Croatia: the four-hour Istrian lunch

Valsabbion kept showing up in my research of restaurants in Istria. It’s the kind of place where the dishes are small and fancy, and there are a lot of courses. I love that kind of restaurant. I asked if they could accommodate a vegetarian. They could. I reserved.

Valsabbion is a hotel and restaurant located near the giant harbor in Pula, down at the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula. The immediate area was disappointingly uninteresting for wandering around, but that was fine: we were there to dine.

We settled into the outdoor table that would be our base for the afternoon and accepted an aperitif of local sparkling wine. The men chose a seven-course prix fixe menu that would set the pace for our meal. We were warned it would take several hours. That was OK, we had time. We chose a local rosé to complement our meals, and we were off.

My delight started with the appetizers, presented in a series of little glasses and spoons which contained tasty spreads of local veggies, cubes of local cheeses, and interesting little fried creations.

My next course was a sort of vegetable lasagna with an abundance of fresh truffles.

Next came a layered cup of local wild asparagus, a poached egg, and a wild asparagus puree. » Read the full post

Tags: Croatia, Eastern Europe, Europe, food, Istria, Pula, restaurants, travel, Valsabbion, wine

The Best of Munich’s Christmas Markets

It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of Christmas market season already. Time flies when you’re chugging glühwein. I have been hard at work sampling the city’s seasonal markets in order to bring you this post, my awards for the best bits that Munich’s Christmas markets have to offer.

Best Glühwein – Schwabing
Glühwein (hot mulled wine) taste and quality varies greatly from markt to markt and vendor to vendor, but the only glühwein I had this year which made me jump up and say “whoa, that’s tasty!’ was the ginger glühwein we had that the uppermost food stall at the Schwabing market. The white glühwein from the same stand (billed as a ‘Schwabinger’, I believe) is also decent.

Best Feuerzangenbowle – Mittelaltermarkt
Probably the most expensive feuerzangenbowle (another hot wine beverage) out there, but also the most delicious. Rummy and not too sweet, it’s served in a fancy goblet with a sugar cube lit on fire.

Runner up: Rindermarkt. Served in cute clay cups, the Rindermarkt version is yummy but sadly lacking flames of any sort.

Best Live Entertainment – Schwabing
Country line-dancing Germans. Enough said.

Best Setting – Chinesischer Turm
This market in the middle of the English Garden is even more adorable when covered in snow.

Runner up: Marienplatz. I usually avoid this one because of the overwhelming crowds, but I have to admit there’s something gorgeous about a Christmas market nestled into Munich’s picturesque main square.

Best Performance Art – Tollwood
Meet our new igloo-dwelling animal-hoof-wearing friends, Babok.

Best Food – Schwabing
Schwabing is running away with a lot of these awards, isn’t it? The variety and deliciousness of Schwabing’s Christmas market food is hard to argue, though. I had a delicious plate of Eritrean veggies there this year.

Runner up: Tollwood. There’s a tent full of international delights, plus plenty of stalls offering staples such as falafel and crepes.

Best Shopping – um, uh, Tollwood?
I confess I hate shopping, so I rarely if ever do it. The only things I buy at Christmas markets are consumables. Anyone have a recommendation for the best Munich Christmas market to shop at? I named Tollwood because it definitely has the most shopping, but we all know quantity does not necessarily equal quality. I actually wanted to declare Schwabing as the best place to shop, in part because we found this great hanging Jesus (his arms and the donkey’s tail move when the string is pulled) there, but in the end the tent full of terrible, horrible, very bad paintings absolutely cancels out the awesomeness of whatever else you can find at this markt. I believe one of the paintings was entitled ‘Don’t Drop the Soap’. It was a couple paintings away from the giant three-dimensional resin vagina.

—
And on that note, I think I’ll wrap it up! (But remind me to tell you a funny vagina story from my trip to London sometime.) Alas, you’ll probably have to wait until next year to actually try out any of my fabulous recommendations, since today was the last day of all of the markets except for Tollwood, part of which is open for another week. Not sure whether the Baboks will still have their igloo parked there.

Happy holidays to all my readers! (Well, except for the angry Swiss dude who reads this just so he can find things wrong with my opinions. Bah humbug to you.) I’m off to pack for my next adventure.

Tags: Christmas, Christmas markets, food, Germany, holidays, Munich, wine, winter

Oktoberfest 2009 day 13: Weinzelt, good and bad

After a couple nice visits last year, I was really looking forward to our evening reservation at the Weinzelt this year. Overall it was a fabulously fun Oktoberfest night, but my esteem for this tent has dropped considerably. I’ll have to be on the lookout for a new favorite.

The main reason I love the Weinzelt is because almost all of the tables are booths, meaning there is a nice barrier between you and the asses of the drunk, sweaty, squirmy guys sitting at the table behind you. This little detail increases my enjoyment of a long session at Oktoberfest considerably. Another nice touch is that the Weinzelt stays open an hour later than the other tents.

The Weinzelt, per its name, serves a decent selection of wines instead of Oktoberfest beer. You can get weißbier at the Weinzelt, but not all night long (I forget at what time they actually stopped serving it). The food at the Weinzelt is top-notch, but comes with a similarly high price tag (evening reservations are around €80 per person). While I very much enjoyed my dinner, fine food seems kind of out of place at Oktoberfest. There’s so much else going on around you that it’s hardly possible to give your meal the attention and appreciation it deserves.

The worst part of the evening was getting into the tent: only one door was open, and there was a giant crowd of angry, drunk, reservation-holding people all shoving to get into it while asshole security guards looked on and offered no assistance. It was a horrendous experience, even by Oktoberfest standards. And from what I’ve heard from other people, this is pretty much standard practice at the Weinzelt on popular evenings. If you can’t be bothered to allow customers into your tent in a way which does not squish the air out of their lungs, I’m not sure I can be bothered to fork over money for an evening reservation at your tent again. No matter how cute your flashing pink bunny ears, nor how awesome you Oktoberfest band’s renditions of Lady Gaga songs.

We’ll see which parts I remember most when next year’s Oktoberfest comes around.

Tags: Bavaria, Germany, Munich, Oktoberfest, wine

Greetings from southern France

Have I mentioned recently how much I love living in the center of Europe?

Tags: France, travel, wine

Fire and ice and Santa driving a tram

First, the fire:

The world’s largest feuerzangenbowle at Isartor, open through early January (so we have something to do after the Christmas markets end).

And the ice:

Skating at Prinzregentenstadion. I love winter in Munich.

Fire and ice not enough for you? How about a Christ child tram?

Tags: Germany, Munich, wine, winter

Oh la la! Beaujolais Nouveau!

Last night we went to a Beaujolais Nouveau party. Beaujolais Nouveau, of course, is a crappy French wine with a brilliant marketing strategy. What to do? Our wine is so crappy zat no one wants to buy it. We cannot possibly compete with ze other fine French wines. I’ve got it! Let’s use a little reverse psychology. Get people excited about, um, our wine’s freshness. Zat’s it! We will pretend it is supposed to taste zat way! And have a big party to celebrate ze new shit every year!

And party the people do. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I love a good excuse for a party. The invitation for this particular one came with the instruction to wear a French detail. Like a beret. Or a mustache. Or a picket sign. Or…. a Camembert cheese hat?

Tags: Munich, wine

International Glühwein Tour 2006 (part 1)

We spent the weekend Christmas-market-hopping around our little corner of Europe. On Friday I introduced fellow blogger Ali and my mother-in-law to that most delicious of Christmas treats, Glühwein (hot spiced wine, for those who haven’t been following along). This took place in the courtyard of the Landesmuseum, a large castle right next to the Zurich train station. In December, the courtyard becomes a little winter paradise, complete with ice skating rink and multiple food and drink stands serving up hot beverages and raclette.

I’m happy to report that the Glühwein was a hit all around (unlike last year when I made Swiss Mrs. try it for the first time – she found it vile. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, either.)

On Saturday we headed north to Baden Baden (not to be confused with Baden), a medium-sized town in Germany with a cute walking-district in the center and a big outdoor Christmas market (as opposed to the Zurich market, which loses quaintness points for being indoors). We spent the day wandering around and sampling various German Christmas treats, such as Glühwein, Magenbrot, Glühwein, roasted chestnuts, and Glühwein.

We were impressed with the wide variety of Glühwein variants on offer, such as white Glühwein, Glühwein with amaretto and oranges, Glühwein with Kirsch, and Glühwein with Jägermeister, just to name a few. We also liked that it was served in real mugs rather than styrofoam cups. One pays a Pfand, or deposit, on the mugs, and can choose to keep them as souvenirs or return them to the Glühwein stand to retrieve this deposit.

The next day we took the train over to France to check out the famous Strasbourg Christmas market. It was certainly the most crowded Christmas market I have ever been to, and probably the largest, as well. The large gothic cathedral in the center of town reminded me a little of Milan’s, and looked quite picturesque surrounded by a sea of Christmas market stands and an ice skating rink. The Glühwein (or vin chaud, as it is called in France) was served in horribly flimsy plastic cups, but at least it tasted pretty good. We had some delicious cheese and walnut savory crepes for lunch at a stand run by a very entertaining French couple. I also found a stand selling a delicious white Glühwein, which outdid even the German version.

Overall Germany is winning the international Glühwein competition, with Switzerland coming in a not-so-close second. France didn’t do so badly, but it lost major points for the flimsy hard-to-handle plastic cups. Don’t the French understand the importance of presentation?

Tags: France, Germany, holidays, Switzerland, travel, wine

Expovina (and my first sighting as a world-famous blogger)

Fellow blogger Ali and I (and our husbands) spent the afternoon checking out Expovina (see here for a little info in English). In case you missed my post about the spring edition of Expovina, here’s a brief overview of the idea: you pay CHF 15 apiece to get into a giant wine expo, where you get to sample wines from all over the world until you can no longer stand up. It would be easy to attend every single day of the 2-week-long expo and not run out of new wines to sample. And as if thousands of wines weren’t enough, one can also taste fun things such as Kirsch and Williams and other essential Swiss after-dinner drinks.

The fall edition of Expovina takes place aboard 12 ships that are docked downtown on the lake right at Bürkliplatz. The atmosphere aboard the ships is quaint and cozy, and perfect for sampling a bunch of wine.

After we had drunk our fill of vino, the four of us headed out to dinner. As we were about to leave, a couple walked by our table and started to talk to us. At first I was worried we were about to be reprimanded for being loud and obnoxious (we had been having way too much fun making fun of German health problems), but as it turns out the couple just wanted to say hi. They recognized Ali and I from reading our blogs. It felt like we were celebrities for a moment – not movie starts or chart-topping singers or anything, but more like contestants from some b-list reality show.

Expovina runs through November 16^th, so we might even try to go back for a second round. But if we do, for the sake of my circulation, I will be staying far, far away from the cabernet sauvignon (story for another day).

Tags: bloggers and the people who love them, Switzerland, wine, Zurich

Eating and drinking our way through southern France

Wednesday evening we hopped on an overnight train to go visit our friends who live on the southern coast of France. Being on a French train and all, we had a couple of unscheduled delays, but in the end we were content to arrive at our destination a mere two hours late (yay, no strikes). We spent these extra two hours talking about how much we love Swiss trains, and vowing to never leave our country again.

Things only improved from there. Our friends picked us up at the train station and whisked us back to their home by the sea in St. Pierre la Mer, a tiny village of 500 inhabitants which swells to 100,000 during the tourist invasion of the summer vacation months. We spent the morning wandering the outdoor market by the beach, marveling at treats such as fresh almonds (which had furry green coats) and baby artichokes.

The afternoon was spent hopping from winery to winery, sampling everything the region had to offer. » Read the full post

Tags: cooking, Europe, food, France, travel, wine

Vino. Lots and lots of vino.

Last night we checked out the Expovina, a week-long expo that allows one to sample wines from around the world in one convenient converted-warehouse location. For a nominal entrance fee of CHF 12, we were free to bounce from stand to stand, tasting as many wines as our palates could handle.

There were millions more wines on offer than we could have possibly sampled in one evening, so we focused on finding some good, affordable Swiss whites, which was surprisingly easy to do. Switzerland’s wines are usually poopooed by connoisseurs, but it’s really not such a bad place to find some flavorful, drinkable whites. And we’re no connoisseurs.

Most of our favorites ended up coming from Waadtland, the area on Lake Geneva between Nyon and Montreux. We intend to go back and order a case or two of a few of them, as soon as we remember which wines those were (or decipher our increasingly illegible notes in the margin of the catalog). I know there was a particular Blanc de Noir (white wine made from skinless pinot noir grapes) that I must have again….

Tags: Switzerland, wine, Zurich