G's Travelogy (Uncut, Uncensored, Unrated): February 2014

One would think that Europe would be a food haven. While it does have many memorable dishes, I would say in terms of variety, it still falls short of Singapore's cruisines combined.

Right off the bat there's the Czech cruisine, German cruisine, Turkish as well as Italiano cruisines. While it's not possible (by that I mean too unnecessarily tedious) to list all the dishes, especially the exact names and places where they were sold, I find it too blasphemous to not even try. So here's it, a tribute post to our honeymoon "meal breakers".

Prague:

Trdelnik (don't ask me how to pronounce this) - traditional Hungarian cake and sweet pastry. It kinda feels like a crispy hard biscuit (though it's made of dough) which looks like a rolled up pretzel. Massively sugar-coated one that is. Apparently it has some walnut mix in it, but my memories of it reminded me of cinnamon. We bought it at a Xmas market, and most of the Xmas markets in Prague had at least one stall selling it. It's baked on a wooden stake and rotated manually to achieve an all-rounded "roast" over hot charcoal.

Not to sound snide but this traditional czech pastry didn't quite make the cut for my "seconds" benchmark because for one, it was too expensive for its satisfaction value. It was too hard for the cold weather, could have, might have caused a couple of gum abrasions, too sweet, too ordinary.

Texture: 1/5

Taste: 2/5

Value: 1/5

The crepes, however, tells a different story. Not just in Prague, I dare confidently say that the crepes in Europe are generally the "bombs". Even the consistency of Gelato falls short. Crepes easily ranks as the top dessert/finger food in Europe, despite its limited fillings at most tiny stalls, offering only Nutella (some places call it "Chocolate") spread mostly.

It's the "oomph" when you bite into the tolerably hot semi-sticky crepe and the filling just oozes out. It's kinda chewy, extremely tasty, extremely... familiar. Just a nicer version of it, the taste we Singaporeans are acquainted with.

Germany:

We had one of the best food "buffets" in Munich, where the foods were interestingly delish. We would simply wack the food stalls at the Xmas markets, all the way from unfamiliar hot alcoholic beverages to the more familiar sausages.

Gluhwein - Hot wine which is usually made with red wine and mulling spices such as cloves, cinnamon sticks and star aniseed. In fact the red wine was so hot I couldn't taste any of the spices, just taste like hot red wine to me. We even saw a kiddo, yea, a kiddo, no older than 12 years of age drinking it, which gave us assurance that we wouldn't get drunk over a glass or two of Gluhwein. Actually, I think it's a myth.

Not sure if it was because we drank pretty fast, but I could definitely feel the effects of the alcohol. The different stalls selling it each had their own characteristic cups. Patrons would have to pay a deposit for the cups because it's "Pasar Malam" style and there was no way the stallowners could keep track of the cups going out. One can even choose to buy the cup if he likes, all he needs to do is to just leave the deposit. And no, the cups weren't those cheapo kinds, they were pretty souvenir-ish-like but we decided to add any excess baggage with us so early in the trip.

There's of course other hot beverages, which are all alcoholic. Hot white wine, as well as hot orangey hard liquor called Eierpunsch, sweetened alcoholic egg-based drink made with white wine and vanilla.

Kaesespaetzle - A german version of macaroni and cheese, but instead of macaroni, spaetzle is used. Spaetzle is a german version of pasta, a cross between an egg noodle and a skinny dumpling. Well, at least that's what I managed to google. Personally, I think it's like a shorter version of our very own "Rat noodles (or sliver needle noodles)", made from hand-made flour, those used for our "Ban mian" and "U-mian", just that it's less chewier.

Not much of a texture, because they break almost immediately. Not sure if it was because of the degree of "cookedness" but I doubt there's an al dente for that.

It was served with Sauerkraut, sour cabbage (finely cut, fermented by various lactic acid bacteria) and initially it tasted weird. However, I would say it's an acquired taste. While I didn't cringe in conflicted satisfaction, the 2nd time I bought it it somehow tasted nicer (even though it tasted very much the same).

[In Salzburg] The 2nd time we had it we even had a nice hot soup to go along with it. But there was no way to ascertain what soup it was due to the language barrier. Accompanying it was a Kaspressnodel (cheese dumpling).

German bagels were tastily chewy (I just love chewy foods!), and affordable, and the "legendary" German sausages were indeed exceptional. They tasted equally salty there, but has more "body" and "kou gan" than stalls set up in Singapore selling German sausages. There's little bits, almost crunchy bits found in the sausages which made excellent finger foods for those feeling peckish.

There was also no way to tell what kinda sausages they were, I think it's the main few, Bratwurts, Frankfurter etc. But all I could tell was that it's either the red ones, or the biege ones. The biege ones were made from pork, while the red ones, from beef. The pork sausages were distinctly strong in their taste, which despite being a pork lover, I didn't like it that much. It wasn't even pig meat, felt like boar meat, there's a stronger pig smell to it, I know cos I've ate boar meat in Taiwan before...

There's also the Kartoffelpuffer, a traditional potato pancake. A super oily, deliciously sinful semi-mashed "harshbrown". It was a bit too oily for my liking, and perhaps because the stall I bought it from didn't provide utensils, I had to get my hands dirty for it, something I generally don't like to do... hence, demeriting some points from the dish.

The roasted nuts looked traditionally local, considering the variety, but I found them to be just so-so. They were coated with different flavours, and I likened them to be similar to Singapore's "Kachang Puteh".

They also had many stalls selling chocolate-coated fruit skewers. They had a whole chunk load of fruits and we tried the strawberries... sweetness perfection. Not just that, they were refreshingly chilled despite amidst the freezing weather.

Finally, the Barenland gummies we bought, were the best I've ever tried. Large variety, and the stallowner was so generous with her samplers we were almost full just trying them out. Sweet, sour, generally chewy, made from real fruit juices (ain't we all suckers for that). There's even more "authentic" ones with chunks of fruit in them, and they tasted sooooooo goooodddd.... So good that they were the only food constant throughout our trip. From Munich all the way to Rome, we just keep munching on the gummies every now and then, even shared it with little obscene boy whom we met on the train.

Salzburg:

One of the best breads I've ever had was bought from this traditional local bakery in Salzburg, just at the basment of St. Peter's Abbey. It was soft and light to the tastebuds, midly sweet and semi-firm, everything was just right. To top it up, it was freshly baked and warm still. I had intentionally left one bread uneaten until we were on a train, just to test whether it would still have tasted that good "cold", and it just wowed me off the tracks. We had initally only bought 2, but after walking a few steps out, biting into the bread, we walked back in and bought 2 more. It was that good, that worth the effort walking back in the cold weather for.

Kaiserschmarrn - We also tried this seemingly traditional chopped up cake at the Xmas market. It was like... fluffy chopped up pancake smeared with powdery white sugar smeared with sweet sauce which looked like mustard (I think was apple sauce) but tasted nothing like it. The locals marketed the dish very well... since Salzburg is Mozart's birthplace, they simply added "Mozart" in front of the dish (we were suckered alright...) and even had this tiny cute bottle of "Mozart" chocolate wine to go along with it.

Italy:

There wasn't anything particularly nice in Venice, but we did, for the first time, enter a more established restaurant to try out their menu in Burano. And because we didn't have much options anyways.

It had a Tripadvisor sign on it, which we mistook for having the "Excellence Award". Apparently the sign only states that it has "been reviewed on Tripadvisor". Being the suckerish Singaporeans, we decided to give the restaurant a go because of that one "sign".

The food was... ok. Not fantastic, but not too bad. Wasn't that value for money. Luckily my dear liked my Squid-Ink Risotto because her supposedly "fresh" Seafood Pasta turned out to be "freshly rancid". The mussells tasted like they had a way awful meal feeding from decomposing litter from the canal... passing on the awfulness to those silly humans who ate them.

We also tried some oily yet tempting roadside pastries in Milan, Dolcezze Siciliane, literally meaning Sicilian Sweets. In particular, we tried the Arancini di Riso, fried rice balls filled with meat sauce (Ragu).

There was this aunty who owned this small local bakery near our hotel in Milan who sold the 2nd best bread we tried during our stay there. Same old, same old, it was so good, we walked back to get our "seconds". They were these small bite-sized breads which were like tiny fragrant baguettes, just that they were softer and more orally (with a lack of a better word) friendly.

Cinque Terre

Not much to eat in Cinque Terre, cheaper foods that is, especially in Riomaggiore. There's a few restaurants, other than that, there wasn't any shops or cafes selling ready-to-eat foods. There were quite a handful of local supermarkets, selling mainly raw stuff (pasta and meats). We entered the most popular restaurant, or so it seemed that night, and the food though expensive, was pretty good. Wasn't the first restaurant we had pasta at (first being in Venice, but it tasted like ready-made spaghetti), but it was the first decent feast we had, though we had to wait a quarter eons for it. It's typical in Italy, and thanks to the heads up from travel books, I preamped myself so much that the meal waits turned out to be "overrated" - I made sure we weren't famished when we entered any restaurants in Italy.

We did however, the next day, happen to pass by a take-away (finally!) in Vernazza I believe. The pesto pasta, was off the charts simple yet delicious! Despite the chef forgetting our order, making us wait in escalating anxiety because we couldn't afford to miss the next train, we ended up forgiving him cos his food filled more than physical (stomach) satisfaction, it filled us emotional as well.

We grabbed more on-the-go food like Macdonald's at the train station, and the strawberry milkshake was one of the best deals, costing only 1 euro per cup, though the cup isn't as big as Singapore's but considering Singapore's Mac Milkshake to be more than twice the cost, but not the size, I would say it's definitely worth it. Taste just as good too.

Florence

Deciding to splurge since we were already into the middle of our trip, we liberated ourselves and treated ourselves to one of the highly acclaimed restaurants in Florence. THAT restaurant, Ristorante Accademia (near the tourist attraction Accademia) won the Tripadvisor excellence award. It was splurgy alright... but was it worth it? Actually, not quite.

Ambience was good, by good I mean dim since we're an Asian couple on their honeymoon in Europe and that's about as romantic as a dinner could be. Free flow of bread (super oily ones), quite the norm there for atas restaurant, but for mid range ones, don't expect bread because they don't charge any cover charge.

Being rather adventurous, I tried their "Michelangelo Salad" (Florence is famous for housing the actual statue of David by Michelangelo) which turned out simply to be greens, sliced pears smeared with honey. Was interestingly overpriced, but no regrets there.

The handmade pasta we tried were like Italiano Udon, thick, firm, chewy. Gorgeous! But wasn't filling (what did I expect?).

The only time we went for a day trip was in Florence, around the Tuscany region, rolling hills (that description most aptly describes the scene, which will forever be overused by me), and were treated to a wine-tasting lunch at a farm. The wine was... local, authentic, but kinda... winey? Ok, it was normal. I'm not much of a wine lover, much less an appreciator, but what I did appreciate was the home-made farm-like cosy food they whooped up for us. The pasta, Fusili bolognese, ooohhhh la la! We had to share the meals and wines with other tourists, and the other 2 couples who shared our dishes with us, drank most of the wine, while we, I to be accurate, ate most of the food "extras".

We were treated to 3 different wines, 4 in fact, if we were to consider the last dessert wine which was actually used as a dip for some famous hard bread (with nuts) they served. 1 white, and 2 reds. In a way, the "farm" was kinda like promoting their local products.

If you're wondering why the inverted commas for farm, it's because they look more like tourist pitstops as opposed to farm farm. There were cattle wandering around the fields, but somehow... it didn't feel very "farmy" to me. Perhaps if the building was a cottage, it might have created the feel.

We sat near a fireplace, there's a bit of feel there, with the farm-ish home-cooked food, almost there... and wamp, it was over too fast. Something very characteristic of day tours, it's a hit and run.

We bought Gelato at San Gimignano, not the "authentic" award winning one but it was just so-so.

Bu the last most memorable dish we had, was ironically at a deceivingly boring cafe near the main attraction of Florence, the Duomo. Feeling peckish, we bought a tri-pasta, somewhat like a sampler platter. The tri-combi worked like magic. Both my dear and I were singing praises of it with every mouthful we swallowed... till the very last one... A hidden pasta gem in the heart of Florence... Delizioso!

Rome

Our first pitstop at Rome, we were lucky because we came across this small restaurant tucked away at the junction of a pretty dark street. We chanced upon it while on our way to the Vatican City, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pope. There, I tried the BEST Rigatoni ever! Never say ever, but was ever back then. Even after crashing some places and ordering Rigatoni, none could compare with the one I had in Rome. First love. Yummy.

It was also in Rome that I finally tried the chestnut that was haunting us throughout the trip. Perhaps not that persistent, since I'm generally not fond of it, and since Singapore has its very own illegal syndicates selling them in their makeshift chestnut stirrers, I wasn't tempted. Initially. Until my curiosity got the better of me. It wasn't cheap alright. And it was pretty dubious. The price wasn't transparent, and when I asked how much it cost from a street vendor, he slid out a cardboard with the prices on it from under the foods.

I was afraid I would have missed the opportunity to try it, so I wacked it... and to my astonishment... they taste the same. Same as Singapore's "gao lak". Just that in Europe, it's bigger, and they looked less wrinkly. Hmm... to be fair, I think they tasted slightly more aromatic, less dry than Singapore's, could be because of the size.

On our final leg in Rome, we ate our "last" meal in Italy at a restaurant. Food was decent, not fantastic, but the service was pretty good.

A shot taken by the only waiter in Italy who got a tip from us

Matera

The gem of gems, the one place in Italy you MUST NOT MISS. Apart from the misty magical night, we also tried the "best" restaurant in Italy. In this case, the inverted commas isn't meant as sarcasm, but a disclaimer since "best" is subjective. And we haven't tried that many to objectively and statistically confident to announce that it was indeed the best. But it was the best we had during our honeymoon that's for sure.

It was sad though.. because we were the only ones in the restaurant the whole night. The head chef came out to introduce to us the dishes, personally... *WOW* and initially wanting to give him face, we ordered some antipasti platter, was quite ex... but turned out to be one of the best food decisions we made. It was money... worth spending. Yes, for once, finally something ex, that's worth the value. I would gladly pay for it again, and again, and again!

It turned out the chef was actually pretty famous. He also recommended some veal, which I was so tempted, but was too full to try. *clenches teeth* Just before leaving, we requested to take a photo with him... and he was so comically trying to doll himself up for that one "important" shot. I was touched. I mean other than literally, by my waist (not where you think I was), I was deep down inside deeply humbled by his humilty.

I'll just post the pics to whet your appetite, all I can is that 90% of his dishes were excellento, perfecto. The sausage, which looked and tasted like "lak chong" was epic. High class "lak chong" that Singapore's standards will probably never be able to beat.

There was also dessert shop which sold ... wait for it... wait for it... the BEST waffle in Italy! Imagine that! 2 bests at 1 location! It looked deceiving ordinary... but it was the smell which gave it away.

We ordered ice cream scoops to go along with it, and the salesgirl went to "pancake" it, Blasphemy!! It caused the ice cream to melt, and the waffle to go all soggy. I do not know what got into her (ok, actually I think it's their way of eating it) but it totally ruined the texture. Taste was still intact though, wholesomely good. So much so that we actually ordered another, this time, we ordered 2 scoops of ice cream separately. Calculating the final cost, we realised we should have just told her to serve us the ice cream scoops separately as part of the initial waffle "combo deal".

Nonetheless, even if we paid a little more, it was still dessert haven for us.

Alberobello

The only thing we ordered in Alberobello was coffee and pastries. During our 2-3hrs day trip there, I don't recall seeing many, if any restaurants. A couple of cafes, and loads of souvenir shops. But there was this one particular pastry shop, which displayed a wide range of visually savoury pastries, tempting us to fill our stomachs with.

We ordered a few to try, some were the "usual" tastes, while others were more interesting, like some pistachio puff etc. (can't rem what they were).

Sorrento

Sorrento was another food haven. Surprising, since it's not as popular as Amalfi and the rest of the other cities like Rome or Florence. In fact Sorrento isn't even a city, it's a small town, a very small one, but very cosy one as well.

Though there weren't many streets, there were many food shops along the street, some of them was supposedly very popular among the locals. If you want to find the most number good eateries to street distance ratio, Sorrento would be it. In less than 200 metres, you would be able to pass 3 of the highly acclaimed eateries in Italy (judging from the photos and awards).

First, the gelato. It's opened by a celebrity chef, whom I've no idea who he is (duh) and it was one of the few gelato shops which had a long queue. Using the Singaporean's kiasu filtering analysis, there was no doubt the gelato sold there was good... we were right! The BEST gelato in Italy, easily. Because of the price, the value, the flavours (many exotic ones) and the service was top notch. The salesgirl were all quite chio, which kinda made me think about the kind of man the chef is... either he's *ahem* or he's just business smart.

Second, the pizza. Johnny's Pizza. He's so down to earth he's actually working in that very shop. How did we know? Because we went in, asked about their speciality pizza, and when I asked what the flavour was in the Johnny pizza slice, the salesgirl thought I wanted to meet Johnny personally. She called out to him, he popped his head, I pretended to worship him like a God, we got our pizza and got the **** out of there. It was crowded as hell.

They served small pizza slices, but the famous Johnny pizza only came as a full pizza. It wasn't perfect, due to some "consistently chaotar" parts but the toppings and dough would certainly even sweep the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles off their feets. Frrom the pictures he looked like some pro pizza spinner, on par with our own "Roti Prata" men who could spin this ginormous pizza, breaking some record I think (was replaying on a tv screen to keep us "entertained" while we waited for our pizza). Freshly made, oven baked (maybe that's why the "charta"s were so "consistently" inconsitent).

Third, ... third... Italian food. Sadly, that's all I can say. Because there was this one restaurant that was so freaking crowded that despite walking past it like 3 times on 3 different occasions, the queue always seemed to be like a paid flash mob blocking the entrance of the stall. It was so difficult squeezing through the crowd to sneak a peek at the menu, and because of all the squeezing, I also squeezed out whatever recollection I have of the dishes. I remember vaguely, Italian dishes. It's near the train station, and instead of walking towards the main centre, it's slightly off towards the other side.

Helsinki Airport (Finland)

Having an 8 hour transit at Helsinki Airport on New Year's Eve was no laughing matter. Because it was New Year's Eve, there was nothing much to do because most of the shops were closed. And the airport itself wasn't exactly big. It just took us like 40 mins to patronize all the souvenir shops/supermarkets and we re-patronized the shops like a good 3-4 times. There wasn't much to eat, sadly. And everything was just way too expensive... cafe finger food (like sandwiches and sushi) at atas restaurant prices.

Thankfully, there was an American restaurant still opened. It closed early that day, so we had to go for an early dinner, but the food was pretty good. They were famous for their ribs, but I tried the steak inside (had craved that for a while) while my dear had the ribs. It's this very interesting sports restaurant called O'Learys which featured different sports channels at different parts of it, so that its patrons could watch sports while eating.

We saw canned reindeer meat and bear meat as well. A can of bear meat, which I will never forget, cost 45 euros, and it's about the size of our tuna cans which we use to spread our bread with. Pathetically small, yet it cost such a bomb. I had wanted to try it, because it was off the charts exotic, but it was also... off the charts expensive. I had thought of at least trying reindeer meat, but unfortunately the only restaurant selling it at the airport was closed. If I wanted to, I could have bought a canned of reindeer meat, but what "fun" is there in eating preserved meat? Hmm... I better stop now... I sound almost sadistic...

Turkish Cruisine (Prague & Munich):

The last "tribute" I have to include is the influence of Turkish Cruisines in Europe. We tried them twice, once in Prague, the other in Munich. It was the very first food we wacked, at some street vendor near the start (or end, depending on how you see it) of Wenceslas Square. We overestimated the "fillingness" of the dishes and over ordered. Because the Doner Kebab was extremely filling and the "sides" as we would normally order them in Singapore such as the Falafel came with burgers. We happily pointed the foods, and before we knew it, we were trying hard to finish the huge portions of Turkish foods.

But no regrets, because they tasted awesome.

Turkish cruisine is the only "constant" in Europe, where the foods were consistently good. There was this other Turkish stall called "Turkish Kebab-Pizza" very close to our accom (ibis Milano Centro) in Milan which sold superb Turkish dishes. The usual Doner Kebab, some vegetarian flavoured rice, falafel, and even the pizza beats any "authentic" Italian pizzas we had there. It was so good, it was one of the few places we actually went back again.

Typing this one last post's really tedious, having to google the exact names of the dishes, squeezing my juices to recall the tastes, places and restaurant names takes mammoth efforts on my brain. But it was well worth it. Because despite having spent 2 long nights typing it, the memories I have of it, makes me salivate even right now. I guess that's the reason why they say our olfactory system creates the most emotional long-term memories... now I know that to be true, and proven.

Miscellaneous Photos: