The task of blogging about our vacation seems really daunting to me, so I've decided to just take it a day at a time and split up our vacation into sub-categories and today's category is...
FOOD!!
I tried to be vigilant taking pictures of all our meals and even some of our treats along the way, and now I want to share with you what we ate and what we liked/disliked about those foods. Ready for some international delights? I am, it's making me hungry just thinking about it.
But first we must see the awfulness they pass off as food on international flights. I've never been on a flight that serves an actual meal, so I was excited to see what we got. Trust me it wasn't that exciting.
I ended up giving my main dish back unopened because it was not the least bit appetizing to me, and since I tend to get motion sick, I didn't think an unappetizing meal would help that situation. I did eat my breakfast though.
We finally arrived at the first stop on our trip, London.
We were barely in London for 24 hours, so basically we had dinner and breakfast and a snack before we moved on to Brussels. Dinner was pretty good, although I was educated by Brad to not order "ice water" because apparently they don't put ice in their drinks and that flags you as a snooty American, so he was worried they'd do something to our food. We split our food and the caprese salad was amazing, it had a great pesto sauce and it just made me so happy. The cheese bread was super yummy too, but the "traditional" fish and chips (that's how it was advertised) was a little disappointing. Mainly because we got fries, not chips, and the fish was one big fillet which was harder to maneuver and I prefer smaller pieces, particularly because I enjoy the breading and with more smaller pieces there is more breading than one larger piece. The traditional English Breakfast was included at our hotel and it was interesting. The sausage tasted normal, which was good, but I don't really like eating heavy breakfasts, I'm more about the yogurt or cereal and having heavy breakfasts for dinner or something. The ham (which they call bacon) was okay, I wasn't fond of the beans, but that tomato...that's a whole different thing. I love tomatoes, but whatever they did to this made it the most awful tasting tomato in the world, it tasted like what bad baby food smells like. It was horrid and quite frankly made my stomach churn. I ate half of everything on my plate just to be polite, then had a bowl of cereal. I've also decided that orange juice in foreign countries isn't good, it's usually room temperature and just tastes funny.
The candy we had was pretty tasty, it reminded me a bit of Rolo candies but was square instead of round. The soda was good too, but the best soda we had was in Belgium.
We arrived in Belgium later in the evening by train and roamed the streets looking for somewhere to eat. We found a very lively street and decided to eat at one of the restaurants there.
Brad ordered mussels, which I never even knew he liked. I tried one, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't something I would order for myself to enjoy. My pizza was super yummy, but not a usual Margherita pizza. My favorite part of the evening was watching people in the streets dancing. The restaurant next to ours had a little band serenading the diners and some of the people got up and started dancing around. Very festive. I also really enjoyed my lemon sorbet! Super refreshing and delicious! The chocolate mousse was so rich and decadent, if I had to choose again I would have to order both, because I wouldn't be able to decide.
The next day we toured around Brussels seeing the sights and eating random stuff along the way. The hotel we stayed at had a breakfast but it was some ridiculous amount of money, like 20 Euros per person. So, when we told the host we would just go somewhere else (which is what we planned on doing anyway, we just wanted to check out what they had to offer) he was trying to offer us free coffee or tea and we declined, then while we were waiting for the elevator to come back he came out with a plate of bread and pastries for free for us. We didn't know what to do, so we accepted it and thanked him, then went back to our room to enjoy our free breakfast. And I have decided, their butter is better than butter in the U.S. plain and simple! The rest of the day we mostly snacked. Brad loves Belgian waffles, so we stopped for those twice, then he got a third at the train station that evening before we rode to Paris. I got a Mango Apricot ice cream cone at the train station, but no pictures. The Gini Lemon soda was the best soda we had the whole trip and constantly looked for it when we went somewhere new. We did find a bottle of it in Paris and drank it throughout the day.
I will post the food of Paris and Switzerland later. So enjoy this for now.
***********************UPDATE******************************
We arrived in Paris in the evening. Our hotel was in the Eiffel Tower neighborhood, so we set out looking for a place to eat. I had no idea that there were going to be so many Asian restaurants, it seemed like everywhere we turned they were advertising some kind of Japanese sushi restaurant or some other kind of Asian influence. I felt like I was in San Francisco. All the cafes around the Eiffel Tower were extremely expensive for dinner, so we ended up eating at one of these Asian-French cuisines. Bad idea! It seems that Brad is really good at ordering the best tasting stuff on any menu and while I try to play it safe I end up with something unnaturally disgusting. So we looked at the menu and the guy even showed us pictures of the dishes, so I ordered something that looked good in the picture, Ginger Chicken, and Brad ordered some kind of pork dish. Well, Brad's pork was pretty good, and the rest of the stuff in our meal were pretty good, even the very strange looking salad. My chicken on the other hand, not acceptable for my palate. Firstly, it was ice cold, like it was in the fridge for hours, the skin was still on it (which I could pull off, so not necessarily a bad thing, but unappetizing all the same), it was super greasy, and just for fun I found a bone, which I don't think was supposed to be there since none of the other pieces had bones. Yes, I am a picky eater, if you don't know that then you don't know me. So, I was less than full when we left that establishment. Luckily we stopped for a delicious crepe filled with lemon juice, butter and sugar. Yum!
The rest of the time in Paris we mainly lived off breads and pastries. Which I was fine with, and I also had an occasional apple. The breads were amazing! The picture with the cheesy olive bread, well, let me tell you, this was one time that Brad chose the wrong thing and I got the delicious item for once! His cheese bread with ham in the middle was okay, but mine was amazing! He was quite jealous of my treat and kept trying to find this creation again, but none of the other bakeries had it. He has since said that my cheesy olive bread was the best thing our whole trip. We also had savory crepes for dinner one night. They were good, but when you're used to only eating sweet crepes, it's a little disappointing. We bought fresh cheese from a fromagerie and then I had the great idea of buying a baguette to spread with the cheese and that turned into our breakfast one morning. The cheesy hot dog was interesting, not bad, but probably not something I would eat again. We split that one, it was like a foot long.
The best parts of the days in Paris were when we would start them with some fresh pastries. I love pastries from all countries, but Paris has something special! We got the usual Pain au chocolat, which was amazing, then a few different treats. Our last morning (those darker pictures) we got a couple pastries on a recommendation from Brad's mom. I can't remember the French name for either of them but Brad's was basically like a cinnamon roll with raisins, but really light, not all heavy like a cinn-a-bon, and mine was dense with chunks of apple, and possibly some kind of filling, or else the pastry was just a little doughy in the middle. Pretty tasty! Then of course we found a large bottle of our new favorite soft drink, Gini Lemon, and we traveled around with the huge bottle in Brad's backpack. We probably looked silly drinking out of it, but oh well, it was delicious! The Gelato was tremendous, light and full of flavor, just what we needed after visiting Notre Dame!
The last night we had in Paris was our anniversary. We found a cafe with a prix fixe menu and Brad got a starter and an entree, while I got an entree and a dessert. It was all very delicious and by far the best meal we had while in Paris! Much better than the first night! My only complaint was that I was supposed to get to choose my two flavors of ice cream for my dessert but the waiter just brought out chocolate and vanilla (not my first choice). The chocolate was okay, nothing really amazing about it, but then again, I don't usually like plain chocolate ice cream unless it's soft serve. But that vanilla, I would like to know if that's really what vanilla tastes like in Paris if I were to buy a carton at the store. It tasted like playdough! No joke! Not salty like homemade playdough, but the actual stuff. Ick!
Our next and last stop was Switzerland. We spend most of our time in Interlaken, or driving around in the countryside trying to find cheese and chocolate factories and then one night in Zurich before we flew home. Switzerland seemed like the most expensive place we visited. We wanted to try some Swiss fondue but it was 26 Swiss franks per person. So both nights in Interlaken we ate at the same pizza place (Art Pizza & Food). Their pizza was really good, but probably not what most people think of eating in Switzerland. I loved their salami pizza! We stayed at a B&B so breakfast has a wide assortment of choices. I was so ecstatic to see yogurt, my usual breakfast of choice, and I had it everyday and was so happy! Brad tried pretty much everything between the two days we were there, I'm not sure what he liked and didn't like. I'm pretty sure he liked the cheese. My favorite part of breakfast was their hot chocolate. Hands down, the best hot chocolate ever!
On our way to Zurich on Sunday we eventually (after driving in a circle, getting lost, possibly driving on a hiking trail, and finally stopping and asking for directions) stopped at the Emmentaler Cheese Factory, and to our surprise and delight there was an apple and cheese festival happening right in front of the factory. Score! I love apples, Brad loves cheese, what could possibly be better? Well, those apple fritter things certainly made things better! They were delicious! We also got to sample some cheese in the factory and we bought a little wedge to eat. We also found a stand that was selling cheesy bread/toast. I'm not entirely sure what it was, but look at the amount of cheese melted on that bread! It's insane! We sat at a picnic table to eat it and a couple sitting across from us were laughing at us scooping the cheese off the plate to pile it higher on the bread. Yum! Brad was in Heaven! And to wash it all down we bought some fresh pressed apple cider. We drank that on our drive to Zurich. There's nothing better to drink than fresh pressed apple cider! When we got to our hotel in Zurich we were tired of driving and irritated by getting lost and we were just done with Zurich before we even did anything there. It was about 6 pm and we hadn't eaten dinner but our hotel was far from downtown and we didn't want to drive again. So we took our rental car to the airport and returned it early so we could ride the shuttle to the airport in the morning and not have to wake up 2 hours earlier to return the car. Once we got to the airport we realized that it has an entire separate building dedicated to shopping and eating. There were grocery stores and food courts and shops, I felt like I was in a mall. So we just ate at the food court, which is where that McDonalds picture comes from. It was the most expensive McDonalds ever! Like $12 for a nugget meal! Oh well, we met some lovely ladies from England who were waiting for their flight at 9 and it kept us entertained for a while, then we caught the shuttle back to the hotel.
We had a few misc. food items too. When we went "hiking" up in the alps on Saturday (I say hiking with quotes because it was a paved path) we found a little food cart selling random food. She was out of a lot of food because she's closed Sunday so she just sells until she runs out of food. That is where we bought the bratwurst and the cheesy onion bacon bread. Interesting stuff, Brad enjoyed it, I enjoyed my apples I had purchased at the grocery store. I'm just not a fan of heavy greasy food after wondering around in the mountains all day, but I did try some and it was good.
On our way to Interlaken on Friday from Paris we stopped at the Nestle-Cailler Chocolate Factory and much to my complete excitement there was a tasting room at the end of the tour where you could try as many of the chocolates as you wanted. There were so many that Brad and I had to skip quite a few. But we did find a few new favorites and bought a few bars to have when we came home. The last misc. food we ate was wedding candy. What's that you might ask, well let me tell you. After "hiking" on Saturday we went back to town to eat dinner (everything closes at 5there, so nothing but restaurants were open when we got there) and as we wandered the streets looking in shop windows that we would never get to see inside (because they're closed sundays also) we heard quite a commotion of honking. Here we were stopped at a corner where a long stream of cars were continuing to honk and turn left in a wedding procession (I guess they get the right-of-way, because the cars wanting to drive straight were stopped until all the cars turning left had finished). Brad and I thought it was funny, everyone decorates their cars in Switzerland, not just the married couple's car, very amusing, then we saw something was being thrown out the windows. The wedding party was showering the streets with candy and rose petals, it was like an impromptu parade. Brad and I were weary at first, but we picked up quite a few pieces of candy and enjoyed them as we finished wandering the streets of Interlaken.
That pretty much sums it up. The next installment will probably be Monday. Enjoy your weekend!
Loved reading this!!! And I am definitely hungry now! :) Everything looks YUM! Except that nasty chicken meal on the plane, I don't think I would have opened that, either.
ReplyDeleteI was getting really hungry writing it! I'm glad to have fruit back in my diet though. That's all I live on at home practically so to shut it out for 10 days was not a happy time, but I was able to get a few apples and grapes along the way.
ReplyDelete