Food in our 1st Moon (Al sam gladan, al sam gladna, mm mm, yum yum yum)

Here is a little retrospective of food during our first moon (yup, one down, eight to go):

NYC - same food you would find back home in Toronto, just more expensive.  The New York pretzel is whatever (and according to M, borderline shit).  We would like to give special mention to two restaurants we ate at.  First night we ate at a fantastic Indian Restaurant around the corner from our apartment called Taj Restaurant (www.facebook.com/tajrestaurant).  We got these three dipping sauces and papari (thanks Harry G!) and Mango Lassi's while waiting for our take-out.  Yummy.  Then the food we ordered, which we asked for extra spicy, was exactly that and delicious.  The prices were great and we have to say, it was one of the better Indian experiences we've had.  Then there was Les Halles (http://leshalles.net/brasserie/, yet again, thank you Andrea and Paul!!) where we ate for S's birthday.  Some of you may have heard of the head chef there, Chef Anthony Bourdain, who wrote the great book Kitchen Confidential.  Fantastic French cuisine, along with a great atmosphere and decor.  We had a few entrees, the meat platter for two, chocolate cake and a bottle of red.  Heavenly and affordable.

Amsterdam – we were treated to wonderful food at home with Tina where we had our first taste of traditional Dutch breakfast bread which the Dutch use to keep regular (no joke).  We'd definitely eat it on a regular basis J.  We also had the pleasure of eating the Dutch caramel waffle (‘Stroopwafel’, S's favourite treat in Holland) and tried food we bought out of a whole in the wall, literally. There are these fast food joints with coin operated 8" x 8" holes where you can purchase mini burgers and various croquettes (cufte).  Not bad for a 1.05 Euros.

Febo fast food

Cvraci, now picture
these swimming in their own fa

Prague - We have to say that Czech food is very similar to Serbian food (as is the language).   We had a fantastic welcome Italian lunch with our fabulous hosts but here we're going to focus on traditional Czech cuisine.  We sampled a few traditional dishes that were a twist on what can be found in our motherland.  As expected, we stuffed ourselves silly and made everyone around quite uncomfortable with our ungodly consumption.  Special mention goes to the Cvarci we had (for those not familiar with this Eastern European delicacy, this is pork fat that has been boiled into curds in pork fat. Yup, you read that correctly.  In Serbia you can even get it smoked ... anyway, back to our story).  The cvarci were in a mason jar floating in their own fat, accompanied by dark rye bread and mustard.  OH MY GOD, was this ever delicious and we inhaled it (to M's astonishment, S absolutely loved it too ... and she says she's a healthy eater! ha!).  Next honourable mention has to go to the pickled sausage which we don't have in Serbia.  We would definitely have it again.  Last honourable mention from our tasting is pork salami encased in pork gelatin (or so we think).   And let's not forget that we had the pleasure of drinking communist coca cola (which we call Cockta in Serbia) - the one thing that the Communists managed to get right.    

Budapest - pastries, pastries and pastries.  We had great apple pie and yummy strudels and made only one bad choice when it came to pastries ... this awful chicken pastry which we found out was filled with nasty chicken liver that tasted like ass (we’re getting the shivers writing about it).   We also went out for a Hungarian dinner and had some so-so goulash and a decent new age meat platter (I know, we're all about the meat platters ... wait till you read the next part on Serbia). 



Karadjordjeva snicla

SERBIA - not that we're biased or anything but Serbia has hands down the best rostilj (BBQ) in the world.  Where do we start?!?  I mean from the internationally popular cevapi to the Karadjordjeva schnitzel (pork tenderloin rolled and stuffed with kajmak - Serbian cream cheese of sorts - breaded and deep fried .... heaven!!!), to pljeskavica (Serbian hamburger on steroids) to vesalica, which is either a grilled or smoked pork cutlet, to the punjena vesalica which is a pork cutlet stuffed with cheese and ham.  Let us stop for a second to wipe the drool from our faces.  Ok, we're back. 



Leskovacka Muckalica

In addition to the rostilj, you can order cooked dishes, our favourite being Leskovacka Muckalica (bbq pork, sometimes beef and deer as well, with stewed tomatoes, peppers, hot peppers, onions, etc) and a close second being wild game goulash.   Aside from meat, every meal is accompanied by roasted red peppers (either spicy or regular) sitting in a bit of oil and garlic and usually a simple salad such as: Sopska salata (tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and feta cheese), Srpska salata (tomatoes, onions, green peppers and cucumbers) or kupus salata (cabbage, oil and vinegar).  

Before we move on from the meat portion, we have to pause and mention the rotisserie lamb we had in Mladenovac (a city about 50km from Belgrade) at a restaurant on the side of the road called MB Restaurant.  This place goes through 36 fully grown lambs a day which are made in a rotisserie next to the patio of the restaurant.  And it was FINGER LICKING GOOD!!!!  We devoured it.  The meat is usually accompanied by freshly baked bread (made on the premises), the roasted pepper salad mentioned above and 0.5L of draft beer. 

** Please note that including MB Restaurants, we ate at so many great restaurants in Belgrade and surrounding areas and Jagodina City :), including but not limited to: Cebic, Klub Knjizevnika, Lovac, Vitez, Hotel Avala and a fantastic fish place on the river Danube (where we saw the biggest cat fish EVER!!!).

Burek with cheese

Moving on to the breakfast and entree portion of the meal, one must mention the pitas and bureks. Pita is very similar to the Greek spanakopita except that it can be made with cheese, meat or cheese and spinach.  Burek is also made with phyllo pastry but this time in layers and filled with cheese, meat, mushrooms or left plain.  We had these with Serbian drinkable yogurt every morning in addition to french toast and rostilj :).

Do we even need to mention that we each gained 10lbs in Serbia or was that obvious??

* for those in the Toronto area who want to sample some of the Serbian meat dishes mentioned above please visit Royal Meats BBQ (www.royalmeats.ca) in Etobicoke. 

Lunch at Hotel Avala - Karadjordjeva, kupus salata, hot and sweet peppers

Lunch at Hotel Avala Part II - cevapi, sweet peppers, lepinja and a pork chop

dinner in Budapest with our meat platter :)

In the city of Amsterdam, you can have a lot of fun ...

A little late but here we are.  We had a fantastic stay in Amsterdam - and extra special thanks to our amazing hostesses (whom we love so dearly and can't wait to see again!).  Not only did our hostess and her daughter open up their home to us but for our first night, they got us a stay in a PIMPIN hotel (Hotel Arena see: http://www.hotelarena.nl/).   Not only was the hotel comfortable and stylish with a delicious breakfast, it's branding was amazing.  The building the hotel is in used to be an orphanage, then it was a hostel (with various artistic performances there, if I remember correctly) and now a hotel.  Associated with the hotel (TOSTAY) is also a large club (TONIGHT), a restaurant (TOEAT) and various meeting rooms for corporate events (TOMEET).   Rooms were fabulous - our had a loft bed and rain shower (which was by the way all in glass that looked onto the living area :).  And we certainly enjoyed the room to the max.  We arrived very early in the morning from the US bleary eyed and very tired (having only napped on our overnight flight).  As the hotel was booked the room wasn't ready yet so we left our packs and went for a walk in the city. The day was absolutely dreadful, worst weather we have encountered yet: dark, windy and pouring rain.  As all the Dutch kept saying "typical Dutch weather".  When we got back to the hotel all wet, tired and cranky, the room with its heavenly rain shower was waiting for us.  And we never left the room again until the next day.  Just perfect :)   Ladies - thank you so much again (dank u wel)!!! 

I know, you're probably thinking, enough already, let me hear a bit about Amsterdam!!!  Well, in a nutshell, it is a beautiful, very livable and very well organized city with friendly, tall and good looking Dutch people.  We could 100% live there.  All the gorgeous canals are lined with tall and not too wide 3-4 story buildings with high windows on the streets and canal boats in the canals (with I think about 400 bridges crossing all the canals).   As the houses are narrow and hence the stairs are quite tight, they all have a hook at the top of the building onto which you attach a long rope to raise furniture or other big pieces into the house through the windows.  Which by the way open ALL THE WAY!  Brilliant! 

A hook at the top of a house

We read that they used to tax you based on the street frontage you had, so residents used to make their houses as narrow and tall as possible.  Check out this one-meter wide house -- narrow street frontage and then it widens in the back to accommodate normal living quarters :)  Pure stroke of genius!!!



the one meter house

And, of course, one couldn't talk about Amsterdam without mentioning all of the bikes ... there are bikes everywhere.  And we mean everywhere.  On a six hour walk through the centrum and south of Amsterdam, we counted every corner and we only found 6 without a bike.  And we don't mean intersections but corners.  Every corner had a bike locked up or just sitting there.  Just amazing and quite brilliant we have to say.  The city is pretty flat so it makes so much sense: it's economical, environmentally sound and very healthy for the population.  No wonder everyone is so tall, lean and healthy.  And everyone bikes, everyone, to go anywhere and everywhere.  That brings us back to our organization comment - the city is sooo well organized.  Every single street has first a path for pedestrians, then a bike path, then a tram or bus line, then one lane for cars, then again, tram/bus, bike, then people.  Just brilliant. You can go anywhere you want by foot, bike or public transport and then if you have to, you can drive.  We absolutely loved it.  Oh and can't forget the roads and sidewalks: they are all so nice and made of stone or cobble stone.  So Euro and very classy. 

parking by central station

So in closing, comparing our first European destination to our last North American one we have come to a few conclusions.  New York is alive and definitely a city that doesn't sleep but it's gritty, dirty, and busy with dirty buildings and their exterior fire escapes (which ruin the aperance of building just a tad) and entrances to basements.  Amsterdam on the other hand was fresh, organized and clean with a noticable pride of ownership.  All of the buildings looked freshly painted or stained in colours that were vibrant but classy.  The roads were organized and well maintained and who can forget the bikes.  Lastly, the people were frendly and 99% of them spoke perfect English (Dank u wel!).   We highly recommend that you visit Amsterdam on any trip to Europe.

Here are a few pictures and to see more, click on this link (password: europa):  http://photobucket.com/SM_Amsterdam2010. 

Talk again soon!

parking in front of Central Station