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!

The good, the bad and the unknown.

NOTE: this is the first of two parts on some of the culinary adventures we had on the world tour.

We been back for months now, and are still processing some of the trip. In some ways it seems like it never happened!

This post is something we’ve been meaning to do for a while—it’s all about the food. The good, the bad and the unknown.

China
I won’t go into detail about the place at the end of our hutong or the Peking duck, as we covered those in our earlier posts. But a couple of other dining experiences in Beijing were worth noting as well.

After our first overpriced hotel breakfast Tom started picking up breakfast for us at a bun shop just around the corner. For about a dollar, we could get these two stuffed rolls that would carry us through the day. Not sure exactly what they were stuffed with, but pork and green onions seem like the most likely thing. Just a small example of how kind everyone we met was, the second time Tom went there was during the morning rush with everyone pushing their way to the table set up outside the shop. After waiting patiently while 5 or 6 other folks elbowed their way to the front (the Chinese don’t believe in queuing up in a line) the old woman took pity on him as he obviously didn’t know the drill. She barely glanced up at him (towering over everyone else) handed him two bun took his money and went back to the crowd. We loved taking breakfast to the park around the corner and listening to the caged birds.

The other Beijing food experiences—well, it was the best of food and it was the worst of food. Can’t remember the name of the restaurant, and as we got in the habit of, we ordered a number of dishes on the likely chance that there would be at least one we couldn’t eat. One was a really fantastic beef—crispy, salty, just wonderful. Another was shrimp over crispy tea leaves. The flavor was great, but they were cooked whole—head, shell and tails. While the heads came off fine you couldn’t really take off the shell which proved to be a problem. Tom was only able to eat a couple, and I was determined to eat at least most of what was on the plate but had to give up after 5 or 6—just thinking about the texture still makes my stomach turn a bit.

On to Xian, where Tom was determined to find “hot pot.” We would ask (showing the symbol for it) but everyone would point to one particular restaurant that was outrageously expensive, even by American standards. So we still are not even sure what it is. But as a result we did get some really fantastic soups and meals. But the best story is less about the food and more about the folks. After trying to find the fabled hot pot one afternoon, we finally gave up around 2:30 pm—which is an odd time for lunch as it turns out many restaurants close up at 3 for a break before dinner service. Anyway, we stopped in a place that looked nice, but was deserted. The staff was eating and watching Chinese soap operas, but they sure weren’t going to pass up on customers.

This may have been the only place in China where they didn’t have pictures on the menu. This was a problem.

None of the waitresses wanted to talk to us (or rather gesture with us), so they sent over what seemed like a busboy who knew how to say “hello.” That, unfortunately but not unexpectedly, is where his English ended. The menu was really just an order form and we had no idea where to begin. Tom pulled out the “point in any language” book, and we started pointing to the order form and to the pictures. He got the idea and started showing us what to order: beef, cabbage, broccoli. We were still guessing on the preparation, but settled back with a couple of beers and waited.

After a bit, a waiter came out with an interesting contraption that was quite hot. He sat it on the table and filled part of the top and the bottom with water and some herbs. A few minutes later, there were platters of raw food brought out, and again, they took pity on the clueless tourists, showing us how to drop the beef and vegetables in the hot water until they cooked, and then dousing them in different sauces. The waiter sat about 8 feet away and when he would see us doing something silly (like putting the pickled garlic in the hot water), he’d jump up and come show us what to do. All in all, it was an adventure in dining. And not our last. (Further research has shown that this, indeed, was "hot pot."

Guilin, Yangshuo and Guangzshou were relatively simple (avoiding the dog on the menu) and we generally stuck with “farmer food” (as they called Chinese food) as opposed to Western meals, though we did become fond of the full English and Spanish breakfasts at the Li River Retreat to set us up for the day. And the ramen-style noodle bowls we bought for the train trip were really good as well, though in retrospect, I think we were just really hungry when we ate them. If nothing else, it was fun when we bought them at the shop in the train station where we went through another round of photo ops…and waiting in the queue on the train to fill them with hot water (each coach had it’s own hot water supply for this very purpose)!

Kenya
Much like everything else about Kenya, our dining experiences were very isolated. It was lovely food, but none of it really Kenyan. Except the coffee—and that was amazing. Early morning (5 am) wake up calls were much easier to take when there was a quiet knock and rustling as fresh Kenyan coffee was left in our tent.

There were some interesting juxtapositions with wonderful gourmet 5 course meals in the middle of nowhere. Joy’s Camp in particular was serving food worthy of any fine dining restaurant.

One of the things we enjoyed about being on safari was that we had a chance to meet fellow travelers, usually over dinner. Two of our most memorable days included a riverside breakfast after a morning hike, and of course, the surprise bush dinner we wrote about earlier.

St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, July 2, 2010

And so, this will be our last blog post from the road, which we write from a shady bench in the park in Dublin.

We spent our last day in Spain wandering through Retiro, the big park in the center of Madrid, playing cards and stopping for the occasional beer. There was a Metro strike going on, which cost us a few extra Euros to take a cab to the park. The day was really spent anticipating the World Cup showdown between Spain and Portagal—the Spanish love their team, so we figured it would be a hoot to watch it with a crowd of enthused fans. Was it ever…

The hotel we were staying in had a nice lobby bar, and we considered watching it there. But they also had some sort of business gathering at the hotel, and had set up the area for a big sit-down dinner, positioning their big screen TV in such a fashion that no one else could see it except those dining. Bummer.

But, true to form, we had located a small dive bar, the Cervesaria (love the name), just around the corner and decided to check it out. It was, of course, packed with folks watching the game. Fortunately, Spain trounced Portugal and so everyone was in a great mood. Soon, we were high-fiving people at each score. One woman we met taught us their fight song, something about “go boys, go boys, go go go boys.” Victory turned everything up a notch, with dancing and kissing and drinking (lots). Soon, we were in the middle of a full-blown party, and the Spaniards had taken us in as one of their own. By the time we left, Robin was draped in a Spanish flag and I had lipstick all over me. A fine end to our Spanish vacation.

The flight from Madrid to Dublin was a bit nightmarish, as it seems that all of the Spaniards pawn their teenagers off to other countries for the summer. As a result there were at least two large tour groups of very excited kids—we felt bad for the flight attendants who couldn’t even get them to sit down.

Dublin is having beautiful weather, though they are saying that it is quite warm (about 72 degrees F.). Yesterday we saw the Book of Kells and took one of the jump on/jump off buses, which I wouldn’t recommend, but it got us where we really wanted to be…the original Guinness St. James Gate brewery. And let me tell you, they know how to do a tour. It was almost like a ride at Disneyland, but better because it ended with a free, perfectly poured pint of stout and a 360 degree view of Dublin from the Gravity Bar high atop the brewery.

We meandered back toward the hotel on our own, stopping in Temple Bar (the Dublin equivalent of Austin’s 6th Street) and ended up at a brewpub for dinner and local beer. But, lo and behold, just as Tom ordered our pints he saw the familiar green Sierra Nevada logo. For those of you who know Tom, he never even looked at the local beer again. In fact, he is now threatening to never leave Dublin.

So, tonight we are ending our travels with what we anticipate will be a very nice dinner at one of Dublin’s finer restaurants. Tomorrow we will be back home, rubbing dog bellies, scratching cat ears and breathing a big sigh.

An Andalucian respite

Hotel Alcazar de la Reina, Carmona, June 27, 2010

So, we’ve been slackers in the blogging department for a bit, but we have been taking notes. So we’re breaking this blog up into two parts which we’ll post simultaneously in “chronological” order (ie there’s another new post after this).

Salobrena, on the Costa del Blanco, was absolutely gorgeous and, thanks to Robin’s research, we scored a great house overlooking the town with a beautiful view of the sea. Our friends the Brittains and the Hamiltons joined us, as did Nathan and his girlfriend, Amber.

Most of the highlights involved finding the best free tapas, lounging by the pool, watching the World Cup and sampling lots of Spanish wine.

But the real event was the party we arranged for Nathan’s 22nd birthday. Check out the photos; the whole town came out for it and camped on the beach with a really big bonfire. You have no idea what it took to pull that off!

It really was a wonderful week of a whole lot of doing nothing with people dear to us—a very nice break after weeks of traveling.

It was with more than a little sadness that we left Salobrena and all went our separate ways. Nathan and Amber took off for a few days in Madrid, the Hamiltons and Brittains left a day or two early for Jerez de la Frontera and Seville. We decided that we would head that same direction, though taking the route through the mountains instead of the coast. The landscape was beautiful, and the roads a bit harrowing. We finally stumbled upon one of the classic Spanish “white villages” which was charming, before making it to Jerez.

It was pretty funny when we checked into the hotel, which was recommended by the Brittains and Hamiltons, when the clerk exclaimed, “It seems all of our guests from the U.S. come from Austin, Texas, these days!”

Anyway, Jerez is a charming little town, which was followed last night by yet another charming village, Ecija. It was amazingly quiet there (and hot; it’s called the “frying pan of Spain.” Feels a lot like Austin) even when we went back out at 7:30 pm. We found a little bar off the square across from a large church where we got a lesson in bullfighting from a former, elderly, torriador. Everybody was very friendly as we all watched bullfighting and then football, the evening being only slightly marred by the USA’s loss to Ghana.

Explored a Roman necropolis today in Carmona, and now it’s off to find more food and drink tonight in another small Spanish town.

Barcelona, redux

Hotel La Paz, Murcia, Spain, June 17, 2010

OK, so (obviously) Robin’s merciful side reasserted itself and she didn’t kill me—yet…

And I never, never want to drive in Barcelona again, unless for some reason I move there and get to know the place a whole lot better. After renting a car downtown and trying to work my way back to the hotel to pick up Robin, it took me nearly 2 hours to go (essentially) around the block. Way too many one way streets and way too few street signs.

Barcelona was a quick stop, but Robin picked out a few choice sights for us to see. Our plane was delayed so we had a bit less time than expected the first day, so we spent the first few hours of our stay checking out La Rambla, the main tourist street in the city. Quite a sight to behold. Two things that were quirky and interesting to watch were the folks dressed up as living statues waiting for tourists to pay to have their photos taken (some were quite entertaining), and the street vendors with the bootleg movies and knock-off handbags. They would lay out their wares on sheets, with rope tied to each corner. Each piece of rope was gathered into a handle in the middle, which they held onto at all times—presumably to make a quick getaway if the authorities showed up.

Tuesday started great with a walk through an amazing market, a stroll along the pier and into Barri Gotic. Then the Picasso museum—well worth the visit. I think we both felt like we finally understood what he was doing after getting a bit of an education.

Then on to one of the most amazing things I’ve see on the entire trip—Sagrada de la Familia. It is a cathedral nearly all designed by Gaudi and is taking more than 100 years to build. The completion date is around 2030 and it is simply spectacular, not just in the architecture (reflects nature in a way I haven’t seen before) but in the fact that we are witness to the construction of what will be one of the great buildings and churches of the world.

We followed that up with a brief visit to Park Guell (also designed by Gaudi) after having a really crappy map that made us walk about 200% more than necessary. But it was very cool in any case—I’m now a big fan of Gaudi and his use of angles and natural shapes.

We ended our evening search for tapas and wine, as you must be in Barcelona, successfully.

Leaving Barcelona, or trying to

Barcelona, June 16, 2010

It’s been 38 days, 20,000 miles and Tom is about to die. Because I’m going to kill him.

Though we have been ‘together’ a very long time, we’ve never spent this much time together. And I do mean together, as in we haven’t even been in different buildings, and are usually no more than 20 feet apart. For 6 weeks. Let me say that again: 6 weeks.

Those of you who know me well, know that I have a pretty serious introvert side that needs attention now and then. And by attention, that means being left completely alone for a while. So, when I have to spend too much time with someone, I start noticing every little quirk and they start to make me a bit crazy. Did I mention that I’ve been with Tom non-stop for 6 weeks?

I finally snapped in Barcelona. It was the weird eating schedule he has. Or rather lack of schedule. But I won’t go into that, let’s just say that I was ticked off all afternoon at him; and the one thing that will make Tom mad at me, is me being mad at him. It’s a vicious cycle. In any case, Parc Guell was not nearly as charming as it was suppose to be as a result of us sniping at each other.

And then, there was the rental car debacle that fixed everything.

Here was the plan: we get packed up and Tom walks the few blocks to the Europcar rental agency to pick up the car. There is no parking available in front of the hostel, so he was suppose to drive by, wave at me and then I would gather up the rest of the bags and head to the corner. He would circle the block, we’d throw the bags in and be on our way to Salobrena. How hard could it be?

Hah! I can hear anyone who’s been to Barcelona laughing out loud at this plan.

First part goes great. He drives by, I get the bags and make it to the corner in less than 2 minutes to wait for him to come back. And wait. And wait.

After 10 minutes I start wondering if maybe I was mistaken and that wasn’t him that drove past. But it had to be, I saw him. After 15 minutes, I come to the conclusion that he’s just gotten turned around and would be there any minute.

An hour goes by and now I’m just getting worried. How the hell long could it take to go around the block!

I haul all the bags back to the entrance of the hostel and convince the maintenance man to look after them for 2 minutes while I check to see if the clerk has any messages for me.

He’s been gone 1 ½ hours at this point. If he was in an accident, he’d have no way of telling anyone where to find me, and I don’t speak enough Spanish to start checking hospitals.

No message at the desk, but then it occurs to me that he might have his phone turned on, and I have the laptop. I frantically send an email: “Are you OK? I’m starting to get really worried. I’m waiting in the downstairs lobby.”

Reply: “Ok just lost”

Me, relieved: “Stop somewhere and tell me were you are. I’ll take a cab to you.”

Tom: “No place to stop”

As it turns out, they really like one way streets in Barcelona. And, there is no rhyme or reason to the way the city is laid out. And, there really isn’t any place you can even stop long enough to get directions without blocking a lot of traffic.

Which is what Tom did—and after 2 hours I hear him shout from the front door for me. I grabbed all of the bags again and we got them in the car. But not before we got a ticket for stopping in a taxi zone—which is what we were trying to avoid with the circling the block plan.

I’m not entirely convinced that he didn’t do this intentionally to make me appreciate him after yesterday—but he swears not. And we have 2 more weeks.

The clear, blue sea

Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 14, 2010

After four sun-soaked—and burned—days, we are leaving Dubrovnik, Croatia, tomorrow for Spain. The Adriatic really is as blue and beautiful as all of the photos make it look. We spent two days on Lokrum island, a short ferry ride away. To call it a beach is not quite right—we lounged on large rocks on the seaside, not sand, but that gives you the chance to drop down into water that is clear for as far as you can see. Yesterday, we hit Lopud which was a 40 minute boat ride away and has a sandy beach. Sand is nice, but we prefer the rocks – the sound of the waves breaking on them is so relaxing, plus when you get out of the sea you don’t have to deal with all that sand sticking to you. Wow, tough choices, right?

If nothing else, seeing people young and old wear skimpy swimsuits, or none at all, has gotten me out of my Quaker-style bathing suit and into something a bit more acceptable for the Mediterranean. Honestly, the first couple of days I was at the beach I felt like I was wearing a burka compared to everyone else. We did have to come up with a “naked old guy” alert as that was something that neither of us was comfortable with—me for obvious reasons and Tom because he didn’t want to confront the future quite yet.

The Old Town of Dubrovnik really is a charming place, with lots of tiny streets and alleys twisting and climbing up and down. As we wandered around, we got plenty of views of hidden courtyards and rooftop patios. There are lots of little shops and restaurants, too, some tucked so far away that you wonder how anybody finds them. Much like Zagreb, the squares and streets are packed with people at all hours.

When we were in Zagreb we asked the hotel clerk, Davor, about it and he laughed—apparently he gets the question all the time: Why are cafes and bars bustling all day long, don’t people have to work? His answer, it’s just our way of life. Yes, we work, he said, but a day off is spent meeting friends for coffee, which can then turn into an evening of drinks and talk. Not a bad way of life in our book.

Getting back to Dubrovnik, the apartment we’re staying in isn’t in Old Town, but a 10 minute walk away. Not so bad time-wise, but the trip did involve lots and lots of stairs. Going down wasn’t a big deal, but heading up at the end of the night is a killer. But the elevation gain does afford a very nice view of Old Town, its harbor and Lokrum island.