Al mercado, al mercado (To market, to market)

Whilst walking to Cafe Viena for a sandwich, we first encountered the amazement of La Boqueria, Barcelona's central food market. So it's only moments on that we find ourselves back to bask in the delights.

A quick stroll around the market turns into hours, as after 5 months of winter in Hokkaido, fresh fruits and vegetables are effecting us in so many positive ways. The colours, the smells, the vibrance & immediately the inspiration that comes from buckets of dried morel mushrooms;



bunches of wild asparagus sitting in little buckets of water, so wild and free it's as if they have their own personalities;



plump red tomatoes along with zebra striped heirlooms, citrus fruits & green leaves;



our minds and senses are overwhelmed ... trying to keep and store all of these sensations and informations for enjoyment down the line.

It's hard work I tell you ... so when we finally make it to the rear of the market and spot Barcentral, we know it's time for a drink. We start with 2 glasses of cava, Spain's version of sparkling wine. This one comes from the Penedès region in Catlonia, which is only 40km South West of where we are. It's refreshing and crisp, although the glass is small so is the price, so you just have to drink more of them ;p



Whilst we savour the cava, we point on top the counter and in no time have our settings graced with a plate of crispy fried artichokes;



and fried padron peppers. They both come with these incredible penny-sized flakes of salt, which are licked off our fingers as we devour them in no time.



This has only just wet our appetite, so we order a plate of Navaja's, or Razor Clams. They are thrown on a flat grill and splashed with wine & lemon juice. Once they open, they are placed on a plate with a generous splash of a garlic & parsley oil, a sprinkle of salt and a wedge of lemon. But thee flavour that stands out is simply the taste of the sea, lightly salty and oh-so fresh.



As we are sucking the little suckers out of the shell, we see a plate of pulpo (octopus) being plated up with precision. Of course we find room for 1 more plate. Slices of fried potatoes are scattered on the plate and then sprinkled with those giant flakes of salt, then a whole octopus leg is taken from the showcase and sliced into rounds which are then placed on the potato and completely cover the plate. A good sprinkling of paprika and a good glug of olive oil and here we have a very fine example of tasty octopus - so tender and not at all chewy.



It's our first day in Spain, and we both feel like we've slotted in just fine. Looking forward to the next 6 weeks of our adventures here.



Plaça de la Boqueria,
La Ramla 91
08001 - Barcelona, Barcelona
T: 93 318 2584

Barcentral
Stall 494-496
Row H
at the Carrer de Jerusalem entrance

Best sandwich in the world ??

... Well, that's what Mark Bittman from the NY Times said back on October 15th, 2006.

He was talking about the Iberica Flauta at Cafe Viena. We wanted to find out for ourselves of course, so upon arrival in Barcelona we barely threw our bags in our apartment, which was conviniently located on Las Rambla, had ourselves a hot shower (so good after a long flight!) and hit the streets in search of this said sandwich.

We headed off down Las Rambla, pausing for a moment when we reached La Boqueria, in awe. All those jamons hanging in the grand entrance, and fresh fruits & vegetables for miles, but we resist the distraction (until the walk home, anyway) and continue on in search of Cafe Viena.

It's actually closer than we thought, and we've reached it in no time. They're obviously quite proud of the praise they received, as posters are plastered everywhere advertising "the Best Sandwich in the World". Menu's are even available in in several languages ... We perch at the bar and order 2 Iberica Flauta's. They arrive extremely fast, I'm sure they're pre-made and waiting out the back.



Now, is it the best sandwich in the world? Well, I think it could be one of the best concepts for best sandwich in the world ... Freshly baked, crunchy flauta (baguette) that has a nice crisp and taste of olive oil as you bite it, rubbed with plump, ripe tomato, and piled with sliced Iberian ham.



Was it the best executed sandwich in the world? Sadly not ... I think they have gotten so busy, and lost the soul that may have been there 4 years ago when Mark Bittman was.





Café Viena
La Rambla del Estudis, 115
Barcelona, Spain
T: 93/349-9800

Cause we can ..

What do you do when you have a five hour stop over in Singapore on your way somewhere? You could hang around in the airport. Changi is probably the best airport in the world, 24 hour dining (actual real food too), free internet, free beds and massage chairs, and a movie room, it's not a bad place to be. But if your us (and we are) you jump in a cab and head straight to No Signboard chill crab restaurant in the red light district of Geylang.

Don't get me wrong we love living in Japan, but as chilli lovers and also with a strong liking for south east Asia, after a year the food can tend to seem to smother you in overwhelming mildness and perfection in subtlety. The immigration officials thought this was the best reason for coming to Singapore they had heard all day. So into a cab and across town, with a running commentary from the driver (love Singaporean taxi drivers) about how Geylang No Signboard was the best now the chef had moved from the Eastcoast seafood center, and had we tried King of crab yet, and so on.

Jumped out of the cab and woah! it's like thirty something degrees, makes a change from the minus ten we were in this morning. We grab a seat and order. One chilli crab, sambal Kangkong, sign board eggplant and 8 Mantou (fried buns) a large tiger beer and an iced tea please. With traditional Chinese restaurant aplomb a plate of peanuts, chilli sauce and pickled green chilli were smacked down in front of us.

Five minutes later the food arrived, Five minutes after that, sweat was dripping from our foreheads, our lips were burning, our fingers were covered in chilli sauce and we both had a ridiculous smile from ear to ear. Bliss. The crab was as good as any Singaporean chilli crab we had had before, the crab dissmembered and sitting in a pool of rich tangy sauce.



The kangkong (water spinach) was fantastic, wok fried with sambal it was smokey, with great chilli and flecks of belacan (shrimp paste). It was every thing we were missing about the south east in one bite.



The eggplant fried and tossed with a chili bean paste fresh chilli and green onion.



It's all quite hard to remember being so far into the throws of ecsacty. I do recall sitting back content with a cold beer in the sweltering humidity and thinking "this is so good, why don't we live here again?"



Still can't contemplate to long, got to get back to the plane ... We're off to SPAIN! Sweet.

No Signboard Seafood
414 Geylang Road
Geylang, Singapore
8423415

Winter natives

Just a few picture of ostrichs in their native snow enviroment.







The famer says they love it. From the way they were pelting around it looked like it didn't bother them. Was quite funny to watch though.

Hana Yoshi

This is a little something we wrote for Powderlife magazine over winter (cause we really weren't busy enough already, lol)

SUSHI – when it’s good, it’s very, very good. And lucky for us, we're off to long-time Niseko Town favourite, Hanayoshi, which is one the best around.

With a warm welcome and a quick switch of menus for those of us yet to grasp reading Japanese, we’re good to go.

We start off with a couple of tuna nigiri, a grapefruit chu-hai (shochu and fresh grapefruit juice over ice), and a warm sake with a fugu (puffer fish) tail infusing in the cup (a winter special only). The sushi meets our expectations. Generous and super-fresh! The fugu sake is interesting. Not at all fishy and definitely worth a try.





Next up, grilled sea eel nigiri, and lightly glazed and vinegar-marinated mackerel, each continuing the fresh-and-delicious tone.



We follow this with Hanayoshi’s renowned seafood salad – their signature dish. It’s a spectacular salad of fresh greens and seafood (tuna, scallop, octopus and squid) piled high with crispy fried potato rings and hidden treasures of salmon roe throughout. It looks good and tastes even better.



We move on to a silky soft round of braised diakon topped with a succulent layer of monkfish liver pate. The daikon is braised expertly to remove the sometimes bitter bite of the radish, and the monkfish liver lives up to its foie-gras-from-the-sea reputation.



To follow, we order a couple of otoro nigiri – otoro being the fattiest and most highly prized part of the tuna belly. The fish is pure heaven. We finish these off in time for the grilled Chilean sea bass marinated in miso. It's a dish of Japanese origin made famous by celebrity chefs, such as Nobu. The delicate fish flavour is teased out by the caramelised miso, and garnished by a pickled ginger spear.



Just as we finish off tonight’s delicacies, we are both greeted with a warm cup of green tea. A perfect ending to a wonderful night.

It’s no wonder Hanayoshi is known around town as the place to go for great sushi at great prices – just don’t forget the rest of the menu is just as good.


Hanayoshi: 80-2 Hondori Niseko-cho, Abuta-gun, Hokkaido.
Open: 5pm-11pm, last order 10.30pm, Closed Mondays
Tel: 0136-44-3444.

Check please.

And so ends our trip to Italy, I'm pretty sure it won't be our last. We'd like to thank all our fellow foodies who handed out so freely so much great advice and info, especially Rachel and Logan of Boots in the oven, for their epic Frienze and surrounds details.



K&K

The Brakes and Clutches

Apertivo. It's the fine Italian tradition of heading for one or two and maybe a few more pre-dinner drinkies. We headed out one night to the hip Roman 'burb of Trastervere to a former mechanics shop now swinging bar called Freni e Frizioni (Brakes and clutches). We arrived not long after opening to find the place already jumping.



It may have been due to the excellent drinks we were poured (Negroni and Pims cup)



or perhaps the fact that the free nibbles usually on offer during the apertivo hour was more a-not-so-small buffet. Marinated chickpeas, roasted vegetables, little bits of cured meats and a great variety of dipping sauces meant it was ridiculously hard to not spoil our appetite.



When the crowd got to big it just spilled out onto the neighbouring terrace and surrounds.

Was hard to pull our selves away, but it was just supposed to be pre dinner.

Freni e Frizioni
Via del Politeama, 4
00153 Roma, Italy
06 58334210

Not for the squeamish

Quinto Quarto, the fifth quarter is a style of Roman cuisine that grew to prominence at the end of the last century. In the Testaccio suburb of Rome resided one of Europe's largest slaughterhouses, here skilled butchers broke down cows splitting them in half and then in half again, four quarters, leaving only the skin, head, tail and offal. This fifth quarter of meat was given to the butchers to supplement there not so great pay. As well as utilising the offal themselves they often sold it to the local restaurants who began to create culinary masterpieces around the fifth quarter. Within half a century the inferior cooking of the butchers had become renown across the city being sought out by connoisseurs and firmly embedded in the Roman culinary repertoire. Today we eat some history.......

Checchino-dal-1887 as stated, started cooking the noble fifth quarter back in 1887 and is still run by the same family five generations on. That's 122 years of offal cooking experience. Should be good by now then.

When we arrived in the the old slaughterhouse district we quickly found the restaurant and just as quickly were told they did not open for another half an hour. A waiter said we could sit at one of the outside tables as they finished setting up and brought us some water and the menu to peruse.



As a guy who has to order offal if it's on the menu, I didn't know where to start the menu was ninety percent offal, my heads going to explode. After not too long a wait we're ushered into the dining room by our very formal white coated waiter. Having previewed the menu it was quickly on to a couple of campari and sodas and straight onto the good stuff.



First; Testina di Vitello, a terrine of calves head, boiled, boned, dressed with lemon and spices and pressed before being thinly sliced and dressed with a generous splash of olive oil as well as a good whack of tapenade. A whole lot of deliciousness, the ultra richness of the calf gelatin cut nicely with the lemon and olive oil.



Next up; Insalada di Zampi, a salad of veal trotter, again boiled and boned before being tossed all warm and gelatinous with beans, braised carrots and celery and a wicked salsa verde.
The meat was delicate and oh so rich, the salsa, tart and zippy. It was a salad that was hard to pause eating.



As we finished off of campari's we moved on to a bottle of wine, with each bottle order a marble topped trolley is wheeled to the table, glasses and bottle brought to the trolley, opened tasted and poured. Really cool and it happened the same for the guy drinking the stupidly expensive bottle next to us as our little half bottle. No predigious here.



Keeping in the offaly theme the next dish was a real doozy. Rigatone con Pajata. This was Rigatone (obviously) in a tomato sauce with milk fed lambs intestines. The key apparently is to not wash the intestines so they still contain the milk whey from mum. The plate arrived and at first it looked like a plate of pasta with some fat worms on top. Then the first taste, it was like eating tiny sheep's milk cheese sausages - oh so good! Oh how I praise the genius/lazy chef who first served unwashed lambs intestines.



When my new found favourite pasta had disappeared (all too fast) we got to the tail of this matter. Coda all Vaccinara or oxtail braised with pine nuts raisins and chocolate. A small oval plate with two giant pieces of tail all covered in the pine-nutty, chocolate infused sauce. This just looked rich from the start (so much richness from such poor food) we were beginning to think we may have over extended ourselves here.



Luckily we had a plate of Abbacchio all cacciatora, baby lamb braised in white wine, wine vinegar, rosemary and red pepper to chase it down. No kidding really. The lamb was oh-so-tender and the the flavors delicate. Along with the chicory sauteed with garlic and pepper it did well to take an edge off the mega rich meal we had just had.





After a small sit Kat took a wander over to the cheese trolleys (one for stinkies and one for the rest) to see if there might be any thing that took our fancy. Our fancy was took by a beautiful slab of Gorgonzola drizzled with honey and accompanied by a glass of masala.



Just quietly we might have also had a Torta stracciatella; chocolate ricotta and almond cake, with a quite odd chocolate drizzle around the plate, and an orange semifreddo. Both quite tasty.





After the twin efforts of eating such a feast and absorbing all that history, we really felt like we earned our siesta that day.....

Checchino since 1887
Via di Monte Testaccio, 30 00153 Rome
T: 0039 065743816 / 0039 065746318
E: checchino_roma@tin.it

Lunch; 12:30 to 3pm, last orders 2:45
Dinner; 8pm to midnight, last orders 11:45
closed Sunday and Monday
closed in August and one week between Christmas and New Year's Eve

Saint Eustachio, a coffee institution in Rome

Saint Eustachio is a coffee instutition in Rome, and known the world over. It was started in 1938 - with the current mosaic's and furnishings still original. It is now run by brothers Raimondo and Roberto Ricci. They carried on the tradition by selection the best coffee varieties that are prepared with a legendary secret blend. There are 6 tables outside, where you can sit and watch the world go by.



Then inside, you can perch at the counter if you just want to drink on the run.



On our first of many visits, we try a the signature Caffè d'élite which is the Sant’Eustachio coffee. We also order a Gran Cafe, which is Sant’Eustachio Coffee, only larger and creamier. It's not known exactly what they do to the coffee, but I heard rumors that these mentioned brews see the first few drops of espresso whipped with sugar, and the remainder of the espresso drip then added. All of this is sheltered, and quite secret, so I can't tell you ... They are both definitely sweet though, and have the presence of sugar crystals.



We return most mornings for our coffee and pastry fix while staying in Rome, and mostly enjoy just being a part of everyday Italian life, which always starts with a pastry and a coffee.



Sant’Eustachio Il Caffé
Piazza Sant’Eustachio 82
00186, Rome, Italy
T&F: + (0) 39 06 68802048

Sunday to Thursday 8.30am - 01.00am
Friday 8.30am – 01.30am
Saturday 8.30am – 02.00am

Nuts about Nutella

Ahhh, Italians do love their Nutella. Like the amazing idea of putting Nutella, sticks and a tea drink all in one convinient package - genius!

While in Tuscany we also spotted the first-of-many a jar of Nutella that was as big as Kim's head ... mmmmmmm, so much Nutella.



And after a night of eating over in Travestere district, we walk past a little crepe vendor. But what really grabbed my attention was all those Nutella jars ....



Having a crepe to smear it onto was just mere convenience, as walking around the streets of Rome with a jar of Nutella and a spoon might not be acceptable. Or maybe it would be?! There are plenty of options as far as additional toppings go, including nuts, coconut, banana & more, but I'm keeping it pure today ...



Ahh, Nutella love !!