The French Riviera

From one beautiful place to the next, we moved on from the Swiss Alps to the Mediterranean Sea.  The French Riviera was our next destination and it too did not disappoint.  The journey itself is worthy of mentioning as we travelled through the second longest tunnel in Europe which stretches 17kms.  I have heard of the term traffic before and I claim to have been stuck in traffic before, but waiting for two hours to enter this tunnel, as they only let a certain amount of cars through at a time was an experience.  I have never been stuck in traffic to the extent that you look out the windows at the people around you to discover they are standing outside their cars having cigarettes and a little stroll to kill some time in the middle of a 4 lane freeway.  After the 11 hour bus ride we eventually made it to the French Riviera where we went to an organised dinner at a restaurant.  Unfortunately this is not the best dinner to talk about as it was by the far the worst we have had and we did not get our meals until at least 9pm followed by dessert at 11pm.  I was hoping the food would make up for the wait, but the salmon was cold and over cooked and the chips that we saw the waiter eating off our plates was easily the best part of this meal.

This little experience was not going to put a dampener on our next day and we were all eagerly waiting to head into Nice first thing in the morning.  Once arriving in Nice, we walked straight to the beach to check out the sights on the stone pebble beach.  The water was so incredibly clear that you can easily understand how the locals ignore the fact that the pebbles are not the softest thing to lie on but certainly worth the view.  An even better way to see the view was from on top of the fortress which overlooks the beach and has a great view of the waterside airport.  We have mastered climbing stairs in the last week that is for sure, so again one foot in front of the other we climbed some more stairs to check out the view.  It was amazing to see the amount of private jets that were flying in and out to one of the busiest airports in France.

After soaking in some of the atmosphere we headed back into town where we discovered a local fresh produce and flower market in Old Nice.  Now I know I have gone on about markets in the past, but this truly was breathtaking.  The sidewalks were lined with stalls full of spices and herbs, fresh meats and fish, cheeses, breads, fresh fruits and vegetables to name a few.  As I was walking through I was incredibly jealous of the other tourists that had the opportunity to pick up some produce as words cannot express how much I would have loved to purchase anything in an attempt to whip up a French inspired recipe.  I did sample a few things along the way and I was surprised at how different things tasted.  Many of the stalls had sundried tomatoes out to taste and I took the opportunity at multiple stalls to compare the flavours. I was surprised that they had a slightly saltier taste and had more of an olive type taste then what I am used to back home.  I also purchased a punnet of strawberries for only €4 and they were the juiciest strawberries I have ever tasted, full of magnificent flavour would have been divine with some melted chocolate!

I must also make a quick mention, specifically for my Mum and Nana, of the amazing flowers. Nice is a well known flower growing area with many perfumeries taking the opportunity to grow flowers in this area.   Lavender is a common flower grown here and the market had multiple little stalls with lavender creations for sale.

Ok, back to the food! After our longer than anticipated stop at the market, we headed to find some lunch.  Nice is apparently well known for its pizzeria type foods as it is so close to the Italian border that many Italians migrated to the French Riviera and combined the two cuisines together.  It is often said that the pizza in the French Riviera is better than the pizza you can find in Italy.  With this in mind, we were hunting for Pizza! We decided to settle for brushetta type pizza where the topping was served on a bread rather than on a more traditional pizza base.  We also decided to get a cheese platter and share all three dishes.  This was possibly one of the best decisions of the trip!  The food was magnificent.  We had a chorizo bruschetta with rocket and a ham bruschetta with mushrooms both with four types of cheese with a tomato base sauce.  The chorizo was amazing, better than any I have had at home before and has made me rather excited for the opportunity to eat this again over the remainder of the trip.  The cheese platter was also delicious. I have tried goat’s cheese in the past and HATED it! Either my taste buds have changed since high school or the goat’s cheese here is so much better as I loved the creamy texture and flavour that this cheese had.  There were also few other cheeses on the plate such as blue cheese (which was a little too strong for me), Brie and Swiss cheese.

After filling our stomaches at lunch, we headed towards Monaco to mingle with the rich and famous.  In my opinion we had unfortunate timing to be in Monaco as the grand prix was on.  This meant the streets were closed off making it impossible for our bus driver to get us there, so we trained into town where the trains were so overloaded they could not run due to weight restrictions. The police were called to get people off the trains which was a bit of an experience in itself.  We unfortunately did not run in to any stars but we managed to get into the famous Monte Carlo casino, which was stunning, as well as check out some pretty amazing cars including a sleek black Lamborghini.

We are now on our way back to Italy (we actually just crossed the border) and my stomach is telling me its lunch time so that’s my cue to sign off xx

All Things Swiss

I am not sure I can describe Switzerland in any other way except for beautiful.  The sights of this country are amazingly breathtaking and I wish I could just sit and watch the world go by for hours on end as I cannot imagine the sheer beauty ever becoming boring.  Admittedly I had no expectations of this country, no idea what language was spoken (turns out there are four, but we were in a German speaking area) and little clue about the cuisine that was traditionally Swiss.  The only thing I really knew was that Switzerland was famous for Swiss Army Knives.  Perhaps I should have done a little more research, but to my surprise the views are amazing, the locals are incredibly friendly and chocolate here is to die for!  I even learnt that Toblerone is in the shape of the Swiss Alps, and I’m pretty sure it tasted better too!

Apart from discovering the amazing chocolate, my experience of Swiss cuisine unfortunately was not as adventures as I had hoped. Being in a small isolated town we had Aussie cooks that prepared all of our meals for us which limits the options to pick and choose traditional dishes made by the locals.  After a 10 hour bus ride from Paris we were eagerly waiting to find out what our first meal would be.  The good old Aussie cooks did not let us down and the first thing we were served was Swiss cheese fondue.  The cheese had a bitterness to it that made it unique, unlike Swiss cheese I have tasted in the past.  It was served on a traditional burner and was boiling away to ensure a cheesy experience.   This was probably the most traditional of foods that I tried in Switzerland, but I was overtaken by the beauty and the opportunity to sit and have a picnic lunch overlooking the snow covered Alps that the thought of trying to track down any other traditional food was long gone from my relaxed mind!

Switzerland is a must return place for me and I hope to get the chance to try out some more traditional dishes and take in some more of the beautiful country side. For now a short blog as we venture on to next destination of the French Riviera x

Is turning into a sugar addict...

As the internet is few and far between on my travels, this was written on the 24/05/2012

You should all be aware from my up and coming travel plans on the right that we are currently on our Top Deck tour around Europe.  Before I begin on the adventures so far, I have no choice but to fill you in on the amazing discovery we found in London, specifically Leicester Square!

If you have managed to read any of my previous blogs, I am sure you have discovered that we like to do a lot of wandering around with little plans and just see what we stumble across.  Well we discovered possibly the greatest shop in the world! Yes, we discovered M&M world!! You would think that since M&Ms are actually made in Ballarat, we would have one of these shops (and we should)but no, we travelled around to world to discover that there is a shop that has walls literally lined with M&Ms of all the flavours and colours you could imagine.  So to purchase these M&Ms, they give you a plastic bag and you can fill it up as much as you like.  The problem was that it was £2.10 per 100g (EXPENSIVE) and I may have gotten a little carried away as I didn’t realise that it did not measure the 100gs for you..oops.  So after purchasing around £6 of M&Ms I was super excited to taste some crispy M&M heaven.  I am sure you can imagine my bitter disappointment when I discovered that they do not taste the same!!!!  They are more like a biscuit inside, not as crispy and the chocolate has a different flavour, yet I have still managed to eat the majority.

After our M&M discovery we made our way to Clink 78 in Kings Cross where we stayed before departing for our tour at 6:30am on Tuesday morning.  We departed London and headed to Dover to catch the ferry across to France.  It was approximately a one and a half hour bus ride, one and a half hour ferry ride and then another 4 hour bus ride before finally arriving at Paris.  We arrived late in the afternoon before moving onto our first Paris dinner at a restaurant where we had a set menu organised by the tour.  I am sure many of you will be disgusted but my first taste of Paris was snails! I took the plunge and shoved the garlic covered snail into my mouth. I was not sure what to expect, but surprisingly it tasted like an overcooked chewy mushroom covered in a butt load of garlic butter and herbs. After our snails, we were given a chicken & onion soup with cheesy bread soaking in the middle followed by main course of braised steak on macaroni type pasta.  I must admit I found the main course very odd as it was just two bits of meat on plain boring pasta! Not at all what I was expecting from Paris, but apparently a traditional dish that the French enjoy.  No offence to the French, but I don’t think I will be cooking a version of that when I get home.

After dinner we made our way into the city on our bus to do a lights tour and check out all the sights at night.  My first impression of Paris was again not what I was expecting.  For a city that is well known as the city of love, some areas we drove through certainly required some love as there was a lot more graffiti and run down areas than I ever imagined.  Luckily I had the whole next day to explore the city to change my opinion, which I must admit I am now sitting on the fence as I am unsure if the spectacular things I saw outweighed all the rest.  With an early start again, we jumped in the bus that took us into the city and dropped us at the Louvre, famously known for being the home of the Mona Lisa.  This is where my search for Macaroons begun! I was super keen to discover another of Paris’ well known treats from any cute little Patisserie I had heard line the streets.  It took the majority of the day but after visiting the Louvre, having lunch in front of the Notre Dame, testing out the tube/underground, climbing the 280 steps of the Arc De Triomphe we strolled down the famous shopping strip Avenue Des Champs and there it was, Ladurée, a well known sweats shop.  With the intention of purchasing one macaroon, I could not help myself and had to taste test three! I choose Raspberry, Lemon and Milk Chocolate.  All three macaroons were busrting with flavour and as expected were a light meringue biscuit type texture.  Chocolate was however the most delicious and I can see this becoming an addiction when in London as I have already seen a lot of patisseries that are full of macaroons.

It was time to walk off a little more of the food we have eaten, so we continued towards Place De La Concorde until walking was no longer an option as the aussie thongs, aka Havaianas, we had been wearing all day had given me blisters.  This was the perfect time to catch a bike taxi to the Eiffel Tower where the funny Frenchman had a Rhianna CD pumping the whole way, well worth the €7.50 each.

Finally we had arrived at the bottom of arguably the most famous landmark in Paris where we sat for a couple of hours watching the people go by and for the first time all day taking in the view from the grass parks.  This was the setting for our picnic dinner organised by our tour guides where we indulged on yet again traditional French food such as cheese, baguettes, fresh meats and salads as well as fruits and cakes.  With another deliciously filling meal down, what better way to work off some calories than a walk up the Eiffel Tower at sunset.  We walked the stairs to level 2 (I cannot remember the number of stairs, but something like 800 at a guess) and then spent the longest minute ever in a lift up to the top.  The views were spectacular and for me was the highlight of the trip to Paris, apart from the macaroons of course!!

We are currently sitting on a 9 hour bus ride to Switzerland and have just had another picnic on the side of the road, a much smaller version of last night, so I best sign off and be a little more social with the rest of our group xx

Its Official...I am a Market Lover

I am sitting here at Starbucks utilising the free wifi and thought I best take the opportunity to update you all on our last couple of days before heading off to tour Europe where I imagine the updates will be few and far between.

The last couple of days has seen us move closer to town into Piccadilly Circus where we have tried two different backpackers.  We have done a few more of the touristy things such as check out the shops on Oxford Street, stroll through Hyde Park (where you need to pay to sit on the deck chairs! How ridiculous!!!), Arsenal football stadium, the Tate Modern Museum and checked out the Borough Markets.

So here is a tip for when you get a little ‘bored’ in London town.  Pick a place on the tube that you recognise and see if you can find the landmark for recognising it.  We have purchased zone 1 and zone 2 underground passes and noticed that Arsenal was in our zones.  I have already mentioned my love for the tube, so we thought why not kill some time and see if we can find the football stadium.  Who would have thought it was as easy as walking out of the tube station and BAM what do you know we are at the stadium!  It’s a pity it was closed and we couldn’t get inside, but it was a rather fun way to spend the afternoon.

I have also discovered I am a market girl.  I have always found going to a market very relaxing just to browse and not even buy anything, but I have decided that I love market food.  We decided to try another of the famous London markets, the Borough Market for a lunch snack. This was perhaps not so relaxing as you could not move any direction except with the crowd, but the food makes it well worth the trip! You can see why the locals flock to these markets to get gourmet foods such as olives, specialised meats (the strangest one I spotted was Ostrich) or cakes etc.  We have been eating a ridiculous amount of carbs since arriving here so the moment I spotted a vegetarian stand I was there.  A veggie and cheese pattie with mixed salads and caramelised onions sounded like a great healthy choice compared to the baguettes and things I have been consuming for lunch of late.  It was delicious and another cheap option of only 6 pounds

I must also make mention of our dinner experience last night, Indian cuisine in Brick Lane! Never before have I walked down a street where quite literally at every single restaurant there is a person standing out the front trying to talk you into eating at their restaurants.  It was a little overwhelming but the things people try to use to get you to come inside was a little funny.  Luckily we went with some ‘locals’ aka Aussies that have been here longer than us, who knew how to barter for a meal.  We ended up with a deal of pappadams and chutneys, a starter, a main, rice AND naan with BYO alcohol for 10 pound each which is SUPER cheap.  There was such a crazy amount of food and I think we would have been lucky to get through about half of the meal.  In fact I am still feeling a little full today!!

People are now starting to stand around waiting for a table to sit down, so I think my wifi using quota is up!  Cheerio people x

Discovering the Covent Market Secret

Surprisingly I am back here after only two full days in old London town! Before we discuss any food, I must admit I am in love with the tube.  Not only is it super fun to be underground (yes, the things that amuse a country girl are bizarre), for something that is designed just like a rabbit warren, it is amazingly easy to use and the prepaid Oyster card system is brilliant.

The tube has been our main transport to get around to see what London has to offer.  So far we have done a lot of the ‘tourist’ things such as catching a double decker bus across London Bridge, walking across tower bridge to the tower of London, City Hall, toured St Paul’s Cathedral, watched changing with the guards at Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, toured Parliament House, Westminster Abbey & Covent Gardens to name a few!

I am a little in love with the panorama setting on my camera and this was taken on the tower bridge

St Paul’s Cathedral has been by far the highlight of the trip so far.  We spent a good couple of hours here before closing and I don’t think we saw even half of the place.  It is simply stunning and I would highly recommend this to any and everyone that visited London.  Not only is the history amazing but the building itself is breath taking.  It is disappointing that you are not allowed to take pictures inside to share with those that will unfortunately never witness this buildings beauty.

One thing I was expecting to really enjoy was the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Well this was unexpectedly boring! For something that happens every day, I was not expecting thousands of people to be there, which meant when you are short ass like myself, you can hardly see a thing.  There was also a lot of construction works around the palace for the Queens Jubilee which basically ruined any photo opportunities of the place. 

With the sightseeing update out of the way, I am excited to move on to our food discovery at the Covent Gardens. We went here expecting to see some shopping stalls at the markets and find a nice little pub to have dinner, however we stumbled across the most amazing food market.  There was all kinds of food including kebabs, Indian curries, gourmet beef burgers, crepes, cakes & fudge.  We walked around for about 10 minutes as there were so many options I could not decide what to try.  The way they cook these main meals up are amazing with humongous woks and grills set up all over the place! After much deliberation I settled for a ‘lunch box’ which contained potatoes, salad, gherkins (which I politely declined) and a chicken kebab.  Now before I go on, what is the English obsession with gherkins?  Every single place we have eaten has an abundance of meals served with gherkins and people were ordering kebabs with gherkins only.  I am not sure if there is something we are missing out on back in Aus, but the amount of gherkins these people eat is mind boggling!  I don’t think I will be jumping on that bandwagon any time soon. 

After gobbling down my tasty and cheap 6 pound lunch box I couldn’t resist testing out a sweet treat.  I gave a brownie a whirl and it was well worth it.  Made out of pure chocolate, it was so chocolaty I had to have a break half way before I went into a sugar coma!  I must also make special mention of the nutella crepes that were available.  They were the most interesting to watch and on recommendation from my travel buddy, these were also super delicious.

After finishing our night with a glass of wine, it is now time to get some sleep before packing up and heading to another backpackers closer to the city tomorrow!

Night all, or Good Morning to all you Aussies xx

The Joys of Plane Food!

So our journey has now officially begun! You would think that after 9 months of anticipation I would have realised that I am actually going to London for an unknown period of time where I will have no steady income, no permanent address with limited family & friends to rely on, not to mention everything else that comes along with it.  Apparently that is not the case! After approximately 20 hours of travelling, I am sitting on my second plane and still feel like next week I will be having my weekly Wednesday night dinner ticking another location off ‘the list’ of places to eat in Ballarat.  This could be a whole other blog in itself, but for those of you that have no clue what I am referring to, me and my besties have a list of restaurants/cafes in Ballarat and each week we trial the different cuisine the city has to offer in an attempt to eat at every possible venue.

Well let me tell you that at this very moment I am kinda wishing that it was Wednesday night and that I was about to go out for dinner because I am officially hungry!  I was sitting here thinking about when the oh so lovely flight attendant will bring me my next snack and decided perhaps it was a good idea to start my first blog about the food we have already consumed. 

In departing the country I thought what better way to bid farewell than with a delicious parma from PJ O’Briens at the airport.  I must admit I was extremely disappointed with the lack of salad dressing as I am a little bit of a salad lover, so the green leaf and red onion that got served up put a dampener on my meal. Now I was in no state to take pictures of this, mainly because the thought never crossed my mind as I was too occupied with the gifts that were being provided to me over the dinner table.  The besties mentioned in ‘the list’ challenge came up with a brilliant idea to each give me a Pandora charm that represents themselves.   Each individual and hilarious in their own right, but special mention goes to Jacob who provided me with a camera charm, not because he knows I like taking pictures, but because he likes to be the centre of attention and be in pictures.

After smashing down a parma it was time to board our 10:10pm flight to Abu Dhabi and be served a second dinner at approx midnight.  I’m the kinda girl that thinks chicken is always a safe option, you can’t really over cook or screw up chicken.  Apparently I was yet again wrong.  Dinner for me was chicken stirfry with vegies and hokkien noodles.  Lets just say for someone that normally avoids noodles late at night, this was the only thing that got eaten!  The best part of this meal was easily the savoy biscuits and tasty cheese, oh and the warm bread roll!

Picture taken with iphone

After about 6 hours of on and off napping, it was breaky time! I woke up feeling pretty ordinary so my travel buddy taste tested our scrambled eggs, chicken sausage, odd potato things and grilled tomato.  The look on her face was enough, but when combined with the words “don’t bother”, I stuck to the reliable bread roll and jam with some vanilla yoghurt.

After a 2 hour stopover in Abu Dhabi we boarded a second plane for the trip to London at 8:30am local time, 2:30pm Aus time.  By this stage I was over my little ill patch and had moved on to feeling hungry. My stomach was however distracted slightly with what was possibly the most exciting news for the trip so far, we had managed to score four seats between the two of us, hello stretching room!  This and the recent pang of hunger made me feel much more chipper when deciding on my second breakfast for the day. I opted for the frittata and this is by far the best decision I have made all trip!  For someone that does not like egg, I smashed down this ‘pepper’ frittata, which I later worked out was capsicum, and whats best described as potato wedges.

This has bought us to now, where we are currently flying over the Black Sea and I have no idea what local time is, but according to my stomach 6:30pm Aus time is food time!  

Time for me to sign off and waste another hour with some god awful movie hoping that this Cafe Service with savoury pastries is not far away!

Ready Steady Cook Challenge!

A few weeks ago I was telling my friends about all of the random food left in my pantry and that I was super excited to do a Ready Steady Cook challenge. After cleaning my pantry & fridge out, as you can see, there was a lot less to work with than what I expected.

After raiding the freezer and finding a chicken breast, this is what I came up with!

Oven Baked Chicken with Roast Pumpkin & Tomato Salsa
1 Chicken Breast
2 tspns of minced garlic
2 tspns of whole grain mustard
1 cup of diced pumpkin
half a red capsicum diced
half a green capsicum diced
half a spanish/red onion (1/4 finely diced for salsa, the other 1/4 roughly chopped for roasting)
7-10 cherry tomatoes
dried basil
2 tbps olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.  Combine garlic and mustard together in a small bowl and coat chicken.  Place chicken on an oven tray and bake for approx 30-35 mins, depending on your oven. While the chicken is baking combine the pumpkin, capsicum, 1/4 of roughly chopped onion & 1tbsp of oil. Season with salt and pepper and add to the baking tray with approx 20 mins baking time remaining.  If you like your capsicum more crunchy, you can also add this with approx 10 mins baking time.
While the oven is doing its thing, quarter the cherry tomatoes and combine with basil, remaining onion, 1 tbsp of olive oil and pepper.
Once chicken and pumpkin mixture is cooked, place pumpkin mixture on a plate (excuse my ugly plastic plate but I had already packed mine!) top with chicken and tomato salsa mixture and enjoy!

Alterations I would make
As I'm sure everyone does, I would prefer to use fresh produce, but since this point of this meal was using whats left in the house, I did not purchase any extras. So here is a few alterations I would make:
 - Replace the dried basil with fresh basil. 
 - Add half an avocado with some danish feta to the salsa.
Let me know if you give this a try and what other alterations you would make!