Vacation plans for 2014 included a magical trip to Peru. After many empanadas and Pisco Sours later, we sadly returned. Stay tuned for chronicles about our food journey in Peru.
Category Archives: On the Road
Beer for Breakfast
8 countries in 3 three weeks: Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Spain. We did it. My biggest souvenir was the 5 lb beer belly I brought back with me. It’s hard not to drink beer in eastern Europe. Not only is it cheaper than water (bottled or tap), it tastes so much better than it does in the States.
We were excited to find a bar in Prague that had separate taps at each table. This particular bar was linked up with other bars, also with taps at each table, so that you could see how you much you drank compared to others. A dangerous/brilliant idea, no doubt.
Another dangerous/brilliant idea is fried cheese. Some places served it with a blueberry or pomegranate relish, thus making it even more awesome.
We made our way from the Czech Republic into Hungary. Again, lots of beer. I’m not going to lie, I have no idea exactly what this is a picture of. I just call it a pile of yum. I had some heartburn after inhaling it, but I seemingly survived.
Burek is my newest obsession. This is a phyllo dough-like shell stuffed with with a variety of fillings (cheese, meat, potato, or spinach). We ate this particular spinach burek in Sarajevo for breakfast. It is often topped with yogurt. Of course, we tried every kind so to be most accurate, I should say that I brought back a beer/burek belly.
No trip to Spain is complete without eating pimientos del padron or jamon iberico.
I hope we will be back to this part of the world again soon. Besides the food, the rich and interesting histories of these places will pull me back. It is scary to think that the strife in the former Yugoslavia was so recent and you can still see the remnants of war. Nonetheless, it did not detract from the beauty of each of these countries.
I Left My Heart in San Francisco
It is amazing how many exciting things there are to do, see, and eat in a city that is 7 x 7 miles. Undoubtedly, there are just too many places to ramble in San Francisco. On this trip, we made our latest attempt to narrow it down to just a few places. But, we will back…
We ducked into Cafe Prague in the financial district for a quick drink. 
Traveling makes one very thirsty, no doubt. We chose a nice Czech lager called Staropramen that had a slightly sweet aftertaste. A perfect prelude to dinner.
Dinner was spectacular. I have been waiting a long time to try Greek food at Kokkari in the financial district and we finally did it. I was tempted to order all of their appetizers in lieu of a main dish, but I opted not to go that route. That will be for the next trip there.
It was difficult, but we narrowed it down to saghanaki (pan-fried Kefalotiri cheese deliciousness) and the kalamari that was stuffed with feta for our mezethes.
Saghanaki
Kalamari
After the cheese was grilled, we gave the lemon a healthy squeeze over the cheese. We then quickly reached for the bread!
For our main courses we dined on the lemon-oregano chicken roasted with winter root vegetables and the souvlaki (spiced lamb skewer) with tzatziki on the side. A few words about roasted items:I love them. The caramelized outside of the veggies was perfect and gave the root veggies an extra layer of flavor. I also love how the restaurant wrapped the lemon half in cheese cloth so when the lemon is squeezed all you get is the juice.
And no night is complete without a night cap at Mr. Bing’s.
Eat - Drink - Roam 