Author Archives: scobb

Food – the perfect Greek snack

After a quick trip to our local market in Pollonia Greece, on the island of Milos, i made myself a nice midday snack. A Greek salad always consists of tomatoes, feta, kalamata olives, oregano, and olive oil. As we have found out it can have a few other ingredients, such as bell pepper, cucumbers, and lettuce to name a few, but always includes the first six. 

The market in Pallonia sells produce that is grown all over the island, and in some cases right here in town. It seems like every Greek house hold has an array of fruits and veggies growing in their yard.

Perfect Snack

Sloane Loves Olives

She loves brined olives of course, not the fresh ones. For those of you that have never had the opportunity to eat a fresh olive off of a tree they are incredibly bitter and will immediately suck all of the moisture out of your mouth. It will also effect your taste buds for at least an hour afterward, Sloane claimed like it felt like she had a layer powder on her cheeks afterward. Sloane won herself a large beer for doing what’s in the video bellow.

Our first meal in Greece

What an amazing first meal. Sloane has become a pro at using a website called couchsurfing, it’s basically a site for travelers who want to open their home to each other and show off their city. We were treated to a late lunch/early dinner by Yannis, the incredibly generous man who was hosting us in Athens. Being sunday afternoon, his first few choices were closed. But 4th times a charm, and charming it was. I was only able to get a few quick shots of the meal but it was a great introduction to Greek food. We had Greek salad, they make it almost how you would expect plus green bell peppers. A fish egg paste called Taramosalata that was amazing. It’s best described as a cross between creamy hummus and the garlic sauce they serve at Zankou Chicken in Los Angeles, not fishy at all. I even think my younger sister Emily could have enjoyed this stuff. A few grilled shrimp, some whole fresh fish, some meatballs, some fried cheese, and a plate or two of french fries.

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Milan Italy Meatballs

I haven’t been posting much lately because the food in Croatia was uninspired, for the past week and  half we have had the exact same menu to order from.

3 soups, beef, tomato and mushroom.

4 salads, cabbage, tomato, seasonal (lettuce) or mixed, and mixed is literally cabbage, lettuce and tomato.

a few spaghetti options that would probably include tomato sauce and carbonara.

1 or 2 Risotto’s

Some exceptionally expensive fish and meat options.

And Bread (which all restaurants charge for even if you don’t ask for it).

 

We have left Croatia on our 3 day trek to get to Milos, a small greek island and I’ve become inspired to write about the food we have been eating again. This meal was found near the Duomo in Milan, we were wandering around the small streets surrounding this church and happened in a restaurant named Cimmino Fresco. Where I ate one of the best meatballs of my life. Sloane and I both ordered the meatballs and Berkley ordered veal milanese. The rest of the meal was nothing exceptional but these meatballs were fluffy, had a nice crispy parts on the outside, and had whole roasted pine nuts sprinkled throughout. It’s good to be out of Croatia and have a lot more variety on the menu.

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Food – Beer and Pizza, Venice

Breakfast this morning consisted of half a pack of cookies and 2 cups of coffee, needless to say after a 2 hour plane ride, followed by one hour finding our hostel, then forty five minuets commute into Venice, followed by a half hour search for a place to eat we were very parched, very hot, and very hungry. We wandered into what seemed like the only place that was open and ordered 3 beers. Berkley was pretty silly after her first sip. After we had almost finished our entire beers out pizza came, it was tasty but I had high hopes for italian pizza. I don’t have photos of them but we did end up having better pizza in Venice.

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Food – Spanish Tortilla

It’s our last night in Madrid, and we convinced our good friend Alberto to teach us how to make an authentic spanish tortilla. Tortilla is a traditional Spanish tapa made with egg and potato. Other ingredients such as onion, chorizo, spinach, pretty much anything you want can also be added into the mix. At first it was intimidating but after watching Alberto make the first one with onions and potatoes, I quickly and easily whipped together the second one(with chorizo and onion). His came out perfectly but mine needed a bit more salt. Both were delicious, we ate them with him and his roommates at the traditional spanish dinner time 11:30 pm. The tortillas were accompanied by other traditional Spanish tapas like, jamón iberico (ham), cheeses (gouda and sheep’s milk manchego semicurado), and olives. It was a wonderful last meal to eat in Madrid.

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Food – Chorizo

Mahou pronounced MAO like cow, a very easy drinking lager that cools you off in the 31 degrees celsius heat. For you American readers thats the low 90’s, and keep in mind air conditioning is typically reserved for stores here in Madrid. To escape the heat we ducked into El Neru, near Plaza Mayor in Madrid. This is a tapas bar in the style of the region of Asturias in the north of Spain. We enjoyed more than a few glasses of Mahou and with every round they bring you pinchos (a small order of tapas on the house). We ate queso de cabrales, a stinky, salty, spreadable sheep’s milk cheese, the most amazing chorizo that either of us have ever consumed (chorizo a la sidra), slightly salty and incredibly flavorful, and as a special treat our friend Alberto treated us to a bottle of sidra. This amazingly fun drink to pour is also refreshing. Although made from apples it’s not overly sweet like most other ciders i’ve had.

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Food – Dussledorf Shinennagins

If you read the post Berkley made about all of our flight difficulties then you will realize that this is our one and only German meal. And wow this was spectacular, a bratwurst served to us at Shumacher (a traditional German beer hall) near the Düsseldorf train station that was crisp on the outside and  bursting with flavor. The sauerkraut was nice and tart and they balanced that out with buttery mashed potatoes and thin light gravy. We also drank two each of their in house lager. How wonderful it is to be out of the United States where everyone thinks that hops are king and they need to hop the crap out of their beer. This lagger was golden, crisp and perfect for a warm German day.

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Food – That aint’ no ordinary bagel

The line to my wife, Berkley, when she said she wanted to get bagels this morning was, “a bagel is just a bagel lets get something interesting instead”. Needless to say I’m officially a convert. We went to Tal Bagel on 1st ave near 55th St in Manhattan. I ordered the Salt Bagel with scallion cream cheese and lox, with an iced coffee to help with the 100 degree heat. The outside of the bagel was crisp and the inside was pillowy but had a really toothsome bite. The salt on the top in retrospect was a little to salty, but at the time I was loving every bite. I’d go back to New York just to get another one of these.

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Food – Japadog

On our last day in New York we decided to revisit a hot dog joint we had gone to months earlier, in Vancouver, called Japadog. They have different house made sausages and hotdogs that they top with traditional japanese ingredients, for example KEWPIE mayo, tamari, shoyu bbq sauce, nori, shredded daikon, etc. I love these combinations, and it sure livens up a traditional hot dog. I ordered the Terimayo, a traditional dog topped with KEWPIE mayo, nori, and a sweet teriyaki sauce. My wife ordered the Oroshi, a german bratwurst topped with wasabi mayo, grated daikon, and scallions. We loved every bite, we plan to go back and further explore the vast menu. 

 

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