty local mushroom and finger of delicious mystery pork. Dewlap is the fold of skin hanging under the lower jaw and from the neck of the pig and in this case is crispy, crackly goodness on the outside and soft melting pork on the inside. The mushroom is Amanita Caesarea or Ceasar's mushroom and has firm yellow flesh and an orange cap.

Next came the fish course, John Dory on Roasted Tender Wheat with Sea Urchin.

I'm probably a little biased here as John Dory is one of my favourite fish to eat and this was a wonderfully cooked example. The flesh was white and almost translucent and flaked very easily. The skin was crispy and slightly salty, but not overly so. The fish was sitting on a bed of roasted wheat topped with sea urchin roe. To me, the star of this dish was the wheat, I understand that it is roasted in fish stock until tender, but the wheat still retained plenty of chewiness and contrasted very well with the tender fish and ethereal sea urchin roe.

The meat course was the final main course and this one was certainly full of local flavour. Iberian Pork Secret, Jabugo Ham Curd and Beijing Green Beans.

I'm not sure what the secret is, but this is some of the best pork I have ever tasted in my life. Still slightly pink in the middle, this melted in the mouth and tasted like an amazingly tender bacon. This was intensely rich and to be honest was almost more than I could eat because of this, but with a little of the curd to cut through the richness, I managed to make it....:) The beans were nice too, but to be honest I used them more to space out the intensity of the pork than as a part of the dish (but maybe that's why they're there). I'm not entirely sure of the process of making the ham curd, but Jabugo ham is one of the best Iberian hams you can get. I believe the bones of the ham are cooked like a soup and then the soup is curdled somehow to produce a slightly sour, ham-flavoured curd. A memorable dish, but would have been just as memorable in a slightly smaller portion...but I'm not complaining!

The cheese plate was an assortment of Catalan Cheeses.

There are sheep, cow and goat's milk cheeses here served with a pumpkin marmalade, elder (Saüc) berry gelatin and some Strawberry, Raisin and Nut Bread. The first cheese on the left is a sheep's milk cheese with a blue-mold rind which was my favourite. Eaten without the rind it a mild flavoured cheese, but with the rind it gets all those blue mold tastes and becomes something very special. I can't recall exactly what the others were, but the marmalade and elder berry gelatine were a welcome alternative to the common accompaniment of muscatels or quince paste I often see in Melbourne.

Dessert time! The first one is a combination of dessert and palette cleanser. Melon and Ginger Soup with Watermelon Ice and Basil Gel.

Bright and refreshing, this was a great way to move from cheese into dessert. All the flavours were distinct and worked well together, a very summery dish.

Following after this came the Muskovado Cake, Tia Maria ith Mascarpone Cream.

Muskovado is a type of brown sugar and has a strong, syrupy flavour. The cake is a sponge soaked in tia maria and I believe the foam is a chocolate foam, but I'll hope for confirmation on that at some point. A refined, but gentle dessert, this is a great way to finish a good meal. Oh wait, I still need my coffee.

Along with coffee came another surprise:

Petit-Fours: Liquorice and Anise Scum, Almond Cake, Chocolate and Feuillet-Paulletine Rock and Cinnamon Biscuit. Scum is a bit of a strong word for a glass of lightly anise flavoured foam, but these are all wondeful little gems to send me packing back to my hotel for a siesta.

I had a great time at Saüc and seeing Catalan food in this way gives me a different perspective on the ingredients and flavour profiles of this unique region of Spain.

Two Tapas Taverns

2009-07-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

Two places of the tapas bar style restaurants I went to were a little away from the centre of town and in more residential areas, but deserve a special mention. The first of these is Alta Taberna Paco Meralgo.

One of the signs of a restaurant with great food is how many locals eat there and this place is full of them. By full I mean there is a queue of people waiting for tables. I wanted to sit at the bar, so I passed on the first seat that became available, but soon enough there was a place at the bar.

Sitting in front of a small ice bar with fresh shellfish is always a good way to generate an appetite, but instead of shellfish I spotted the foie gras on the menu.

Served on toasted bread, the foie just starting to melt over it, this is a great way to start a meal of tapas. I also got some tomato bread.

This is a fairly common dish, but in this case has exceptional flavour and is certainly one of the better versions. Toasted bread with tomato rubbed into it and olive oil poured over. Crunchy, chewy and tomatoey, delicious.

Next I chose the plate of jamon bellota.

Sliced paper thin so you can almost see through it. You can clearly see the marbling in the meat. The taste is slightly salty and the meat almost disolves as I start to chew.

After this, I asked the waiter what he recommended and he suggested the steak which comes still sizzling in oil.

The meat is tender and the oil which is flavoured with garlic and chilli gives a lot of this flavour to the meat.

He also recommended some grilled porcini mushrooms.

These are very simply grilled in oil allowing the natural, mild flavour of the mushrooms to stand out.

The final dish for the night was another recommendation - cuttlefish with chickpeas.

Another of those savoury dishes which I am seeing on menus all over this city and is the hearty, earthy type dish that I am starting to crave. This was a great meal and I would eat here again if there weren't so many other places to try out.

Speaking of other places, the second restaurant I thought deserved a special mention was Inopia. Also in a residential area, this place has a bit more of a reputation due to it's owner - Albert Adria. Albert is the brother of Ferran Adria who is the name behind El Bulli, which is consistently rated as the best restaurant in the world. Although Albert works with Ferran to create some of the worlds most innovative and exciting ideas in food, you wont see that at Inopia.

What Inopia does is tapas with beautiful, fresh ingredients. Many dishes also have an asian influence, which is a nice change from most of the tapas bars.

Arriving at Inopia, I was greeted with the sight of about 20 people waiting outside to get a table.

After looking around for the end of the queue, I relaised that I had to get my name in the board and they would call out my name when they had a seat for me.

There is my name at the bottom of a very long list.....well almost my name anyway.

After getting a seat (which didn't take as long as I thought it might), I looked at the many, many options available and gave up on trying to choose anything. Doing the usual trick of asking the waiter to bring out what he recommended worked well and I started off with their Russian Salad.

This was really nice and even though it had plenty of mayonnaise it wasn't heavy or overpowering. Next was the tuna.

Grilled perfectly, this is served cold with a sauce that is made from soy and dashi and while not the amazing taste explosion that it might be, is still quite a nice dish.After the tuna, I was served the fried eggplant.

Lightly battered and deep fried, drizzled with a molasses sauce, this was my favourite dish of the night. The eggplant itself was perfectly cooked, the batter a very thin layer of crispness on the outside, but the inside is light and fluffy and exploding with flavour. Next came patatas bravas, one of the most common dishes on a tapas menu.

This looks a lot like simple potato chips covered with ketchup and sour cream, but after one mouthful those ideas were gone from my head. The potatoes are full of garlic flavour and the red sauce is a hot, spicy and rich and is cooled by the cream.

To finish off I was given the fried prawns.

Both deep fried, the prawns in a light tempura batter and the calamari (or maybe octopus) was in a thicker batter crusted with what looked like potato flakes and were served with a dijon mustard and mayonnaise combination. These were not the best dishes of the night and I only ate about half of each, although the sauce was very nice the rest was kind of plain and had too much on the plate for a single diner. Also quite pricey, but that's the risk you take letting the waiter choose your food.

Barcelona rewards people that are willing to explore a little futher than the main tourist areas and is well worth looking around for something a little different.

Tapas Dancing

2009-07-13T04:19:00.000-07:00

If there was one country I was looking forward to visiting more than any other, it was Spain. I love eating tapas, being able to try many different things in one meal, especially when travelling is a great way to go. In the limited number of meals you have available to you on a holiday means you never get to try all of the amazing flavours and ingredients that represent a local cuisine, but this style of eating allows you to try much more. Not only that, but it is a great way of dining if you are travelling solo, just find a seat at the bar and chat with the people beside you or the bartender, asking what is good that day or what the dishes of other diners taste like is a great way to try the best food.

Let's start with a trip to the central market of Barcelona. As I walk down La Rambla, navigating my way through crowds of tourists mingled with locals and street performers, I find La Boqueria de St Josep. Right at the entrance, I walk past a shop selling many different versions of jamon - spanish ham. Although to call it ham is probably doing it an injustice. Jamon is one of the most sought after hams in the worlds and attracts prices in the hundreds of dollars per kilo. You can see one in this photo selling for 160 Euro per kilogram.

This amazing meat product is one of the best recognised hams in the world, along with prosciutto. One of the ways to tell a quality product is by looking for marbling of fat within the muscle. As you can se, they are displayed with the hoof still attached.

After that, I walk into the fruit and veg section of the market, stalls piled high with delectable fresh-looking produce.

And even a few that I had never seen before.

The fish section has amazingly fresh looking fish and many of the shellfish on display are sold live.

Apart from all the fabulous fresh produce available, there are several Tapas/Pintxos Bars scattered throughout the market. They serve the amazing fresh food of the market cooked right before your eyes. I had to come back to try two of them, but I'm very glad I did. The first visit was to Pinotxo Bar, right near the entrance of the market and as with all of these bars in the market it is always full and you have to wait around for someone to leave and snag their seat before someone else does.

I sat down and asked for a cerveca and whatever they felt like serving me. They started me off with the mussels.

Bursting with fresh, bright flavours, the salsa really enhanced the briney flavour of the plump mussels.

Next came more shellfish, this time clams. The ones on the left are razor clams which I had never tried before, but they were very nice and I'm sure freshness has a lot to do with how good this tastes. They do very little with it, just a slight dressing, allowing the taste of the ingredients to shine through.

The next dish they served me was baby squid and beans.

This is a very different presentation of squid to what I have normally seen. Usually it has been served with bright, fresh flavours. In this case, the flavour was earthy and savoury, the beans tender. To start with, taste buds were craving for something bright and powerful to give some high notes to this dish, but as I ate more and more, I started enjoy this dish more than I thought possible. I was starting to crave the deep savoury flavour and hated when my bowl was empty. As I was eating this dish, the couple next to me had a plate of stew that looked really nice and when I asked them about it they were very pleased.

Even though they couldn't really communicate in too many words of english, I could tell they wanted me to have some by the way the lady grabbed my fork and gave it back with a heap of the stew on it. I asked for a small portion of this.

The meat was tender and the sauce was delicious, more of those savoury flavours that I am coming to enjoy more and more while in Spain.

The other bar in the market that is well worth a mention is El Quim. I only had two things there, but they were both very nice. To start, I saw a dark sausage and asked for one of those.

This was their version of black pudding,this tasted really mild, with a delicate flavour that was a little nutty.

The second dish, which was the dish I had come here to try, was their fried eggs with baby squid. The eggs are served with a runny yolk and covered in baby squid. The waiter told me to cut up the egg and stir it all together.

The yolk creates a sauce that binds this rich, delicious dish together. Again there are lots of savoury flavours going on here with no bright touch to balance it out, but I'm starting to want that less and less as I eat more of the local cuisine.

There are still a few restaurants to talk about, but you'll have to tune in next time to see more amazing Spanish food.

Slight blog malfunction

2009-07-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say that since I had several posts being worked on at the same time, the post titled ¨The French Connection¨ was posted in the wrong order...I´ve now fixed this and chronologically it should be read just before ¨Chez Michel¨. My apologies for any confusion...enjoy the reading.

Chez Michel

2009-07-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

Chez Michele is a great little place tucked way in a corner only a few streets away from the Gare du Nord (the major train station of Paris). It is important to understand the way their menu works. Dinner at Chez Michele will cost at least 32 Euro. This includes bread and three courses which you can choose from the printed menu. However, there are also daily specials and dishes with more expensive ingredients which you can select from the chalkboard menu for an additional supplement.

As you can see, the good stuff all has a "+" next to with with the supplement amount in Euros. While I was making up my mind, I was presented with a plate of sea snails served with a nice mayonnaise. These are briney and delicious, tasting very strongly of the sea.

Looking at the appetisers, I'm sure you can already guess which one grabbed my attention.

That's right, Tartine de campagne grilee, foie gras et truffles d'ete. I'm not sure what half of that means, but the words I do understand sound delicious. What's that? You can't see the foie in that picture.....ok let me just move a few of these pesky truffles for you....

Better now? I don't even know how to describe how this tastes, but I'll give it a try. Firstly, the toast is crunchy and crcks when you bite into it, but almost instantly, the smooth richness of the foie gras seems to melt into it and the earthy overtone of truffle comes in to round out the whole mounthful. This was sensational, my tastebuds were having a party.

For the main course, there were several options, but knowing that Pigeon is another French traditional favourite, I decided to give the roasted pigeon a try.

This was served with potatoes, mushrooms and carrots. The pigeon is broken down into two halves, but the ribcage is on the plate too in case you want to nibble on it later I guess. The meat was done to a beautiful rose colour and was juicy and not too strongly flavoured. The vegetables were very nice, especially the mushrooms.

For dessert I selected the classic pastry Paris-Brest which created in honour of the bike race from - strangely enough - Paris to Brest. Apparently that is why it is the shape of a wheel.

Made from a choux pastry and filled with an almond cream, the outside of the pastry was nice a crisp and the inside light and airy. There was also a nut brittle scattered over it which presumable contained almonds.

Dinner here was a great way to finish of my stay in Paris, with an old school Breton bistro meal with amazing tastes and wondeful ingredients.

French Connection

2009-07-09T10:10:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, Paris - the city of a thousand cliches. The home of towers and temples, bistros and bars, food and fashion, bakers and brandy, merchant and markets....I could alliterate all day.

French cuisine has long been held in high regard by cooks the world over and is home to many classical cooking techniques and dishes. The list is long and I certainly don't have time to experience them all in the few days I am spending here, but I do intend to try as many as I can. Let's start with a bistro classic and one of my personal favourite dishes of all time. Confit de Canard (Duck Confit) is a preparation of duck (usually the leg and thigh) where the meat is basically cooked in its own fat. The usual result is meat that is rich and strong in flavour and usually falling of the bone tender and delicious.

In this version, the duck was not as tender as I have had it previously and not as strongly flavoured, but still delicious. However, the highlight of the dish is the potatoes. I could smell them coming from a mile away they had so much garlic on them and I suspect they were also cooked in duck fat because the taste was amazing and they didn't skimp on quatity either as you can see.

This next classic of French cuisine often has people covering their eyes or avoiding it all together. Steak Tartare (raw steak) has always been one of those challenging dishes for some people, although many who try it actually enjoy it, some people just can't get past the fact that they are eating raw meat.

The meat in this case is Limousin Beef, one of the highest grades of beef available in France and is minced moments before coming to the table and is normally served with condiments and additions like onions or capers and sometimes raw egg. This was a very large serve and after about three quarters of the way through I gave up because I couldn't even taste it anymore. I'm a big fan of steak tartare, but in smaller quantities.

For dessert that night I didn't go for a classic, but I was very interested in the Peach Soup.

Served cold and with icecream this was delicatly sweet in flavour with a strong peachy aroma and taste. A very nice way to end a meal.

Another food commonly associated with the French is Foie Gras. There is much ethical discussion about the process surrounding Foie Gras and I'm not going to get into it here, but if you would like to discuss it, there is a comment section below and I'm happy to put forward their feelings about it or start a discussion. In many bistros around Paris you will see Pate de Fois Gras and that was the way I tried it first.

This was rich, smooth and delicious. Much nicer than many of the liver pates commonly available in Australia.

To follow this, my eye was caught by a sausage listed on the menu as Andouillette AAAAA. Now I have heard of Andouille sausage which is a spicy cajun pork sausage and thought this would be similar, and with all those A's after it it had to be something special right? Well when it came out I was a little taken aback.

Not the prettiest looking sausage in the world is it. That was the first surprise. The second came when I cut into the sausage and discovered not mince or ground meat, but chunky roughly cut substantial pieces of meat. This had a very strong porky flavour and the texture was not like any cut of pork I had had before.

I figured that mystery meat is what most sausages are made of anyway and this is no exception, so I got over my initial trepidation and got stuck into it. This was not the most delicious sausage I had ever had and it had a very powerful, not altogether pleasant flavour. The texture was quite gelatinous and took some getting used to. Now that I have done some research on this sausage I have discovered the reason for the unusual texture and flavour.

Andouillette is a very traditional French tripe sausage. Made from the stomach and intestines or the pig and wrapped in bowel. This sausage has a large following in France and even has an association devoted to it, that is what the AAAAA stands for, The Association Amicale des Amateurs d'Andouillette Authentic (the Friendly Association of Authentic Andouillette Lovers). Anyone who is not adventurous in their tastes may want to consider avoiding this one...:)

Ok, to get your minds off that one for a bit, here´s something pretty.

People in Paris love their Macaroons. These are a delicate baked good, almost like a meringue, crisp on the ouside, soft and delicate in the middle. These are usually served with two of them sandwiching a creamy filling. The flavour combinations are almost endless and the most famous name in macaroons is Pierre Herme, who has been known to make many weird and wonderful flavour combinations, including Ketchup flavour.

Walking down the street where he has his store, it's impossible to miss it as the line of customers goes out the door. I had to wait at least 10 minutes just to get in, but once I was in, it was worth it.

I could sit here all day just taking photos, but people were pushing me to get moving, so I ordered a few (they are not cheap by the way), including the Olive Oil and Vanilla one and moved on. Now I would love to describe how all the different flavours tasted and how amazing they were, but unfortunately, by the time I got back to my hotel room they had started to break down due to the humidity. I scoffed a few....I wasn't going to throw them out after all that, but the flavours had all started to run together and it was hard to distinguish anything in particular.

That was my quick Paris wrap up, there is one more dinner which I will talk about next post because it deserves its own. I loved this city and all the bizarre and delicious food that is available, if you're ever here get out and try something new. You may not like it, but maybe, just maybe you'll find something amazing.

Modena and Hosteria Giusti

2009-07-08T09:03:00.001-07:00

While in Bologna, I had planned to spend a day in Modena, which is about 30km north of Bologna and having heard of a restaurant called Hosteria Giusti I really wanted to try it out. Now, the story with Giusti is one that you need to know about before you can get to it. You really need a reservation, so I tried to book it for my last full day in Bologna, but unfortunately it was booked out (it only has 4 tables), but they had a spot for me on the day I was leaving Italy from Milan. Now Modena is between Bologna and Milan and since my flight was departing at 5:45pm I figured that if I had no trafic problems I could still manage it. I really didn't want to miss out.

I headed to Modena a little earlier so I could take a look around town and wondered into the market, and I'm glad I did. The Modena market is almost at the centre of the town and has some sensational looking produce.

Even though Modena is in the middle of Italy, the fish and seafood look extremely fresh and great quality.

The produce is vibrant and colourful, I'd love to spend hours looking around, but I have a lunch to get to.

Now to get into Giusti, I had to find the Salumeria Giusti, which was closing it's shutters already. They close the shop, like almost all other shops during the afternoon, but you can get in if you have a lunch reservation by knocking on the shutters. After entering this tiny room full of some of the best meats and preserves, I was led through a door at the back into another small room with only four tables. This is the entire restaurant and they only open for lunch. I wanted to try as many dishes as I could, and luckily almost the entire menu is also available in half portions (mezza porzione). For Antipasti, I chose the Baccala Mantecato con pane (Salt cod whipped into a puree with oil, salt and pepper).

This was very nice, the texture was perfect and the flavour was delicate and great for getting the appetite going. For Primi, I tried the Tagliatelle al sugo di Guanciale (Tagiatelle with a sauce made from veal cheeks).

The pasta was perfectly cooked, with just a little bite to it and as you can see, the sauce just sticks to the pasta and the meat was tender and melting. Secondi I decided on the Maialino freddo con cipolle all'Aceto balsamico Stravecchio (cold suckling pig with onions caramelised with balsamic vinegar).

Wow. The suckling pig is first roasted with aromatics and then placed in cold olive oil and left for 10 days. The resulting pork has a texture very similar to tuna preserved in oil, but denser and with a stunning amount of flavour. I was wishing I ordered a full portion rather than a half. The caramelised onions were sticky, sweet and sensational. How could they not be with balsamic from Modena?

At this point, I was very happy with the meal, and starting to get nervous about making the more than two hour drive, but after three amazing courses, I just couldn't leave without dessert. Asking the waitress which was the quickest dessert, I was offered a selection and chose the chocolate mousse. Now many of you may know I am not a big chocolate fan, but I do like dark, bitter chocolate, so when I heard that this was made with dark chocolate I had to try it.

This was a very dense mousse and unfortunately I forgot to ask for a half portion and got the full one instead, but I managed to struggle though and it just the way I like my chocolate, dark and rich with just enough bitterness to cut through the sweetness.

Hosteria Giusti is a dinin experience I would recommend to anyone, the price is on the higher side but worth every cent. Just make sure you book.

Bologna

2009-07-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Bologna has given its name to perhaps the most famous pasta sauce in the world - Bolognese. Spaghetti Bolognese is possibly the best known Italian dish in the world, but the funny thing is you wont find it in Bologna. Here the sauce is called Ragu and is served with tagliatelle, not spaghetti. Another very famous product of this area is Bologna Sausage, which Amercans call Baloney and Australians call Mortadella.

One of the restaurants I that decide to try is called La Trattoria del Rosso, which has a very reasonably priced lunch menu and is almost always full. I started with the antipasto of mixed salumi served with a fresh creamy cheese and fresh fried dough crostini.

This was a great selection of four different salumi, including prosciutto and mortadella. The cheese was creamy and mild.

Of course had to try the ragu, but since the menu had both tagliatelle and tortelloni with ragu, I decideded to try the tortelloni.

The meat was very finely minced, even though different restaurants have different ragus, some chunkier than others. The pasta was very nicely cooked and I was full at two courses, a great lunch.

After spending several days walking around the town looking at all the chruches and sights of Bologna (it's a beautiful city and many of the sights are within walking distance of each other) and doing a bit of research on the internet about which restaurants to visit, I found some discussion of a restaurant called Ristorante Pappagallo, a very old school place (90 years old) which is very proud of it's history and has photos all over the walls of famous people eating there from many decades ago. Located under the shadow of the Two Towers (a major landmark near the centre of the town), Papagallo serves high-end Bolognese cuisine. I wasn't anywhere near hungry enough for a full meal, but I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to eat here, so I decided on entree and dessert. To start, the risotto with prawns, apples and zucchini flowers grabbed my attention.

These flavours worked very well together and the rice was perfectly cooked and seasoned, I was very happy with this. For dessert I had the strawberry mousse with balsamic vinegar reduction.

The mousse was light, without being too airy, the flavour of strawberries was delicate and the blasamic balanced the sweetness with its acidity.

Bologna is an amazing place to visit and I would love to come back here again.

Perguia - The hills are alive

2009-07-05T10:43:00.001-07:00

Driving north through Italy from Rome couldn't have been easier, the roads are clearly marked and the speed limit on the highway is 130 km/hr. I was heading for Perugia, which I had read about as being a beautiful mountain town with great views and good food, especially known for their truffles and the fact that the Baci Chocolates are made there.

Arriving in Perugia, I discovered that it is a warren of tiny streets with almost no parking, but the hotel was able to give me a permit and I basically parked the car as close as I could get to the hotel (about two blocks) and left it there for the one night that I was staying there. Everything in town is within walking distance and it is a gorgeous buzzing town. The centerpiece of the main part of town is a fountain in a piazza with several large sets of stairs nearby. These stairs are the major meeting place in town and every time I walked past them, they were packed with people just sitting and chatting.

Walking past the stairs, I entered the main street, which was full of people enjoying the evening and having appertivo.

Appertivo is a fantastic experience in Italy, it is usually the time between the end of the working day and dinner, when everyone goes out for a couple of drinks. The thing about Italy is that even the drinking is about eating here. During this time, which is their Happy Hour, most bars offer a buffet of finger food to the people who are there having a drink. Even though the idea is to have a little snack to get your appetite going for dinner, you can basically have enough to fill up for the price of one drink. The toughest part is choosing which bar has the best looking selection of foods. Some common ones are cold cuts, parmeggiano reggiano cheese with balsamic vinegar, bread and dips, antipasto, etc.

As the sun had not yet set, I decided to walk to the end of the main street to check out the view. It seems that you can almost see forever and everywhere you turn is a different, spectacular scene.

As the sun started heading down, I headed for a restaurant I had spotted earlier which caught my attention, Caffe Di Perugia. I ordered a Negroni (a bitter cocktail, often served for appertivo) before my meal and was also given a selection from the appertivo buffet which I didn't ask for, but was gladly accepted. I skipped the Antipasto and selected the Tagliatell con Tartufo Nero (Tagliateli with Black Truffles) and was not disappointed by the amount of truffles used as you can see.

This was quite tasty and simple, I really enjoyed it.

The dessert selection didn't really grab my attention, but I decided to try the Semifreddo Nocciola (Hazelnut Semifreddo).

This was way too sweet for me, but I'm sure all you chocaholics out there would like it since it had a chocolate center.

I loved this town and if I were to come here again I would definitely stay longer, but since the next day was Monday the many of the better restaurants are closed on Mondays, I decided to move on to Bologna.

When in....

2009-07-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

“When in Rome…” they say, but I tell you what, it’s hard to keep up.

Let’s start with the driving. I hired a car for the duration of my stay as I’m planning to drive up through the middle of Italy to see some of the countryside and knowing that driving alone would be complicated enough, I also hired a GPS so I wouldn’t have to be constantly checking maps. This was probably the best money I have ever spent as it saved me enormous amounts of time, but I suspect it cost more than I think it did since I’m not sure if it took into account all the areas of Rome (which I may or may not have driven into) which require special permits (which I’m fairly sure I didn’t have). So, if anyone at home is reading this and there is a pile of official looking mail from Italy, I don’t want to know about it ok? Romans make their own rules as they drive and the roads reflect this. In most cases lanes are not clearly marked and a road that would normally be three lanes wide contains five lanes of traffic all cross-crossing without indicators and it always seems to be peak hour. Surprisingly though, I very quickly felt comfortable driving in this environment and as the Lonely Planet guidebook puts it “As a general rule, worry about what’s in front of you, leaving those behind you to think about your rear!”

Breakfast in Italy is more about coffee than food. The traditional espresso is usually had standing up at a counter with a pastry, perhaps a cornetto (Italian croissant-type pastry often plain but sometimes filled with jam or custard) or a ciambella (doughnut), but the selection in many pasticcerias is far more extensive.

One important thing to note about Italy is that almost everything closes for several hours in the afternoon; this includes many churches and attractions, so if you’re a late riser you might want to consider changing habits while here. During this time, most people have lunch or a siesta or both. Lunch in Italy can often be three or four courses, consisting of Antipasti (Appetiser: Often cold), Primi (First Course: Carbs mostly – Pasta, Risotto, etc), Secondi (Second Course – Meat, fish, etc) and Frutti e Dolce (Fruit and Sweets). Dinner is the same, but who can do that twice in one day, or even once unless you don’t have anything else all day? So what can you have for lunch on the run that isn’t going to take 2 hours or make you lie down in the first available shady spot for a siesta?

One of the lunchtime staples is the perennial favourite – Pizza. Almost a never ending variety is available by the slice, but the main feature is simplicity and freshness with many having only two or three ingredients. One place I found, while obviously targeted to tourists showed quite a bit of pride in itself and I had to take this photo. As many of you know, if this was a sign in Melbourne I would have a great time picking on all the spelling mistakes, but this is Italy.

While they don’t have over 180 different varieties available at all times, the selection of the day is still impressive:

Since I love mushrooms on a pizza, I decided on the mushroom pizza, which has at least two different types of mushrooms as you can see and was delicious if a little oily.

Another favourite on a hot afternoon in Italy is, of course, Gelato. Every street has a gelateria or two, at least it seems that way. The list of flavours is endless and the quality is outstanding. My favourite flavour was Cinnamon, but I only had Gelato once, resisting the temptation is not easy.

I had the rare opportunity to have dinner with three beautiful women in Rome (met up with some friends from Melbourne), so we decided to make a night of it and head to one of the nicer restaurants. From recommendations and from Lonely Planet, we chose La Baguette, a rooftop restaurant. The La Baguette shop downstairs was closed for personal reasons, but access was available though the next door wine shop. We thought it was a different restaurant, but decided to try it anyway. The staff were very friendly, helpful and spoke English quite well. To begin with they served an amuse bouche of smoked salmon, and since I was having dinner with a vegan, a vegetarian and someone who doesn’t eat fish, this meant more for me.

As for main courses, unfortunately vegans are limited in their selection and will probably have to look to the Contorni (side dishes) instead. Helen chose the Green Salad and the Grilled Vegetables.

Vegetarian options are a lot easier and, in fact, I have been eating a lot of vegetarian food since arriving in Italy, which I guess is not surprising after Serbia. Monica selected the vegetarian pasta.

Nancy had the rack of lamb, which was perfectly cooked.

I chose the Swordfish with green pepper sauce and zucchini and mint sorbet. This was sensational, the coolness of the minty sorbet was an excellent foil for the spicy green pepper sauce and the swordfish, while not a strongly flavoured fish, was cooked to perfection and had a great texture.

For dessert, Nancy chose the crepe.

I chose the Crème Brulee, which was flamed at the table - it must have had some alcohol poured over it – and tasted delicious.

This was a great meal and I would definitely come here again if I come back to Rome. I loved Rome, but to be honest I wouldn’t come back here in a hurry since there is so much left of Italy to see and experience.

Serbia wraps up with Saran

2009-06-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

Our last night in Serbia and we moved closer to the airport, New Belgrade. This is also close to an area called Zemun which is home to a well known restaurant called Saran (Carp). Heading down to Zemun was an experience, with streets full of people and cars, I'm glad we were in a taxi because there is no way I would have been able to get through without hitting someone or something.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the outside area was full of people, but luckily there was one table available. The service was great and the atmosphere, even though the place was packed, was still conducive to conversation - at least until the 5-man band decided to start playing right behind my head. They didn't stay there long though, moving off to play at other tables and the music wasn't too loud.

To start, since this is a fish restaurant, we chose the Riblja Corba (Fish Soup) which was full of flavour and the fish had a great texture, although there were a lot of bones and these can be a disctraction from enjoying the soup.

We also ordered the pate and this was delicious with lots of paprika and garlic.

For mains, mum chose the fried catfish which had a light coating of batter and was tender and juicy.
Dad chose the fish in tomato stew. This was light and tasty, full of fresh flavours and if I could choose again I would have selected this.

What I did order was the Catfish cooked in mashed potato and cream. This sounds great and it really was, but it was soooo rich I could not even eat half of it.
Overall this was probably the best traditional meal I had in Serbia, a great way to finish my time in this country and even though there is obviously still much room for improvement in the way Serbia sells and presents it's cuisine, there are places that are genuinely making great moves forward and I look forward to seeing what happens in a few years.

Meanwhile, back in Serbia

2009-06-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

So, attentive readers will note that I didn't update you on my way to Novi Sad as promised. I had a plan to wrap up the Serbian chapter of my blog with a post about street food and I wanted to get photos of all the various types of street food available, especially after arriving in a beautiful ski resort (I know it's summer, but it was still full of people) called Zlatibor (meaning Golden Pine). The forests around this area are beautiful pine forests and people were everywhere on the first night. That was when I decided that the next night I would come back to town and photograph all the street food available in the area. Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse the next morning and it didn't stop raining all day, so when I got out the umbrella and wandered into the town there were only a few brave souls wandering about, usually from a restaurant to a bar or the other way around. I did manage to take a photo of the most common type of street food.

The Rostilj.

As you can see, they have all types of meat available to grill; sausages, hamburgers, pork fillet, chicken, cevapi, etc some in various forms (different spices or flavourings in the meat). This meat is already cooked and usually just gets a refire on the grill before serving. Basically you select your meat and the type of bread you want it in - either a bun or pita bread - and they put it on the grill to heat up. You pay for that and then add any/all/none of the various free condiments or additions available; White onion, cabbage, coleslaw, tomato, cucumber, chili, ketchup, mustard, etc. The price is very reasonable, with most choices being in the 200-300 RSD range (which you can see on the board to the left if you click on the image above) which is about $4-5 AUD. Other forms of street food you will see often in Serbia include Pancake Stalls, Corn Stalls (popped or boiled) and of course Icecream stands.

While the street food is cheap and filling, I really wanted to find somewhere that was showing real signs of moving Serbian cuisine forward. I was hoping to find that in Novi Sad which is said to be the most cosmopolitan city in Serbia. Unfortunately it turned out that after all the driving through the mountains I was not feeling very well and couldn't face the thought of a meal on our first night, so I just had a sandwich. The following day, I still wasn't feeling great, but we made the march from the centre of town across the river and up to the Fort overlooking Novi Sad. The view was impressive, but the stairs were not so much fun.

We decided to stop at a Carda for lunch which was right on the river. A carda is a hungarian style restarant specialising in fish dishes. We were told by everyone we spoke to that eating at a Carda is a guarantee of eating very fresh fish and since my dad is obsessed with fish soups, we decided to go and try out their thicker hungarian style called a Perkelt. This is served with noodles and is a blended soup made from vegetables and fish (usually Carp and/or Catfish) which is boiled together to form the soup base which is then blended and then fresh fish (usually firm, white fish like Pike or Perch) is added to cook in the soup before serving.

This had a very nice fish flavour and had a dense creamy texture, although there were several bones still in the fish which was a little annoying.

The next day we went for a drive and decided to eat a a place called a Salas there are many of these around and they are basically like hobby farms. We were recommended to try one called Salas 137. On arrival, we walked around the property which was neat and well cared for, had many horses and looked to be a working horse farm. The restaurant is mainly outdoor seating and the mismatched tablecloths and rustic chairs of various colours - rather than detract from the overall ambience - really gave a warm, friendly character to the place. The menu supported this feeling with dishes like Neighbor's Pork - A pig stolen from the neighbor and it's loin stuffed and rolled so even the neighbor wouldn't recognise it. The menu was quite extensive, with many foods used in different ways to what I had seen previously, but also some very traditional meals I had eaten when I was young in my grandparent's house but hadn't seen available in any restaurants so far. Seeing things like Koh (a sponge cake soaked in a bowl of milk) and Snenokle (egg white islands floating in a custard sauce) really brought back a lot of memories from my childhood. I was looking forward to this meal.

Firstly, my parents both ordered the traditional chicken soup, which is something I remember being served on Sunday lunches since I was a baby. I chose the Daska (or Board) which is a chopping board filled with various cheeses, pates and meats made either on site or locally.

This is an entree for one and yes, I did sample it before I took the photo...:) On there you can see from top left, Persut (prosciutto), pate with paprika and garlic, kajmak (a creamy cheese), above that is Gibanice (a cheese filled filo pastry), a fish pate (trout is my guess), cornbread, above the cornbread you can just barely see a slice of the house-made Kulen (spicy salami) which was the best I had yet tasted, then on the bottom row another piece of the Kulen, 3 different cheeses and a slice of a beef salami. The black thing in the middle is a prune...you'll see more of these later.

For mains, my dad liked the sound of the Neighbor's Pig, mum chose the Ham Hock cooked casserole style with cream and I chose the Goulash in mustard sauce.

Neighbor's Pig

This was served cold with raw radishes, raw hot pepper and a side of horseradish. The raw vegetables were no surprise, but this time I think they added to the rustic feeling of the dish and in this setting they seemed to work, although they were all very spicy according to my dad. The skin on the pork was rubbery, but the taste overall was ok.

Ham Hock with horseradish and cream

As promised, another prune! This dish was rich and decadent, but unfortunately the garlic and horseradish were was too strong and killed what should have been a nice smoky flavour from the hock.
Goulash in Mustard Sauce with Mashed Potato

Yes, I know you've already noticed....another prune! They might want to look at some variety in their garnishes at some stage. The mash was creamy and delicious, the meat was tender and broke apart at the touch of the fork, but the sauce didn't taste at all like mustard and the entire dish was cold. I put this down to the fact that even though they used a cast iron dish to serve it, they didn't cook it in there or even heat the dish before serving so as soon as they put the hot food into the cold dish, it started to get cold.

The portion sizes were again way to big and I couldn't even eat half of mine, although I was saving some space for dessert.

Snenokle have long been one of my dad's favourite desserts so he had to try them here.
The flavour was quite good, being enhanced by the caramel sauce and the custard was a smooth texture.

Mum chose the Krempita (literally Cream Pie, but similar to Vanilla Slice).
This was much lighter than any vanilla slice you would find in Melbourne, with the custard being more of a light whipped cream texture than the dense custard you would normally get.

I was going to choose the Koh, but once I say the baked palacinke filled with walnuts and cooked in milk I had to get that instead since this is so similar to a dessert that my grandmother and mother taught me to cook and that I have always enjoyed.

Unfortunately, this was also served cold. The crepes were tough and took several tries to cut through with the spoon, the walnuts tasted great, but 30 seconds in a microwave would have made this a much better dessert.

Overall, Salas 137 is showing real signs of wanting to move forward and even though the execution really leaves a lot to be desired, I'm encouraged by what I see here and recommend anyone who visits Novi Sad to make the 10-15 minute drive out to this place and support what they are doing. Don't miss out on the Kulen!

Montenergan Flying Circus

2009-06-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

I know, I know the title of this post has nothing to do with the content, but the reference has been floating around in my head for the last week, I had to use it.

We were recommended another restaurant to try called Stari Mlini (Old Mill). Which is right on the water and with an extensive garden and a stream flowing through the mill. This is a really beautiful setting and there are table everywhere so you can choose which setting you would prefer. There are tables outside under the trees, some under coverings and some inside. We chose a table right on the stream under a tree, but I did regret it after is got dark and the light on our table started attracting insects from the tree directly above the table. The view while the sun was up was amazing though and well worth it.

The staff dress in traditional outfits and are very friendly and service is prompt and our waiter showed a good knowledge of the food and was happy to recommend dishes. For my entree I ordered the Riblji Pasteta (Fish Pate). This was fresh and while it lacked the denseness of a pate and could more appropriately be described as a fish mousse due to its loose consistensy, I put this down to that fact that it was (according to the waiter) made only a few hours before. The flavour was gentle and balanced, a pleasant and clean fish taste rather than the overpowering taste you get from a trout or a salmon pate.

As seems to be the case around this area, they had the fresh fish available to view and select which fish you would like. I think this is a great way to show off produce that you are proud to have and let the costumer see that you aren't just pulling out fish that is two days old or frozen 2 months ago.

These are all priced on a weight basis so you can select a fish that is big enough for your appetite or you choose a larger fish for two people. My dad selected the Gilthead Bream. The waiter offered several different options for preparing the fish with his recommendation being steaming the fish in foil with aromatic vegetables. I always prefer fish cooked in this way as you don't lose any of the juices or flavour as it steams.

This looked good, but the aroma as the foil was opened was even better. The fish was well cooked and the vegetables, while slightly overcooked, were much better than the ones served at Galeon. My dad said this was much better than the fish at Galeon.

Mum decided on a vegetarian option, the Eggplant and cheese dish which is baked in an eartheneware pot over coals. This also smelled really good when the lid was removed at the table. The colours of this dish are bright and although the portion looks a bit small in this photo, the pot is actually quite big.

I opted for the seafood spaghetti. As you can see from the picture below, they serve much less seafood than would be standard for a marinara in Melbourne, but in my opinion, we put too much sauce on our pastas anyway. When you finish the pasta in a bowl, there shouldn't be a giant pool of sauce left on the bottom. The flavour here was just right, the pasta was ever so slightly overcooked for my taste, but some people say the way I like pasta is a little undercooked for their taste.

Parsley sprinkled over the edges of the plate again, but at least it's fresh.

For dessert I can't pass up the palacinke (crepes) which seems the be the dessert of choice in Montenegro and Serbia. This time filled with cooked apple and walnuts.

With all the variations available, I don't see myself getting tired of this versatile, simple dessert in a hurry.

This is my last post from Montenegro, the next one will be back in Serbia. After our experience on the train, we've decided to drive back over the mountains and stop somewhere overnight on the way to Novi Sad, so I'll update you then. In the meantime, please continue with your comments and emails and let anyone who might be interested know about this blog.

Montenegro Part 2

2009-06-17T06:20:00.000-07:00

We are staying in a small town near Kotor, along the shores of the Bay of Kotor. This bay is surrounded by mountains and is not on the open ocean, therefore it is protected from severe weather, making it an ideal stopping point for yachts traveling along the coast. We have seen some amazing boats docked here for a couple of days before moving on with their travels.

Since this area is so driven by tourism, with very little farmland to speak of due to the mountains, the restaurants reflect a more international flavour with the majority offering mainly Italian food like Pizza and Pasta. Among these of course, there are better and worse varieties and the prices are considerably more expensive than in Serbia and the currency here is the Euro. In the pizza/pasta places, the prices are around 8 Euro for a pizza, or about $14 AUD. The first place we went to was along the beach and served frozen seafood on the marinara pizza and the base was quite disappointing. I chose the lasagna and that was fine.

During our walk along the shore we saw a whole group of people gathered around a small boat which was pulled up and had a net hanging over the side. It turns out that these fishermen had netted so many fish that they were unable to load them into the boat, so they brought the net in to shore and were filling up the bottom of the boat with fish. They were alive and jumping around, you can't get much fresher than that!

People were coming down and buying fish right out of the net.

The second night we went to the Old Town which is an ancient stone town built at the base of the cliff leading up to the ruins of the original Kotor, which is about a 1-2 hour walk uphill. No, I didn't go up there. The old town is a maze of very tiny alleyways and tiny shops (some as big as a bedroom) selling brand name clothes, shoes and other fashion items. Interspersed among these are courtyards with cafes and restaurants which you might walk around the town for an hour without ever realising they are there. I walked past a bar which could probably fit no more than about 10 people. There are several larger buildings in the town which are hotels with restaurants and bars and in the larger courtyards there are usually one or two larger restaurants with plenty of outside seating. We chose one of these for our dinner this night.

I had a delicious riblja corba (fish soup) to start and while we were deciding on mains, one of the waiters came around with a tray of raw fish for us to take a look at which they grill and then bring out to fillet at the table. The fish looked very fresh and while we were tempted, I decided on a pizza this day. This was better than the previous night, but not as good as I had in Sremska Mitrovica.

The next day was my mum's birthday, so I booked her in for a massage in one of the hotels in old town. Of course, I needed a massage too, so I booked myself in as well. I also had a restaurant in mind for dinner, which looked very nice and a little bit more fine dining than many of the other we had seen. The massage was very relaxing and well worth doing.

That night we headed to Restoran Galeon for dinner. It's right on the water with a gorgeous view out over the marina and the bay. It definitely looked more styish than the other restaurants we had seen and the prices were almost double, but still not more expensive than a decent restaurant in Melbourne. Main courses were around 20 Euro.

For appetisers, dad and I had Bouillabaise, a french seafood soup with a saffron broth. The plates were brought to the table with just the seafood in the bowl and the waiter poured the broth over the top. This had a fantastic flavour and some very nice seafood in it.

Mum ordered the antipasto plate, which is a good option in this region as they are well know for their prsut (prosciutto). This looked great, and the few tastes that I managed to steal were delicious.

For main course, the waiter brought out their fresh fish of the day and they all looked amazingly fresh and dad really wanted to try one, so we selected the sea bass. This is prepared for two people and priced per kilo so you can select the size that you want. They grill the fish and serve it with three dipping sauces on the side, one a delicious ailoi, one a chopped tomoato and the third was a pesto style sauce.

This fish was delicious. Very moist and well cooked, the sauces were very nice too. The vegetables were a dissapointment however as they were all boiled and uniform in taste and texture.

Mum selected the Grilled Prawns.

I didn't taste this, but since mum finished the lot and she usually doesn't eat more than one or two prawns, I'd say that's a good sign that it was great. The vegetables were as bad as those served with the fish.

Where this restaurant drops the ball in my opinion (apart from the vegetables) is in the dessert selection. They had chocolate selections and an apple crumble, but no local dishes.

Mum chose the dessert sampler which is a selection of three small desserts. This consisted of a chocolate rum-ball, chocolate icecream and a small biscuit-based chocolate cake with walnuts.

Dad chose the Apple Crumble (I would have selected this too, but there was only one serve left). This also had walnuts in it and the only compaint from dad was that it was way too big (but he managed to finish it).

And, even though I'm not a big fan of chocolate desserts, I went for the Chocolate Trilogy (their version of death by chocolate). Don't say I never do anything for all you chocolate-loving readers out there...

This is a dense chocolate tart topped with chocolate icecream and chocolate mousse. It looks very unappetising, but wasn't too bad and I'm sure chocolate fans would enjoy it.

Montenegro Part 1

2009-06-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

Train journeys conjure up romantic images of steam engines puffing through verdant green hillsides and mountains, crossing bridges hundreds of meters high over mighty flowing rivers. This is why we decided to load our car onto a train and experience the 10 hour train journey from Belgrade in Serbia to Bar in Montenegro. This was an overnight journey, so we went for the sleeping carriage so that we could be refreshed and rested when we arrived early the next morning and enjoy the day. I was also imagining those old movies where the people in the sleeping cars come together in the restaurant car to have some nice food and chat the trip away while enjoying the view.

The first part of this process was loading the car onto the train. Before we got on the train, the car was checked for height to make sure it would fit. After the lady checking the car made a face and came up to us saying, "that's a large car, but we'll see how it goes". This didn't fill me with confidence. Nevertheless, when I got to the ramp, the guy that was there said the car should be fine, but to stay in the very center of the path down the carriage or it would damage the roof of the car. I had to drive the car onto the top level of the train and drive down 3 carriages along a very dark track which was about 2 feet wider than the car and about 15 cm taller than the car. All went smoothly and I stopped the car and got out and realised I had to walk back the way I had come, while other cars were coming forward. At one point I had to hang out of the side of the carriage to let a Mercedez get past, but managed to get out safely.

Our carriage was almost at the front of the train, so we headed all the way forward and climbed onto the train. To say that our cabin was cramped would be an understatement. The room was the size of a small bathroom with 2 sets of bunk beds, each barely the width of a towel and a gap between them only large enough for one person to stand between them. Basically if you wanted to be in the cabin, you had to be lying on the bed. I thought this would be ok as I would find the restaurant or bar area and spend most of the trip there when I wasn't sleeping. You can probably guess what happened....there was no restaurant or bar. Not even a kiosk from which to buy water or junk food. The toilets were not pleasant and the first one I went into - not long after the train left - had no paper.

I resigned myself to sleeping through the whole trip, but this proved very difficult. Firstly the beds are so tiny you can't get comfortable and then part of the way into the trip we realised the heating was on. This on a hot summer day and on a train where people sleep in their clothes. We had the door and the window both open and the cabin was still as hot as a sauna. Eventually I got out of bed as I couldn't stand the heat anymore and went and stood in the corridor with my head out the open window and noticed several other people doing the same thing. It turns out that the whole carriage was being heated, not just our room, so I decided to find the conductor and get him to turn it off. After looking everywhere, we couldn't find him and after about 20 minutes a conductor from one of the other cars was walking past and told us that our conductor was asleep in the last cabin and went to wake him up. After complaining to him, he told me the whole train was heated (which I knew wasn't true as I had walked through several cars trying to find him), but eventually went and turned it off. I asked him for some bottled water (which the other conductor had told me he could provide) and he told me he had none, then about 5 minutes later came and brought some to us. The mind boggles. I did manage to grab a few minutes sleep here and there, totaling maybe a few hours. When the sun finally came up, the views were spectacular, steep hills and deep gorges, long tunnels and glistening lakes. If I wasn't so sore and tired I would have enjoyed it more, but it is amazing country.

When we arrived, it was a simple matter of driving the car down the ramp, loading up and onto the road. As we drove along the coast, I began to realise why so many people from all over Europe come here to spend their holidays. The water looks amazing and the mountains seem to rise straight out of the water, with ancient ruins and monastaries and small villages perched in seemingly impossible locations. Walking into our apartment and looking out the windows was a revelation. Our front door is literally 5 meters from the water. Here are the photos.

The view from our kitchen windows:

The view from the balcony:

And finally, the view from my shower....yes, my shower has it's own window.

The Village People

2009-06-12T11:04:00.001-07:00

Once again thanks for the comments and emails, keep them coming!

This update has been a while coming, but there is a reason for it. We have spent the last week in the countryside of Serbia, mainly based in a town called Sremska Mitrovica. Mainly, this time has been spent catching up with family and friends I have never met (or met a very long time ago), but who are very important to my family.

I didn't feel that in depth discussion of each visit would relate to the subject of this blog and I know this would have had very little relevance to many of you. However, it has revealed many things about the hospitality of Serbian Villages and the food and drinks associated with it.

Firstly, some background info. From anecdotal evidence, the unemployment rate in Serbia is currently near 50% and this is reflected in a very big way in regional areas. Driving through the various villages and towns, I noticed a large number of older people and very few young people. There are very few jobs available in these areas and many of the factories that had previously supported the regional economy are now sitting empty and derelict. The pensioners who have lived here most of their lives are surviving on pensions that are roughly in the range of $200 - $300 AUD per month. This may be barely enough to sustain a minimal existence for one person, but often this money is being used to support a household of people due to the lack of jobs.

To supplement their incomes, many of the homes we visited raise animals to support some of their food needs. Almost everyone has at least a handful of chickens to supply eggs and some raise pigs, cows and/or goats either to sell for extra income or to slaughter for food for winter. Also many households have much larger gardens than we are used to in Australia. This is still barely enough to support families that are at or below poverty levels.

One more thing that is very different to the way we know things at home is that many of these villages are made up of farming families. They don't actually have residences on their farms in most cases as their land is spread out in various lots, not all in one place. They head out in the mornings to work their land and come home at night. This means that instead of being spread out like many of our farm families are in Australia, the villages are a concentrated population of people who work the surrounding farmland.

Having said all that, every single house we walked into, we were offered shots of Rakija (often made in that particular family), coffee and food - many times a full meal. As much as we saw how poor these people were, they were also very proud of their home-made foods and would not accept any refusal. I can't say I felt hungry once in the last week.

Sorry for the lack of photos, but I don't feel quite comfortable about taking pictures of people's cooking inside their homes. Some of the highlights were: Rakija (of course) in copious quantities and varieties and many people offered to pack a bottle for us to take home to Australia, Sarma (cabbage rolls filled with rice and meat), Kulen (home made salami), chicken livers and giblets, snails and the cakes.

I did eat out at the local pizzeria and tried the icecreamery and both were sensational. The pizza base was delicious and thin, just the way I like it and the local salamis, hams and bacon really work well. The local specialty seems to be a combination of the above with a topping of sour cream, I recommend it wholehearedly, but don't expect the sizes we have in Australia, the small is easily larger than most of the medium pizzas in Melbourne and the largest size is close to a meter wide! The only note of discord here was that the tomato sauce they use for the pizza is actually Ketchup and they serve their pizza with a side of ketchup to add onto the pizza as you eat. I tried this once to see what it was like, but never again. For anyone coming to the area, the restaurant I sampled was Pizzaeria XL which is in the mall in the centre of town and the beer is great, with local 500ml beers only costing 90 dinars (about $2 AUD). The icecreamery of choice by the locals is called Sport and is in the same area. If you don't understand the name of the flavour, just try it anyway. They won me over when I couldn't make up my mind and the server took a very small amount from each flavour so that each scoop had about 5 or 6 flavours. I have no idea which were my favourites, but as a whole it was great!

Another highlight of this week is that it is right in the middle of cherry picking season. Almost every house we went to had a cherry tree and many had more than one. On a 30 degree day we went out to help one of the farmers harvest cherries from their orchard. This involved a group of about 8 or 10 people loading into a trailer towed by a tractor over land that you wouldn't be able to take a normal car through. With no suspension, this was a fun, but painful journey while hanging on for dear life. When we arrived, most of the group went about picking cherries, while I and a couple of others worked on building a fire to grill the meat we had brought with us. The beer was placed to cool under a nearby flowing spring of cool, fresh, delicious water. After we had built the fire, we placed the grill on top to heat and got cooking. On the menu were cevapi, kobasice, various salads and lots of bread. Not to mention all the cherries you could eat. To drink we had - yes, you guessed it - rakija, beer and fresh water directly from the spring.

There are plenty of green lizards running around and someone did say they spotted a snake, but don't anyone tell my dad, ok? I'm not sure that we were a huge help harvesting cherries as we only spent half the day out there and there were still plenty left on the trees when we left, but it was a fantastic day.

New friendships were made:

And we loaded onto the trailer for the trip back.

Two Restaurants In One Day

2009-06-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

During the dinner party (see previous post) we were discussing the state of restaurants in Belgrade and my impressions so far (I wonder how THAT subject came up). It turns out that my cousin and one of the other guests know a chef who has returned to Belgrade after an extended time working at restaurants in Melbourne and has just recently opened a new restaurant. We made a reservation then and there for the following night and I was really looking forward to see what we would find.

The next day arrived and knowing that we had a restaurant dinner that night I wasn't planning on a big lunch, so my project for the day was to find some great street food. For those of you that don't know, in Australia we have these little take away places everywhere that sell deep fried foods: dim sims, spring rolls, potato croquettes, chips, potato cakes, etc. I have yet to find anything like that here. I have seen grills, which serve serbian hamburgers, cevapcici
(skinnless sausages) and other grilled meats and on this morning I found a place that served freshly made crepes with any number of savoury or sweet fillings. These are quite common and they sell many other baked products and sandwiches. Since it was breakfast, I went for an apricot jam filled crepe. This was delicious and a little messy, served in a triangular shape in a paper bag, just what you want for a walking around snack. If you ever come here, make sure you try these, they are less than $2 AUD and taste great.

Next we caught a bus to an area where there is an island in the middle of the river. I don't mean a small island, this place is huge, with roads, walking tracks and beaches. As it is only very early in the holiday season over here and the weather hasn't been great, there weren't many people around, but I'm told that once the weather starts heating up, this place gets packed with people.

After that we went to the biggest orthodox cathedral in Belgrade, which is still under construction (or repairs), but is a very impressive sight. It is modelled in Haiga Sofia and will amazing to see once it is finished, but that may still be several years away.

I really wanted to do a review of one of the street grills, so on the way back to the apartment, we were looking for one, but with very little luck (there are plenty in town, but they are a little harder to find once you leave the main area). After asking around, we were recommended a restaurant called Lovac (Hunter). We decided to go in and try their food and try to have a small lunch just as a sample. Our waiter was the best I have seen so far in Serbia, he spoke fluent english, was friendly, excited and eager to recommend dishes and even offered combinations that were not on the menu. Choosing the veal soup to start and asking him to come up with a combination platter of some of their main dishes and to include venison (with a name like Hunter I had to try some game, right?) and the Serbian hamburger.

I haven't mentioned this before, but the traditional Serbian appertif is a fruit based brandy or rakia. For this meal the waiter recommended we try the quince brandy and I'm very glad he did. It was fantastic and the fruit flavour really came through, which it doesn't always.

According to many of the Serbians I know from Melbourne and the ones I have met here, a meal is never complete without bread. In fact, my mum was asked to cut the bread for a meal with one of my aunts the other day and was told "You cut bread like an Australian, I can almost see through it!" Bread should be cut thick and there should be plenty of it. The bread that came to our table next was a selection of three types, including white, dark and the traditional flatbread. I didn't try the white, but the others were great.

Soup came next and as it was placed before me I was a little put off by the amount of oil floating on top. When making soups in school we are always taught to skim any fat from the soup during cooking. I wondered about this out loud and my mum told me that it is traditional to thicken certain soups with a roux. This is a common thickening agent made from a combination of fat and flour, often the fat is butter, but oil is another possibility. Also, dried parsley made another appearance, which I think is really disappointing with the fresh stuff so easily available.

Apart from these issues, this was a very flavourful soup and I'm glad we ordered it.

We wanted something a little different from the normal plain garden variety and were recommended one but I forget it's name.

Lightly dressed and with a good selection of vegetables, this was a great salad. The radishes go really well with fattier or richer meat dishes and that's exactly what came to the table next.

Roast Lamb and scalloped potatoes. Plus the rest.

Clockwise from the top: More potatoes, Venison, a very large pljeskavica (hamburger) cut in three pieces and ten cevapcici.

The potatoes where tender and delicious, the lamb falling off the bone tender and very nice. The venison was disappointingly dry, but had a very powerful smoky flavour which I liked. The hamburger was my favourite, juicy and smoky with plenty of garlic this was the example of what this dish can really be. The cevapcici were good too, but tasted a little plain next to the hamburger.

I probably don't need to say this, but there was no way we could finish all this and the waiter was happy to pack the rest for us to take with us. They also offer a take away service.

Overall, this was a great lunch, but what really made the meal was the waiter and it wasn't just us he was this good with. We saw him serving several other tables and they all had as good a time as we did, regardless of their age. The prices were reasonable by Australian standards, roughly $35 AUD per person inclusive of drinks, but expensive in relation to other local prices. I would definitely recommend it. The main problem was that we were so full and still had dinner to look forward to.

That night we went down by the river to an area very similar to Melbourne's docklands, old warehouses along the water, many of which have been turned into trendy shops and restaurants. As we came to Iguana, I knew we would be in for a treat. The decore is very classy and modern with a well stocked bar and impressive wine list. The food is heavily asian, with Malaysian and Thai dishes making several appearances. In general there is quite a bit of seafood on the menu and most dishes look quite light. It is also worth noting that the menu is written in both English and Serbian. We were seated on a table adjacent to the stage on which a live jazz band was playing most of the night, but I never felt the music was intrusive. When we arrived the tables were only half full, but not long after we were seated the restaurant was full with people sitting at the bar and waiting for seats. Obviously this is not a secret and the locals are enjoying it already.

As I was still working on building an appetite after lunch, I wanted to eat something light. As my appetiser I chose the Calamari with Shitake Mushrooms.

This was a little larger than I expected for an appetiser, but after seeing the sizes of servings at other local restaurants, I can understand why. The flavours here were very well balanced, the calamari cooked perfectly and with just the right amount of heat. You can't see them in the photo, but this also as a bed of noodles underneath. I didn't feel like this added anything to the dish and personally would have left them out.

Since this was larger than expected, I chose to go for the Duck Salad as my main course.

Another great dish and I was really happy to see someone using the beautiful lettuces that are available at the moment. My one complaint about this dish is that it was a bit too bitter for my taste, most of these lettuces having a strong bitter flavour, I would have replaced the orange slices with a slightly sweetened orange sauce to contrast and bring this more into balance. The duck was cooked perfectly, tender and still red as it should be.

I still had a little room for dessert and even though I had been recommended the Sticky Date Pudding, I chose the daily special Cheesecake.

The base of this cheesecake was particularly nice, with the filling being light and delicious I finished the lot.

The owner also made an appearance during our meal and he spent some time at each table making sure each guest was having a good time. It really added a personal touch and we got to talk to him a little about his experiences in Melbourne and of his work in Serbia. This was an excellent way to spend our last night in Belgrade and I highly recommend it to anyone who is thinking about coming to this city. The prices are quite reasonable, being comparable to most of our cafe prices in Melbourne.

Well, that's it from Belgrade for now, I'm not sure if we'll be spending any more time here before we leave the country, but I've had a fantastic time here and hope the rest of my trip is as good. For now it's on to Sremska Mitrovica, a country town about and hour or so drive from Belgrade.

Thanks to those who have left comments on this blog so far, I really appreciate knowing who is reading and what they think. Keep it up and let me know you're out there!

Trufflicious

2009-06-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you are offered a chance to use a product that you rarely get to work with? In my case I was asked if I wanted to cook for a dinner party using truffles. Of course I said yes and honestly any chance to cook with the produce I had seen at the market in the last few days would have been great, but the truffles were an added bonus.

What do I know about truffles? Not a huge amount. They are a fungus that grows under oak trees, have a strong earthy taste and are usually used in very small quantities (just a few grams per serve). Traditionally they were hunted with pigs who are specially trained to be able to smell them underground, but dogs are used quite a bit now and gave the benefit of not eating the truffles like the pigs sometimes do.

My first thoughts were to do something that really showed off the truffles and something I knew how to do reasonably well. I narrowed it down to pasta or risotto.

Next I had to think about what other ingredients would support the truffles without overpowering them. I decided on bacon as part of the risotto flavour base and pan-seared duck breast which would be sliced and just a few slices used to top each dish – something rich and flavourful to match the earthy taste of the fungus.

I also decided to do a risotto and that I would not prepare a dessert, but would make an appetiser. Thinking back to the market I remembered that there were some great looking zucchini available and decided on an antipasto recipe from Gordon Ramsay, cheese-filled zucchini rolls with pine nuts and basil.

Shopping list in hand, we headed off to the market and my first mission was to find two cheeses, parmesan (for the risotto) and ricotta (for the zucchini rolls). After our third delicatessen we found some Grano Padano parmesan cheese, but ricotta proved impossible so we found a local fresh cheese with a very similar texture and flavour. One thing we couldn’t find was pre-made stock, so I opted for powdered chicken stock rather than making it from scratch (don’t tell anyone though, it’s our little secret).

The next hurdle was the duck; there was none at the market at all. There had definitely been some on our last trip, but they were all out this time. I quickly tried to think of a replacement ingredient, but decided to go with just the bacon risotto instead until we stumbled across these:

Absolutely amazing! Fresh Chanterelle mushrooms! I don’t even know if we can get these in Australia, but I’ve seen them on TV and love their colour. There were also fresh Porcchini and other mushrooms I had never seen before. I bought some of the chanterelles and the main ingredients of the night were complete. Finishing off the shopping trip, we grabbed the rest of the ingredients: Some amazing fresh garlic, onions, thyme, basil, parsley, zucchinis, pine nuts, short grain rice, and lemons.

Let’s move on to the dinner. The first thing I prepared was the zucchini rolls, follow this link to Gordon Ramsay's recipe.

It is important to note that I had several eager (and not-so eager) helpers and my thanks go out to them, it made the whole night go much smoother.

For the risotto, I brought approximately two liters of stock to the boil and turned the heat down to low to keep the stock hot. While this was happening the chanterelles, herbs, garlic, onions and bacon were being chopped.

In a hot pan, I sauteed the chanterrelles in butter with thyme leaves, salt and pepper. The next thing I did was get the bacon into another pot with a little butter and olive oil. I like to leave the bacon in slightly larger pieces because it tends to shrink quite a bit as the fat renders. After the bacon was nice and brown and the kitchen got that amazing fried bacon smell, I added the dices onions and garlic and let them sweat for a while.

Once the onions were nice and soft, I added approximately 2 cups of the rice and stirred until the grains started to become transparent. At this point, I added a cup of dry white wine and let the rice absorb it, stirring all the time. Next I began adding the stock a ladle or two at a time and stirring until the liquid is absorbed.

I added the chanterelles for the last few minutes before the rice was done. Once the risotto was nice and creamy with just a little bite left in the rice, I turned off the heat and added the thinly sliced truffle.

One was enough for six people, so I didn't use both. Once the truffles had time to heat through, I added the grated Parmesan and chopped parsley. Here is the final product.

The result, even if I do say so myself was delicious and if the feedback from the guests was any indication, this was a definite success. If you'd like to try this but don't have access to truffles or chanterelles, you can substitute other mushrooms and I would suggest trying two or three different types.

Next update will be two more Belgrade restaurant reviews, stay tuned to see if they were better than the last one.

Mmmmmm...Bacon!

2009-06-02T03:51:00.001-07:00

Well I felt bad that I didn't take any photos of breakfast the other day so we went for a cooked breakfast again this morning. My mum went for the bacon (mmmm...bacon) and eggs, dad went for the omelet again and I went for something a little different, deep fried savoury crepes. The thing that stood out the most was the lepinje (Serbian flatbread) which tasted amazing. This was probably due to the fact that we were having breakfast in a pizza restaurant and they baked the bread in the pizza oven. Delicious. You can see it in the top left corner of the plate in the picture below.

The bacon and eggs (apart from being a little brown around the edges) looked great and I stole a bit of bacon to prove to myself how good it was...:) The yolks were nice a runny and the white was nicely set.

The crepes were a little overdone and took about two bites to get to the filling which was ham and cheese. This was a nice flavour, but as you can see from the picture below, the presentation leaves a little to be desired.

That green stuff over the plate is not even fresh parsley, but dried. Again vegetables seem to be thrown on the plate as an afterthought which is becoming a bit of a theme in these meals. If I was serving this, I would slice them open on an angle and serve them with one half overlapping the other so it was almost standing off the plate and the customer could see what was inside.

I haven't really mentioned much about the weather yet, but since I arrived it hasn't really been much above the low 20s and last night we had a steady drizzle, so we decided to stay in the apartment and make dinner from the things we bought at the market. Also it doesn't hurt that there is a wine shop only two doors away that sells a great range of Serbian and other european wines.

During the day today, I got an invitation to go to my cousins house a cook with some truffels she has, but hasn't had a chance to use. There's no way I'm passing up that oportunity, so next post will be about what we cook. I can give you a quick sneak preview though and say that I just came back from another trip to the market and found some things I never thought I'd see. Check it out tomorrow.

Are Three Hats Better Than One?

2009-06-01T06:12:00.000-07:00

After sleeping through my first evening in Belgrade, I was conscious of my dwindling remaining nights in this city. I needed to see what a restaurant dinner was like here. especially after seeing the availability of great produce earlier in the day, I was eager to see how that translated onto the menu and ultimately the plate. Now I'd like to apologise at the start for the quality of photos in this post, I'm still working out the settings on my camera and I'm trying to avoid using a flash so as not to annoy other diners.

Was it a revelation? A life and perception altering experience? You'll have to keep reading to find out. Don't scroll down to find out because I'm watching!

We decided on the restaurant Tri Sesira (Three Hats) as it is in an area full of restaurants that is usually buzzing with people and each restaurant has a live band that wanders from table to table playing traditional local music. What better way to immerse ourselves in the culture?

The weather was a little on the chilly side, but in true Melbournian style, we opted to sit outside and experience the atmosphere of the area. We had arrived a little early for our 8pm reservation, but there was only one other table with people on it outside and perhaps half the tables inside were full.

Starting off with a shot of Zuta Osa (Yellow Wasp) which is a brand of plum brandy, the waiter suggested a cold appetiser to share consisting of some smoked meats and cheese. How could we say no after the fantastic smoked meats we had seen at the market earlier?

The prociutto was quite nice and the fetta a little too salty for my taste, but overall this was a reasonably good dish to go with our drinks.

The menu was extremely meat-centric (as I expected) but I was disappointed to see very little reflection of the gorgeous seasonal produce we had seen and experienced earlier in the day.

For main course we opted for a selection of mixed meat platters and (because I have to try something a little different) a serve of Gigerice (chicken livers). As a salad I ordered the roasted capsicum.

The salads came first, which smelled amazing and you can see in the photo below how much garlic was used for the dressing.

One disappointing aspect of this dish was that is wasn't cleaned. Normally roasted capsicum would be served with the skin, stem and seeds removed so that the diner just enjoys eating the dish without having to clean around the stem and work their way through the skin. The taste was very nice and perhaps a little more roasting would have brought out more of the sweetness of the paprika and I would probably use less garlic as it was a bit overpowering.

Next came the main course, lots and lots of meat.

There was cevapcici, chicken breast, pork cutlet, shashlik, steak and the livers (wrapped in BACON!). On the side were chips and raw white onion without dressing. Since this is what Serbian cuisine is known for, I was expecting the meat to be delicious and juicy and while I know that Serbs don't usually use spices or sauces in a big way to flavour their meat I was hoping that the natural taste of the produce would stand out.

Unfortunately I was disappointed on almost all counts. By far the best part of the meal so far was the roasted capsicum. The meat was almost universally overcooked, dry and very hard to eat. As far as the meat went, the cevapcici were the juiciest on the plate but couldn't even hold a candle to the ones we get in Melbourne even from the supermarket. The livers were by far the most flavoured thanks in large part to the bacon and were possibly the only item that wasn't completely overcooked. The onion was far too strong to eat and seemed to only have been put on the plate as an afterthought or garnish or just to fill up the empty space.

After the morning at the market and seeing what is available as far as produce goes, I find it very difficult to reconcile in my mind such a sad example of the local cuisine.

Well, putting the main course aside, I hoped that dessert would be able to make up for it at least in some small part. Trying to go for something that was traditional and that would hopefully be something that would be common and hard for them to mess up, I selected crepes with walnuts (something I remember my grandmother making when I was a child). Also the menu suggested that these were then cooked in milk, something a little different but similar ot another dish common to my grandmother's kitchen. Unfortunately I was told this was not available at this time, but having decided on crepes I chose another dish with an interesting description. The one line menu item seemed to be saying that the crepes were served in a zabaglione-type sauce made with wine. This is a sauce made with eggs and sugar and is usually quite sweet and fluffy (very rich and decadent) but I didn't know how the addition of wine would affect it, thinking that perhaps they used a sweet or fortified wine.

Technically, the sauce was smooth, velvety and rich, but the wine they had used had a particularly high acidic taste and could almost be described as sour. I really didn't like this flavour combination and felt it really took a lot away from what, otherwiseW, was a really nice dessert. The crepes were great, the walnuts were a nice textural contrast to the smooth crepes and silken sauce and really held their own, but that wine flavour was just too distracting.

Another distracting thing I thought deserved a mention was the band. There were five of them and they were playing and singing at the top of their lungs and making it impossible to talk to other people at the table. It was ok when they were in another room or at a reasonable distance, but the pair of guys at the table next to us were well and truly into their rakia (perhaps a bottle each) and were tipping the band and signing along.

Overall I felt a little betrayed by this meal. Not necessarily on my own behalf, although I feel I was promised a lot more than was delivered, but I felt betrayed on behalf of the hard-working people I had spent the morning with in the market. People who were proud of their produce and were eager to have people try what they had to offer. I say this because most tourists would experience their first taste of Serbian produce from a restaurant like this one and most would never get a chance to see what is really available to these restaurants as far as raw materials go.

I had to take a step back and reassess how I was judging this meal. Was I being too harsh and judging them unfairly by standards I have become accustomed to in Australia? Sometimes I tend to do that, but I also don't want to make excuses and begin saying things like "This was a pretty good meal.....by Serbian standards" or "As far as Serbian food goes...". I had to know if I was the only one that felt this way, but after asking my parents - who have been to Serbia many times and have eaten at this restaurant previously - their response was similar to mine. They said that this was worse than an meal they have eaten at that restaurant before and perhaps the worst they had eaten at any restaurant in Serbia.

Maybe this is a one-off thing and I guess it would be good to get a bad experience out of the way first and move on to better ones as the days go by, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't starting to become concerned about what I would find.

Stay tuned.

This Little Piggy Went To Market

2009-05-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite things to do even at home is to visit the market, but even more so in a new town or country. Today was no exception.

I've been looking forward to see what the Belgrade markets have to offer and knowing that most of the stall holders are the farmers themselves only makes it more exciting to see what they have. To say that the produce is amazing is an understatement, but lets start with breakfast. After the cooked breakfast from yesterday, we decided on a traditional Serbian breakfast of baked goods.

I wanted to try everything here, it smelled and looked so good, so I had to drag myself away and left the ordering to my mum and went across the road to grab some Kiselo Mleko (literally Sour Milk) which is the same thing that we call yoghurt, but what they call yoghurt here is what we call buttermilk. Anyway, here is what breakfast for three looked like this morning.

As you can see, while many of these things look a similar colour, the flavours are very different. The mini-pizzas on the right had a very thin slice of proscuitto, some shredded mushrooms and cheese on a base of puff pastry (nice enough, but not outstanding). The darker rolls on the left were fairly plain with a flavour I couldn't quite identify, probably some sugar based coating brushed onto the loaves before baking like molasses which gives them that beautiful brown colour. In the front left is something called a Pogacica (similar to a scone, but made with lard so it has a strong savoury flavour. This is what we had the yoghurt with and while very nice, I have had better ones made by my grandmother). To the right is a cheese filled burek which was the absolute highlight for me, these were flaky and delicious, with the cheese filling being crumbly and slightly salty. Lastly for a little sweet finish, at the very back and small scones filled with jam, which you have to be a little careful with or the jam may spurt out all over you.

On to the market.

The first stall we encountered sold some dried cranberries which were delicious so we bought some of these to keep in the apartment as a snack (I'm muching on them as I write this). We walked to one end of the market which was where the cheese stalls were set up inside a building.

One thing I noticed immediately is that the cheeses at this market (and that the Serbs usually eat) is very fresh and very plain. There are no mold cheeses or smoked cheeses. They have cheese made from cow's milk and sheep's milk and a product called kajmak which is basically the cream skimmed from the top of milk and turned into a cream cheese which you can buy mild or aged. The other main cheese is a delicate, smooth, mild cheese similar to fresh mozarella. The thing that struck me the most about these stall holders is how proud they all are of their product. Every single stall we walked past, we were offered tastes of almost everything in the stall with the stall owner wanting to tell us all about his cheese and how it had been produced.

Behind the cheese area we found heaven.

I mean the smoked meat area. Now we're not talking about champagne ham or ham on the bone here, or "chicken" lunch meats. We're talking about home made sausages, cabanas and BACON. Bacon with so much flavour you can see it.

Wow. I wanted to bottle the smell in this place and use it to spray around my guests at dinner parties to generate an appetite. So, after spending surprisingly little in this room, we moved out into the fresh produce area.
It is just the beginning of summer here and you can tell by all the amazing berries and stone fruits that were on offer at the market stalls. There were fresh raspberries, strawberries, cherries, even red currants, which I haven't had since I was a kid. This tiny, round, smooth-skinned berries explode with flavour when you bite into them and have an amazing taste that wakes your tastebids up. Most of these berries were around 200 dinars per punnet (or about $AUD4). The most amazing of the berries was the strawberries...these things were bigger than golfballs and smelled absolutely fantastic. We bought a bunch of these to take home too.

The colours and smells from all the stalls were amazing, and I could wander for days just sampling a little here and a little there.
I had a preconception (as much as I try to avoid them) that Serbs, while very good with meat, didn't really have an appreciation for good, fresh fruits and vegetables. I am happy to say that this is not the case, as everywhere I went, I saw amazing variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs and fresher and better looking than those you would find in our larger markets back home. I guess this is due to the fact that there is no wholesale market in Belgrade, these stalls are all run by the farmers themselves and while we have farmer's markets back home, they are often hard to get to or only open once a month.
By the time we left the market we needed a coffee, so we stopped at a cafe just outside the market and started thinking about how we were going to go back to our apartment and prepare some of the fresh ingredients we had purchased. We got up and started to walk home, when my Dad wondered off and came back very excited, telling us to forget eating what we had bought, he had found what we had to have for lunch. We followed him to a shop called a Pecenjara (or Roasting House) which was a tiny little shop that just sells roast meat. You probably have an image in your head of a nice piece of roast beef or pork from which slices are carved for sandwiches, but what I mean is this:

Yes, that's a whole piglet and a whole lamb. You simply tell the owner how much you want and he cuts it off the whole carcass with a huge guillotine. I thought the smell of the smoked meats was the best I would find all day, but I was wrong. So wrong! We asked the owner how many he goes through in a week and he said about 50-60 whole animals. I can see why.
So we bought a slab of each and took it back with us for lunch and while I expected the pork to be good (and it was), the lamb was absolutely sensational, tender and juicy and delicious.
What a day!

Good Morning Belgrade

2009-05-31T04:56:00.000-07:00

Waking up at 6:45 am was a bit of a surprise, but I wasn't too tired, so I got up and started thinking about breakfast. My parents (who I am sharing the Serbia/Montenegro stage of my trip with) were also up and we put it down to jetlag and decided to go for a walk into the city and find somewhere for breakfast.

Our apartment is close enough to the town center of Old Belgrade to walk there within 10 minutes, so it was a great way to check out the local area as well as the town. There were bakeries and little cafes everywhere, but I wanted a hot cooked breakfast of eggs and bacon, so we kept moving. Eventually we found a nice restaurant in town called Biblioteka (Library). After realising that people were smoking, we asked if there was a non-smoking area and were told that it was upstairs. Now this sounds fine until you realise that upstairs is not closed off and is directly above the smokers, but it wasn't too bad as we sat down and took a look at the menu.

Now if I was expecting Eggs Benedict or Florentine, I had to readjust my expectations. Poached eggs were not on the menu anywhere, only scrambled of fried. There was an omelet also, but I quickly found something that grabbed my attention: Bibloteka Dorucak (Library Breakfast) which was their version of a big breakfast. This consisted of a fried egg, vienna sausage, ham, cheese, fried potato chips, tomato chutney and mustard. Now I have to apologise for not taking any photos but I was hungry and didn't think to grab the camera before I was already well into it. My mum ordered the bacon and eggs, which was 3 fried eggs with bacon, dad ordered the omelet. Both came with the potato chips and sauces. This wasn't the best breakfast I've ever had, but it was very nice. The ham and cheese both seemed a little flat and after tasting the bacon, I would have gladly substituted the ham and cheese and had bacon instead. We all had juices and coffees. The total if this meal was about 1650 dinars for three of us, about $AUD33. At these prices, I'm gonna love this town.

Deciding to do some more walking to compensate to some extent for breakfast, we continued our walk through the old city and headed for the fort in Belgrade, Kalemegdan.

This is a huge sprawling fort set on a very high hill in Belgrade, overlooking the meeting of the Danube and Sava Rivers.

The views from here are spectacular and it is surrounded by parks and gardens full of people from teens to senior citizens. Some just enjoying the view and the day and others gathered around chess boards, playing and chatting away.

Walking back through town we saw some poets from all over Europe sharing poems about Belgrade and their impressions in several different languages. We would have stayed and listened to this longer if we weren't already fairly tired and we also had to head over to my cousin's place for a late lunch at about 3pm.

Now I don't think I've walked this much in a long time and I was very tired when we got back to the apartment, but we soon headed out for lunch and had a great afternoon with several members of my dad's side of the family and got home around 7pm. Being as tired as I was, I decided to take a nap before figuring out what to do for the rest of Saturday night. I'm sure you can guess what's coming, but I didn't get out of bed until about 11 hours later.

Let's put it down to jet lag and see if we can make up for it today (Sunday).

This is not the way home.

2009-05-31T04:27:00.000-07:00

So much has happened over the last few days, but I'm going to try to pare it down to the salient points...yeah right. First stop was Abu Dhabi International Airport.

Arriving into Abu Dhabi at 6:30am after a 14 hour flight with a layover of about 6 hours ahead of me was not the most exciting prospect of my trip I can tell you. The outside temperature at that time of the morning was already 28 C. The airport was very clean and modern and all of the staff spoke English. The tiolets were or a familiar layout with an addition I have never seen before - inside each cubicle, next to the toilet was a hose with a trigger nozzle attachment. I had no idea what these were used for, but guessed it may have something to do with washing the feet. How wrong I was. It turns out that this hose is used for the same purpose a bidee is used in French toilets. Also there was an attendant in each toilet who would immediately go in after a parton left to clean up, from what I saw there were often very large puddles of water in the cubicles after someone left. That is definitely not a job I'd ever want to be doing.

After a mix up with our gate number for departure meant that we had to walk all the way from one end of the terminal to the other, I departed Abu Dhabi on my way to Frankfurt.

I'd like to make a brief side note here to say that even after several negative reviews about Etihad Airways that I have read on the net, I was quite happy with the service and flights that I have been on so far. The attendants are perhaps not as attentive as they could be, but the entertainment system is quite extensive and on-demand, meaning you can pause, rewind, etc Movies or TV shows and the selection is quite broad.

Arriving in Frankfurt airport, I was glad to see that this was also a clean, modern airport and was directed to catch the train to terminal 1 (all this without going out through customs!). Let me say that terminal 1 in Frankfurt airport is like Footscray or Sunshine Train Station. You could easily imagine a zombie movie being filmed in the dingy, spooky looking area where my departure gate was located - by far one of the most depressing areas in an airport I have yet seen. Needless to say, I didn't want to hang around that area for my 3 hour layover so I went upstairs and sat in McDonalds for a bit. Now I'm not sure I want my first meal review on this blog to be about McDonalds, but I have to say I had a very good burger here. It was some kind of special burger called a Beef Ciabatta or something similar, but it had red onions and at least 2 different types of lettuce and tasted really good. They may not be using 100% Australian beef, but I was very pleasantly surprised.

So after getting on the Lufthansa flight for the final leg of my outbound journey, I was very glad this was only a short flight (less than 2 hours). This plane was small and reminded me of a budget airline with no entertainment system at all. I'm glad I had my iPod. Arriving at Belgrade airport was less of a shock than it would have been had I not stopped in Frankfurt and was kind of on par with what I would expect from an eastern european airport, but with less security. Not very modern or particularly clean, it's not horrible either and from what I could see, customs consisted of a single guard who let the majority of people past with barely a glance.

We had previously arranged for a driver and car to pick me up at the airport and he was waiting right near the door from the international area with a card with my name on it. We did this because apparently Serbia has quite a few fake taxis which will rip tourists of as much as they can. The driver was very friendly - and drove me directly to our apartment and I payed him the pre-arranged price of 15 Euro (about $AUD30). This was about 12:30am. After making my way up to the 6th floor in an elevator no larger than your average fridge, I was finally in my home for the next 6 or so days. Quickly checking the view from the blacony and having a quick tour of the rooms, I was very happy with the accomodation and immeditely decided I needed to try out the bed with every expectation of a long sleep in on Saturday morning.

New Blog

2009-05-27T05:16:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first installment of the Voracious Grazer! I've been meaning - like most of you out there I'd guess - to start a blog for a long time now. I'm traditionally a procrastinator and would have left this until much later on in my life (probably never) if I gave myself half a chance. There are hundreds of reasons why I should not start a blog today: The name doesn't sound quite right, It will take too much of my time, etc.

BUT....I'm going to do it anyway. I might not tell anyone about it, or I may never make a second post, but I've started it and surely that is the hardest part? Right?

The purpose of this blog is primarily to share my thoughts, experiences and travels with whoever wants to listen (or no one as is more likely). I'm starting it on the eve of my first trip to Europe and one that I hope will be full of great experiences and meals to remember.

The plan is still a little sketchy, but that's the way I like to travel, no planning and just let things happen. I'll be starting off in Serbia, which is where my family comes from and seeing where my parents grew up. From there I would like to head over to Italy, then through France, Spain and Portugal. Now while I don't plan to lock myself in too rigidly to specific destinations and timelines, if anyone out there has some feedback or a list of places not to miss, please post a comment and let me know.

I don't want this first post to stretch on too long, and I'm not sure what internet access will be like in Serbia, but I'll try to post something in the first few days of my arrival.