ooh-la-blah

i know i may hear it from my foodie friends, but i can say without hesitation that the only part of our paris weekend that disappointed us was the food.

apparently we just don't care for french cuisine. going out to eat was the only part of the day we dreaded and each meal was as disappointing as the previous.

the only thing i did love was the ice cream scoop (salted butter caramel) i had at the royal garden. it was probably the best ice cream i've ever had and that is saying a lot since we just went to the "land of gelato" last weekend.

listen, we've been to fancy french restaurants all the way down to the crepe we ate by the eiffel tower...our obviously unsophisticated palates were just not impressed.

i'm not sure anyone can go to paris and not fantasize about living there, but each time my daydream began i kept asking myself if i could really live off croissants and ice cream alone.

let them eat cake? okay, because the rest of it isn't very good anyway.

mangia!

We were perusing a menu at a restaurant near Trevi Fountain when the waiter came up and encouraged us to eat there. I asked him "Is it good?" but to guilt him into an honest answer also said "Seriously, though because this is my very first meal in Italy, is it good?". He later told me that he really took that to heart and that if we'd asked him last year when he worked at another restaurant that he would have told us to go somewhere else. He didn't want my first taste of his country's cuisine to be sub-par...and it wasn't. We started with a lovely bruschetta and a warm sheep's cheese that we ate with honey. It was divine.



We both had pasta for dinner that night...Jules had a tagliatelle with wild mushrooms and I had something he said was very typical and good. I can't remember the name but it was a tomato sauce and it had parma (ham) in it. Both were delicious...so delicious I forgot about photos until we had already eaten everything.

After our first dinner we had our first gelato at Trevi Fountain. Jules made poor choices but I loved both my latte and tiramisu.



We grabbed a quick lunch the next day...ordering pizzas we thought would be small and personal sized...




Jules and I stuck to our previous mushroom and pork (prosciutto) choices...they were thin crust and so, so good.

Our last night we headed to the Pantheon where we grabbed dinner just outside its doors...the waiters were wonderful, the atmosphere couldn't be beat and the food was impeccable. We had the best bruschetta I've ever put in my mouth, a great Shiraz and my Penne Arriabiata (spicy tomato sauce) was shear perfection.



We ended our night with another gelato for our walk back through Rome...



a sweet ending to a very sweet weekend.

hip to be square

since i've banned any further ordering of tzatzki which the greeks put so much garlic in it takes 3 days to rid your breath of its smell this is by far our favorite greek appetizer.



called "saganaki" it's a flat square version of a breaded and fried cheese stick.

you can get sagankis made with different cheeses but we usually order the traditional hard cheese variety. it isn't as melty as a mozzarella stick but i think it tastes much better. no need to gunk it up with marinara sauce...just squeeze some lemon on top and enjoy.

favorite "greek" restaurant...

okay, so it is a little weird but our favorite place to eat dinner thus far is a korean bbq restaurant.

we just happened upon it one night while trying to find somewhere to eat. we had been to a japanese place the week before but were sorely disappointed. the sushi was really pricey and not very good. but, you don't see a lot of restaurants outside of cafes and tavernas so we decided to give it a try.

it's called Dosirak which i think is the korean word for bento box (kinda like a lunch box meal) and it serves these, rice and noodle dishes, bbq meats and even has sushi too. from what i've seen from other tables it all looks pretty good. but, in truth neither of us has eaten anything other than the bbq beef. we both got it on our first visit and both refuse to order anything else.

eating a nice greek meal can easily take you up to 3 hours. we tend to be pretty lame during the week so it is nice to have a fairly healthy (not fast food) and fairly quick (less than 2 hours) place to get dinner.

we've already eaten at this place 4 times and i'm sure it will continue to be on heavy rotation for the next 5 weeks. i'm also sure when we go to asia i'm going to be kicking myself for not eating more meat and potatoes!

breakfast of champions

okay, maybe i'm not a "champion", per se, or in any way...but i do love the breakfast here.

i get to look out at the acropolis while eating and i am confident in the fact that i will never tire of the choices here. i was so sick of the breakfast buffet at the hotel in india i thought i'd scream if i saw one more egg white omelet.

who could get tired of eating this?



while looking out at this?

rikki-tikki-RAKKI

While in Arahova we dinner at a great restaurant named Flox...the hotel owner had recommended it and promised great food and an even better atmosphere. It did not disappoint in either cases.

Jules had the rooster with pasta...she thought it just tasted like chicken but I thought it was a little gamy, in a good way. I also thought they did a nice job cooking it for 3 hours so it was juicy and tender like a hen.



I had the traditional lamb (sorry Beth Y. but hey, I am in Greece) with potatoes. I adore the simplicity of the dishes here...just some olive oil, a little oregano and you've got yourself a wonderful meal.



We all had too much Rakki- a traditional Greek liquor (think gasoline) served warm with honey mixed in.



The owner was a merry old soul and brought us pitcher (yeah, pitcher) after pitcher of the stuff. It was my first time drinking it and I pray my last.

cheese plate

Maria and I ordered a "small cheese plate" at a cafe in Nafplio this weekend. We made this choice from a section that also offered a large cheese plate, a small and large meat plate and a small and large mixed plate of both meat and cheese.

This is what we received...and believe me other than the small bowl of feta in the middle everything else was meat. Even the stuff I thought had to be cheese ended up being turkey.



We asked our waiter about 3 times if this was the "small CHEESE plate" and he assured us it was. He even brought over the menu, pointed to "small cheese plate" and assured us that it just came with "a little meat".

I suppose if we had ordered the large meat plate we would have received whole pigs, chickens and lambs.

What? I love Chicken Ruggets!

From the menu of a restaurant in Nafplio. I'm sure if Scooby would have been with us he'd have ordered them.



They also served "beat steak" if you were looking for some "red" meat.

heaven, i'm in heaven....

We arrived in Greece on Sunday around 1pm...we had eaten on the plane (btw- not too bad Emirates) but were pretty hungry after we got to the hotel. We wandered around the Plaka until we spotted a cafe, where we may or may not have dined during our honeymoon (we're still debating), and grabbed a couple of seats outside under the heater.

I, of course, ordered a Greek salad and Jules went for the turkey and cheese crepe. My salad was sadly a big disappointment. Not only did it have lettuce, the tomatoes were just so-so and worst of all- NO OLIVES?!?!? Luckily, the crepe was delicious and even better luck my Wife shared it with me :)

Our exhaustion and jet lag beat out any hunger that evening so we skipped dinner all together.

Breakfast the next morning at our hotel was lovely...it's very Greek with hordes of beautiful cheeses, meats, and veggies...not to mention the restaurant overlooks the Acropolis so you can't really beat it.

Last night we had our first dinner at a restaurant I had found online recommended by some guy named Matt who is apparently a Greece expert. Owned by a brother and sister (their parent's place is up the street and we're hitting it soon) it turned out to be a pretty typical taverna- small in size and big in name-Oinomagerio Paradosiako.

We started with some tzatziki which was great and so heavy on the garlic that it burned our mouths in that really great garlic-y kind of way.

I, again, went for the Greek salad. This time there was not a lettuce leaf in sight...only a huge hunk of feta, olives, onions, cucumbers and gorgeous tomatoes...the way a Greek salad should be...



I had also ordered some roasted lemon potatoes to round out my meal. If we've ever talked food then you know I believe potatoes to be the most perfect food. I've never met one I didn't love and these were no exception. I adore Greek style potatoes...all crispy on the outside, wonderfully soft in the middle and infused with lemon. Combined with my favorite salad it was, for me, a truly perfect meal.

Jules went for the beef steak and was more than pleased to receive a huge hunk of red meat for dinner...


I think it is safe to say they have not seen the last of us.

desert bbq

we had some pretty good bbq in the desert in dubai...all the meats were delicious and although i don't normally eat hummus and rice with bbq it was a nice combo.

i ate all the dal before remembering to take a picture. as sick as i am of indian food i will say that the dal will be missed.