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 :)

The Depression Sets In

Day 5: rain, rain and more rain (more like a constant drizzle) :(

Well, no report on the mens final between our man Nole and Rafa as it never took place.  But we can report on the fact that it rained from the time we walked out of the train at Flushing Meadows to the time we got out of the train back in Manhattan.  THEN... the rain stopped!!!  So, the final has been rescheduled to 4 pm tomorrow.  Sadly, we are flying out of NYC at 3 pm.  We can't believe we won't get to see the match at all.* Unbelievable!!!   Anyone out there listening, if you could tape the match and email it to us so we can watch it later, we will be forever thankful :)  Is that even possible?

Too depressed to say anything else.  Speak to you again from the Netherlands ...

*by the way, we tried to change our flight to the following day but it would have cost us almost as much as our flights did combined.  Not happening.  Still so sad.  GO NOLE GO!!!!!!!!

NOLE MAJSTORE!!!!

Day 4 (Super Saturday) - Perfect day for tennis... finally!!!
After two cold and windy days we were blessed with a beautiful sunny day (and were terribly overdressed). On the menu for the day were two mens semi-finals and the ladies championship match.  It all started with the Nadal vs Youzhny snoozefest.  This match was over before it even started with Rafa winning in three straight sets.  It seamed that Youzhny never recovered from his marathon match from two days ago and decided to mail this one in.  Rafa was very impressive from the get go and ran his opponent off the court.

Match #2 was the highly anticipated rematch from the previous 3 US Open semis featuring Djokovic vs Federer (Federer had eliminated Djokovic in the last 4 US Open tournaments, once in the final and 3 times in the semis).  To call this match fantastic would be an understatement!  Federer showed flashes of brilliance throughout the five sets but never managed to take full control.  This was largely due to Nole's impeccable play.  You can say he gave the defending champ a run for his money and then some.  He served really well, controlled the baseline and returned serve to perfection.  He also managed to drastically improve on his net game as compared to his 1/4 final match.  The crowd was LOVING this match from start to finish (begging for action after the Rafa match).  We were on the edge of our seats throughout and nearly had a heart attack in the final 3 games.  Nole overcame two of Federer's match points on his serve and came back to break Roger and win in the end avoiding a dreaded tie-breaker.

The best part of this whole experience was cheering for a true underdog who everyone including the whole ESPN cast wrote off.  Listening to 90% of the people at the tourney already talking about a Federer/Nadal final before the Djokovic match even started was getting irritating!  However he who laughs last laughs the sweetest :)  AND believe us, we are still grinning ear to ear 7 hrs later!

Final Score:  5-7, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, 7-5

Finally, the last match of the day was a vicious beating of Zvonareva at the hands of Clijsters.  This women's final was finished exactly 60 minutes after it began.  No joke!!!   Absolutely incredible or embarrassing, depending on where you sit.  For her troubles, Clijsters took home a measly $2.2 MILLION!!!!  WOW!!!  Make sure to say in ...  tennis school kids.

Tomorrow is the big final.  The mighty Serb (who us, biased? Never, it's just science :)) verses the #1 ranked player in the world.  To say that we are excited about having tickets to this once in a lifetime event would be a gross understatement.  We can't wait and we are pretty sure that Rafa is giggling at the thought of playing a worn out Djokovic.

NAPRED NOLE!!!!! .... GO NOLE GO!!!!

Welcome to the US Open

After killing our feet, legs and backs pounding the pavement in New York, we are now sitting and watching others pound the pavement at the US Open.   It's fantastic.  The US Open is one of four yearly grand slam tournaments and Arthur Ashe Stadium at the US Open is the largest stadium in the world.

Day 1: 32C and clear skies!  

You can't imagine a finer day for tennis AND somebody is celebrating a birthday:)   We get there and find out we are watching Djokovic vs Monfils at Arthur Ashe!  For those of you that didn't watch the match it was close in the first 10 games.  After that, Nole kicked some serious ass!  Not his greatest game but it helped that Monfils attempted to hit the ball through his legs while facing the net for no other reason than to showboat and missed miserably.

The grounds at Flushing Meadows are nice, well organized and nice to walk.  Everyone has access to the surrounding courts and practice courts, where you can find anything from a juniors or wheelchair games to the legends and pro's practicing.  Once inside the complex, anyone is free to go and watch a match at the Louis Armstrong Stadium. While walking around, we came across Monfils practicing for the Nole game (where he also played a bit of bball) and Nestor practicing with the legendary Todd Martin.  Very cool thing happened that night, we saw Daniel Nestor again: while at dinner at Les Halles, he came in and was seated right next to us!

Day 2: windy and cold ... very windy and very cold

We went from 32C and sunburns to 15C and 50 km winds.  We definitely did not dress for the occasion.  In the gusting wind, we watched the mixed doubles final where Bryan (USA) and Huber (USA) def. Peschke (CZE)  and Qureshi (PAK).  Bryan also won the men's doubles with his twin brother the following day, defeating Qureshi (PAK) and Bopanna (IND).  Following the mixed doubles, we watched a marathon match between Wawrinka (SUI) and Youzhny (RUS).  Youzhny won in five sets.  We shivered our way home and had an amazing $4 chicken shawarma.  

Day 3: sunny, then more wind and cold again

This time we came prepared in many warm layers and enjoyed another great day of tennis.  We watched the women's semi-finals where seventh seed Zvonareva (RUS) deaf first seed Wozniacki (DEN) in two straight sets and then second seed Kim Clijsters (BEL) battled and beat third seed Venus Williams in three great sets (and many aces from Venus).  

We are looking forward to a whole day of tennis tomorrow: Women's Finals and Mens Semi-Finals.  GO NOLE GO!!!!!  

To be continued ... 

We ♥ New York

The first four days here in NYC we walked about 35 km and biked the circle around central park twice (about 20 km).  Still so much to see but we've seen quite a nice cross-section of the big apple: buskers on the streets and in the subways (from break dancers, musicians, statutes of liberty and the electronic tin man!), the cities many parks and squares (union square, washington square park, bryant park, times square, and let's not forget central park), all the main buildings to see (Rockefellar Center, Empire State Building, the flatiron, the UN, MSG, New York Stock Exchange and Ground Zero), the many new york neighbourhoods (east village where we are staying, Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho, Noho, midtown, upper east side, upper west side, chelsea and the financial district) and the icing on the cake, we witnessed our first suicide attempt :s.   We can't forget that we also were part of the studio audience for The Late Show with David Letterman (aired Tuesday Sept 7th) and we somehow managed to get front row seats!  Right in front of Dave's desk.  Just amazing!  


As every good Serb should do when in a foreign country, on our first day we managed to come across the oldest Serbian Church in Manhattan, the Serbian Embassy and every Serbian flag out on display in the city.  It was destiny :)


The planning and the architecture in this city is just phenomenal for North American standards ... we spend most of our time staring up and consequently bumping into people.  Toronto has a lot to learn.  It's so refreshing to see that buildings exist that aren't made only of cheap glass.  What a concept! :)  And there's a subway system which consists of more than our two straight lines.  Who would have thought that connecting a city through public transit could be so efficient and convenient.  Yet another noble concept.  Oh Toronto, will we ever get there with our petitions against dedicated street car tracks?! We're not sure but can only hope.  While we are on the subject of transportation, we'd like to make note of the good use of one way streets in this city.  How does one get rid of traffic jams downtown? Convert 80% of the streets to one ways.  If it can work so well for 8.5 million people we're sure it can work for 2.5 million.  But, let's not get ahead of ourselves ... let's first connect the airport to the downtown as every other world class city has and thengo from there!


However, New York, you're not going to get off that easy. Can you please clean the streets once in a while and lock away your lunatics in the institutions where they belong and stop letting them roam the streets and your fine subway system!!


With that, here are a few pictures, and for more, feel free to click on this link (password: 66e7st):  http://photobucket.com/M2OHnyc2010