European Travels

Spud-licious

I feel like such a blogger today as I sit in an empty coffee shop... oh wait it's a spud shop munching away at my £2 starchy goodness. The first half of my time here in the UK was all about getting myself acclimated to UK and European life. Having never been outside of North America before now, it was certainly an adjustment. Nonetheless, I am pretty proud of myself so far. I've explored Paris, London and the midlands of England.

2014 is all about Europe, starting with Western Europe and moving to the grand finale in the Mediterranean - Spain and Italy. If you haven't noticed my style already, it's all about the epic gastronomic ventures across the best of the best in this great continent. Many culinary gods of the modern day originate from Europe, and now Spain and Italy are in the food scene more than ever.

I first met this article on the world's 50 best restaurants from my brother-in-law's facebook post. If you think I am a foodie, I do not even scratch the surface compared to him. I don't even know how many Michelin-rated restaurants he's been to in the past 5 years, and have ventured to places like Japan (tentatively my next adventure for 2014!). He knows the food scene in New York City like the back of his hand. Shout out to none other than Scrumphsus!

Edinburgh, Scotland

January entails of another 3 week long visit from my beloved husband, so that means we'll be busy traveling the weekends. Currently, we have Edinburgh, Scotland and Brussels, Belgium planned. Our final weekend will be possibly Switzerland or the Netherlands. Any preference from any readers who have been to either or both? Despite it being in the dead of winter, we are pretty excited anyway to be able to visit these places.

Prague, Czech Republic

February will be Prague, Czech Republic and Budapest, Hungary. I really look forward to the awesome historical architecture and cityscapes. From the photos alone, Prague and Budapest look amazingly beautiful. So amazing! I am also hoping to squeeze in
some trips to Ireland and Turkey through work. Fingers crossed!

Budapest Parliament

Noma

Back to the best 50 list, I put it on my personal list of big things in 2014 to do is to visit the top 5 or as much as I can.

1. El Celler De Can Roca in Girona, Spain
2. Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark
3. Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy
4. Mugaritz in San Sebastian, Spain
5. Eleven Madison Park in New York City

Reservations are close to impossible to book for many of these places, but luckily we have managed to book at least 2 so far and have been wait listed on a couple others. 

It's only December 1, but there is a lot to look forward to. First thing's first, it's almost Christmas!!! Boy, I cannot wait to go home and travel onwards from there all around the US to visit family. 

18 day countdown, here we go! Cheers. :)

Cooking Adventures

Overall, life has been pretty quiet. I have reduced my dining out to just every now and then, and have been cooking more at home which I do enjoy much more. I discovered the beauty of ordering my groceries online and having them delivered through Asda.com. Asda is owned by Walmart, so they have pretty much the same things as in the US. It just saves so much time than to be at the store trying to find where things are, especially being unfamiliar with the stores and products. As wonderful and convenient as it is, I can feel everyone's judgement... how lazy! Just type what you want in a search bar and click "Add to cart" :scoff scoff:. I know I know, simmer down.

Before Asda, I was only stuck with getting limited things from the stores in the city centre. I find shopping hard since I like to buy a lot of things at one time. Unfortunately, one girl can only carry so much with her two skinny arms. I need to send my lazy butt back to Crossfit one of these days! Somehow, buying food from the stores directly ends up being so much more expensive too. In person grocery runs go for about £40-50 a pop, and I don't even buy that much! Asda let's me order a ton of food for £25-30. You might argue delivery fees, but I have to free delivery pass for 3 months at only £15. Sorry, but lazyness wins here.

Feast of champs: Chicken breast and a Clementine

This was my first home-cooked meal from before my groceries were delivered. It looks pretty lame, but they were some pretty amazing and juicy chicken breasts. It makes me wonder if it's because of the genetically modified or hormone injected chickens we eat in America that make the breast meat so dry and disgusting. All I did was sear, then steam them in the pan. Ten minutes and done! Unfortunately I did not have any veggies to balance it out, so I resorted to a couple clementines to do that.

Duck breast over spinach and corn on cob

After my first Asda order came in, I went on a cooking frenzy. Who wouldn't with duck breast, turkey legs and steak? This is not the most flattering picture of me, but it's my best mischievous excited and hungry face. Juicy, flavorful duck breast with crisped skin over wilted spinach and sides of corn on cob. As a home-cook, I consider myself a minimalist. My mantra is "Nature makes the best flavor". I only cook with pinches of salt and pepper, sometime garlic, ginger or green onions but very rarely do I spend a lot of time whipping up complex sauces over my food. I feel it takes away from true flavor the food ingredients bring from itself. My husband, on the other hand, thinks my food is bland. There are health reasons to not over-flavoring foods too--like fat, cholesterol, sugar and sodium control. We could all live much better lives, and have the taste buds to enjoy nature's flavor when our palates are not so oversaturated and acclimated to heavily seasoned foods.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving Day comes around. I am alone, stuck in place where no such holiday exists and no friends or family around to share the special holiday with. Countless posts of Thanksgiving come up on my Facebook newsfeed and the feeling of nostalgia comes around. I decide to celebrate from afar by roasting myself a turkey leg for one. Don't forget the corn! It was a 2 hour roast, but worth it. Aside from being alone, eating this with my parents on the video call made it all the better!

Sirloin Steak with Green Beans

The last meat dish from my first Asda order... Aged Sirloin Steak. This steak had a bit of a different flavor compared to American steaks. I am not sure if it was not fresh or what? The package said it had another week to go before the use by date. It had a sour note to the meat, and a gamey aroma. I ate it anyway... it's probably fine even if it was cooked medium-rare. Right?! Maybe that Cabernet Sauvignon will kill of whatever might be in this meat. I have to say my husband looks pretty intrigued by my bland piece of steak, huh?

Paying homage to home, here are a couple meals I cooked with my husband when I visited home a couple weeks ago. The amazing, melt-in-mouth Chilean Sea Bass with my favorite green vegetable, watercress and sliced portobello mushroom! Now, where can I find CSB in Leicester??

Chilean Sea Bass

Being in food (and lazy) mode, I've also been watching episode after episode of Mind of a Chef with Chef David Chang, owner of the Momofuku franchise. It is becoming one of my favorite food-related shows. He not only focuses a lot on Asian, specifically Japanese cuisine, but also goes to the world's top restaurants many of which are located in Europe. I'm definitely taking notes, and planning trips to visit these places. Spain and Italy in March 2014, here we come!

2014 is all about European travel. I'll share a bit more on that on the next blog coming up, so stay tuned.

Cheers!

Fall in love with Paris, Part I

This weekend was all about Paris! I took my first day of holiday to enjoy an early start to the fun with the hubby. We took one of the economy local flights on flybe from a closer airport, East Midlands Airport straight into Paris. My thoughts were to simplify the trip since it was a late departure on Thursday evening after work. We took the National Express bus from the Leicester bus station directly to the airport for a cheap £4.50 per person and only taking 30 minutes. The flybe ride was rather bumpy, riding in a bare airplane without the perks of your normal airline. It was fine for a quick hour flight. The fare wasn't that inexpensive for us because we did not buy it that far in advance, but apparently you can get to Paris for just £20? We get to Paris and take the RER train into city the from Charles De Gaulle airport. The good things about reliability and convenience of the Paris metro was certainly confirmed. It got us around quickly and very cheaply.

The first night we stayed at the Platine Hotel near the Eiffel Tower. It was a cute boutique hotel that was all about Marilyn Monroe. Her face was the wall paper for every room and there were little bit and pieces of thing or quotes related to her all around the hotel. A little bit random, but pretty cool although it had the impression of a "love hotel"... if you know what I am talking about. We had gotten in extremely late, pretty much near midnight, and was on a hunt to find dinner. The hotel receptionist pointed us to a bistrot just down the street.

 

Le Linois is your general Paris-style bar food or they call it a brasserie. There are tons of these eateries pretty much on every corner. The most interesting I observed is that all of the restaurants and cafes have stadium seating in the front. What for? Well, for people watching of course! Anthony Bourdain confirms this in his show No Reservations, Paris episode . You have a seat, drink some coffee or a beer maybe a bite or pastry and just STARE at people who walk by. I had my moments of staring at Paris men "checking girls out" and found it amusing. They don't seem make it subtle at all either. Hehe... good times...

He had steak tartare and I had the duck confit. The menu was entirely in French, but somehow we managed to figure what things were. I guess when you love food, you inevitably learn the universal language around food. I was pretty skeptical about his beef. Tartare is a raw ground beef cake (though sometimes could be horse meat) with some bits of onions and seasonings. He thoroughly enjoyed it, but being a Food Scientist was so extremely afraid he was going to start the trip off on the wrong foot... more like on the toilet! Raw ground beef is among the worst for contamination since it is so processed and you have no idea where the meat is coming from, hello E. coli O157:H7! Thank God he was fine. My duck confit was a little dry, tasted like an old duck leg that was cooked twice over. Regardless, we were thankful to have gotten food despite it being so late though. With our bellies full, we went off to our room with Ms. Monroe watching us sleep through the night.

Day 2

 We managed to find a nice patisserie in the morning to pick up some breakfast before starting our day. There was one pretty much on every corner and you saw random people walking around the streets carrying a giant pastry or baguette just munching away while walking to work. I have noticed that breakfast is a staple meal for the French, and that even if it was on-the-go they still had it. I have to say that in America, breakfast does commonly get dismissed since people are usually too preoccupied to eat, and is considered a weekend occurrence more than anything else. We thoroughly enjoyed the coffees in France, as they were very rich and flavorful compared to some of the coffees we've had in England that were on the lighter/blander side.

Then, we went on our way to explore the areas around the Eiffel Tower since it was near the hotel. With our handy dandy travel book that a friend had lent us, we took our time to get there and stopped by several other places on the way.

Some of these places included the L'Hôtel national des Invalides where Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb lies in the domed building. It was also a museum related to the French military so there were plenty of cannons all around and all sizes.

The next stop nearby was the Musee Rodin, where the popular "Thinker" sculpture lived. We were fortunate to have free admission to the gardens due to construction. The indoor exhibits costed money, so we opted out.

Finally, we made it to the Eiffel Tower. The entire day up until now was pretty dreadful with merciless cold rain spanning throughout the day. At least the walking helped us keep somewhat warm. The things about Paris is, everything looks like close proximity on the map and being a New Yorker is assumed for a city. However, everything seems a bit more spread out and the walking was quite far.

We decided again not to buy tickets to go up but rather just enjoyed the view from the ground while dodging the Gypsies and Africans trying to scam us into tying a string on our finger for money. It is certainly an area to be careful of scammers and pick pocketers. 

By this time it was getting into the mid-afternoon and we had not eaten lunch yet. As we walked further past the tower, we came across a boat tour and decided to save lunch for a little bit more later. We had some French biscuits that we picked up in the morning so snacked on that, while riding on a very chilly boat deck. The sites were beautiful though, and helped us determine what areas we really wanted to explore further. A tip for next time, take the Batobus so you can hop on and off all day. The tour we took only took us in a circle with an audio tour of the sites.

Hello boat tours!

Cruising the Waterways

So cold on the boat deck!

 Freezing and hungry, we went on the trek for grub. It was unfortunate that most places were closed for lunch and not yet open for dinner service at this time since it was around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. We walked past some very nice restaurants but ended up in another brasserie as it was our only option. Not the best food in the world - a standard smoked salmon salad for me and a very tough and cartilage-plenty piece of flank steak for the Mister.

At least we had some delicious creme brulee for dessert

The husband was very keen on visiting Moulin Rouge since it was one of his favorite movies - yes the Nicole Kidman movie. Must be the attraction of boudoir? Quite scandalous I would say! The whole time he was denying the risque aspect of it and was so adamant that it was just a classy act... until of course we get there and see the billboards. Posters of stills from the show with boobs and bling. Haha! After my moment of "I told you so" and a couple photos just to say we went there, we went off to the next stop. Regardless though, a show would have been well over €100/pp and had to be booked in advance. Oh well, I didn't miss anything. Plus, the husband can get his private Moulin Rouge show anytime from his misses. :P

We then went to what we thought was walking distance but ended up being a far hike uphill. We decided to hire a couple bikes on the Velib to take us part of the way. It helped a lot and we were glad it was a 24-hour pass that allowed up to use it anytime in the next day also... extremely cheap too at only €1.70/pp. After hundreds of steps going up, we finally made it to the beautiful Montmarte. This was a grand cathedral located on the highest point in Paris overlooking the city. I thought it was certainly worth the effort of getting there. The really cool thing was that there was a mass happening, so we got to see part of that.

Montmarte Interior

Sunset overlooking the Eiffel Tower from above

Really COOL giant tea kettle

That concludes Part I of our Paris adventures. Stay tuned for Part II coming soon!

Cheers.

Fall in Love with Paris, Part Deux

Day 3

Stayed overnight at the Renaissance La Defense for free thanks to business travel and wedding points with Marriott. Having gold status was a huge perk too with access to the lounge, free drinks/snacks and full hot breakfast! The hotel was a bit further out from the rest of the city, but a comfy bed in a nice hotel for no cost was certainly worth it. Day 2 was so packed full with different sites and walking, we decided to take it easier on this day.

We didn't head out of the hotel until almost noon and decided to check out Notre Dame. It looked really nice from the cruise tour, so I really wanted to see it. When we got there and the line to enter the cathedral was insanely long, but fortunately was moving rather quickly.

Rose Window, Notre Dame

Selfie!

The infamous bridge of love locks - Pont de l'Archevêché - was right next to Notre Dame so we went to put our lock on. One of my colleagues had just visited Paris a few weeks before and highly recommended this spot to us, so we went prepared with a cheap padlock we bought from Poundland before we went to Paris. This bridge seemed like it was already filled to the maximum with locks dating back to the early 2000's. Some people had very intricate locks with their names engraved. We weren't so fancy and just used a Sharpie marker. No guarantees the ink will stay on there, but we locked our on a really neat huge heart lock. Maybe one day we'll come back and hopefully find it there.

We had lunch reservations at the food highlight of our trip - Les Papilles - which was one of the top rated Trip Advisor restaurants. This restaurant, though not cheap at all, had a very casual feel to it. The main dining floor was small and cramped with what seemed like more tables than the place allowed for. There was also a wine and coffee bar area where they poured the drinks. This restaurant has a set 4-course pre-selected menu that was based on what was available on that day. Everyone who came in was served exactly the same thing with no choice otherwise. It made it very easy not to have to choose.

Soup presentation before broth was added

Broth presented separately

Leek Cream Soup

Slow roasted lamb with vegetables

Served on our plates

Mouldy Stilton cheese with sweet fig

Panna Cotta

Drink up buttercup!

The hubby really wanted to see the Catacombs, but unfortunately by the time we got there it was near closing and had capped the end of the line. He was pretty bummed about it. We decided to rent some bikes and go back to Luxemburg since we didn't have time to explore the gardens after we ate at Les Papilles. We picked up some coffee and macaroons and had a nice and relaxing stroll in the park. Even enjoyed watching a hula-dance group lesson of sorts in a gazebo in the park. That was very interesting!

Macaroons in the Park 

Luxemburg 

Lux Gardens

After we were done with Luxemburg, we were both very tired so we picked up some crepes (nutella/banana for me and ham/cheese for him) from a vendor on the street and decided to head back to the hotel at La Defense early to relax a bit. We felt like we saw all of the main things on our list, so was fine to end it on this note and get a good night's rest.

New Arc at La Defense

Arch across the way

We loved Paris and really enjoyed this trip, despite it being short. We Eurostar'd it back to London Sunday morning. Not too bad - it only took 2 hours! Good times. Cheers!