The good, the bad and the unknown (part 2).

Turkey
We spent a lot of time looking forward to the food in Spain, so we were somewhat caught off guard at how much we loved the food in Turkey. Much like Istanbul is now one of our favorite cities, Turkish food is one of our favorite cuisines.

Our favorite place was a little fish restaurant just down the street from where we were staying, that had really fantastic appetizers. They would bring out a tray of small dishes and you would just pick and choose whatever looked good. Big winners were green olives wrapped with sardines (tastes way better than they sound), yogurt with garlic and dill, and mussels marinated with some peppers in oil.

Turkey was the first time I was fussed at for not cleaning my plate. Several times waiters took great offense that I was not eating everything and simply refused to believe that I was full and assumed that I must not have liked it. More than once this ended up with complementary tea being served (to make up for what they thought must have been lacking). The funny thing is, I loved the food, but hated the tea. And I had to drink the tea so they wouldn’t be even more offended.

Another place we went a couple of times had vegetables (peppers, eggplants, leeks) stuffed with a dolma mixture, and really great hummus and baba ganoush.

We did also take a cooking class in Istanbul and we recreated some of the dishes for a “photo party” we had over the summer. The lentil soup was a big hit, and I want to try the stuffed figs soon.

I could go on and on about the food in Turkey.

Croatia
Croatia was all about sausage and seafood. Zagreb’s German and Eastern European influence was evident in the food with lots of heavy sausages and meat. We found a really good pizza place which brewed a couple of tasty beers. We also went to one of the old classic restaurants in Zagreb where a rather imposing waitress again chastised me for not finishing all the food. Again, it was good, but they served me a casserole the size of my head—just way too much.

Being on the coast, the seafood in Dubrovnik was spectacular. We feasted on fresh oysters, grilled squid and mussels nearly every day, and I made it a point to always order the octopus salad for comparison purposes.

Spain
While I loved the restaurants in Spain, I think I loved the markets more. It was a killer to stroll through them and not have a kitchen to cook in! Of course, that changed when we got to Salobrena and had an entire house for a week.

The tapas throughout Spain were simply brilliant. The best places were when you could find a little bar, have a beer and they would bring you a small plate of food—sometimes cheese and bread, or it could be paella or shrimp. And at our favorite places, it would be something different each time you ordered a beer. Heaven.

My favorite tapas were the peppers, which I’ve managed to recreate at home, and the Marcona almonds—both of which are very salty and savory. Oh, and the jamon Serrano or Iberico, which was a big cured ham leg from which they would shave very thin slices to order.

One of the most memorable meals was in a very small town called Ecija (pronounced E-thee-a). We had spent the early part of the evening at a great dive bar watching bullfighting and soccer with the locals on the plaza. (Quick aside: this bar was just across a one lane street from a church where a wedding was taking place—and it was full of the men grabbing a drink before being hunted down and pulled back inside for the ceremony.)

Around 10 p.m., which is the beginning of dinner service in Spain, we wandered through an alley and peeked inside a doorway we had seen earlier. It was this charming outdoor restaurant that specialized in Spanish style beef—we weren’t really sure what we were ordering, but just took the recommendations of the waiter. It was excellent, and a lovely place to spend the rest of the evening.

But I have point out that in Madrid I had the worst thing I had eaten since the shrimp in Beijing. We stopped at a tapas bar after spending the day in the park. The menu was Spanish and English, but still had one thing that baffled me—elvers on toast. Ever adventurous when it comes to food I threw caution to the wind and ordered it. Looked like cooked spaghetti on toast, but with some bluish coloring in places, and tasted a bit like it, too, but icky. I ate what I could stomach, but didn’t finish it. It wasn’t until I got home that I found out that elvers are baby eels. That explains it.

Dublin
We had some lovely meals in Dublin, but I think our favorite thing was the full Irish breakfast with eggs, black pudding, tomatoes…the way a breakfast should be!

6 Months Later…
Since we’ve been back there are a few things we make to remind us of the travels—the lentil soup and Turkish appetizers are some of our favorites still. But it’s only been this week that I’ve wanted to eat Chinese food again!