...Europe (The Last Suppers)

A snowy Prague

Another day, another sodding Christmas market. Finn swore it was the last one in - where was it? Bratislava? Vienna? Budapest? Who knows? We're moving so quickly through European capitals that they are becoming a blur of twinkly lights, crooning versions of Christmas songs and the aforementioned markets. Anyway, the last market in wherever it was was 'the last one'. But it's sooooo cold and our stomachs, immune to Christmas overload, are crying out for meat and gluhwein. Well at least we're in the right places then. Prague fed us smokey 'old-Prague ham', in Budapest we had potato dumplings with sausage and doughy pancakes with cheese and ham (and Finn got his hands warmed by the overly friendly waitress), and in Bratislava we munched down fried potato cakes smothered with sour sheep's cheese. The Christmas markets in these cities have given us the opportunity to try local specialities (I use that word loosely but there were lots of locals eating at them too), warmed us up and saved us money.

A sign in the Christmas market

It was only in Vienna where we fought back. Mainly because it was this-has-gone-beyond-a-joke cold, we simply had to get indoors and warm up. We made our way to Hotel Sacher and joined the queue of other tourists (an elderly English gent in tweed seemed rather disappointed when he discovered that there wasn't a local to be seen there). Hotel Sacher prides itself on reproducing Sacher-torte to the original recipe which was created in 1832 by a 16 year old apprentice chef for Terribly Important People. The Sacher-torte is essentially a chocolate cake sandwiched together with apricot jam and covered in chocolate icing. We ordered a wedge of the stuff which arrived with cream. It is a lovely cake - baked perfectly. However, I found it to be a little too perfect and not very exciting. Which is how I could sum up my feelings about Vienna really. I would be happier with a Sara Lee chocolate gatuax (and richer for it). I guess by that reckoning I'd also be happier having a weekend in Blackpool than in Vienna.

Sacher-torte

Coming back into Eastern and Central Europe we have been shocked by the endless glowing signs advertising Tescos, McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, Subway... The usual suspects. I hadn't realised it before but Italy really has done a good job of fighting them off. Thankfully, the smaller capitals we've visited seem to be alive with independent coffee shops. Bratislava in particular had some lovely places to while away snowy afternoons. In the Next Apache we lounged on a regal looking sofa and flicked through old copies of the New Yorker and felt very bohemian. Until we put our anoraks back on.

Finn being all regal in the Next Apache cafe

It was also rather wonderful to be in an environment that hadn't been 'Ikea-ised' (if it wasn't already a term, it is now). In one place we noticed a sign printed on the door telling customers that it was free from Ikea furniture. Unfortunately it was closed but it got our pulse rates up at the idea there might be such a movement. However, after some 'research' I have been unable to find out anything more and have instead boosted Ikea's search results. But it is reassuring to know that people are fighting this dull uniformity.
 
In Berlin we got all excited about going to the Museum of Currywurst where for €11 we could 'relax on a hot dog sofa' or experience what it's like to 'work in a hot dog van'. However, after reading such shocking reviews online we settled for a tray of currywurst and chips, all smothered in ketchup, curry powder and paprika. Job done.

Chips and Currywurst

Our final stop in Paris generally involved drinking copious amounts of red wine with friends we met in Kashgar. Nicely hungover, we boarded the train that would speed us back to our beloved London.

...Slovenia (Horses and Hostesses)

Ljubjana

I did not imagine for one second that I would be doing another blog entry about eating horse. Then again I didn't imagine we'd still be travelling. But here we are and there are horses to be eaten.

Within 2 hours of arriving in Slovenia, we had filled up on lovely borek (with pizza filling! The ultimate fusion food!) and smoked a shisha. It is good to be back in Eastern Europe. Excitement reached fever pitch when we discovered there was a burger chain called 'Hot Horse' which served, yes! Horse burgers! However, the experience was rather disappointing so to make it more interesting Finn and I have come up with some horse-related puns to describe it. They are a little subtle so I have italicized them so you don't miss them.

The horse burger

We arrived in Ljubjana hungry. In fact, so hungry we could eat a horse! Ha! We weren't dettori-ed by the long walk there, nor did we bridle at the price. Neigh, it seemed very reasonable. We had to rein ourselves in otherwise we would've bought more than we could eat. The cashier behind the mane canter was very helpful and greeted us with a cheery "hay there!". He offered us ketchup, mayonnaise and other dressages to have on our burgers along with saddle such us lettuce and tomato. Finn looked at his burger and announced "cheval'll do nicely". I bit into mine. "What the fetlock is this? This isn't a fetlocking burger! Give me a proper fetlocking burger" I thought to myself, rather rudely. Surprisingly there was a shetland of people queuing (it must be a night-mare in the evening). My motto is neigh-ver say neigh-ver. However, on this occasion I say neigh-ver again. And that's the gospel hoof.

In a nutshell, it was a bit bland.

Thankfully, our experience of Slovenian food improved dramatically thanks to the wonderful Petra. We spent a weekend with Petra, her husband Bostjan and their two girls Lara (4) and Tajda (2) in their huge house just outside the capital (but far enough away to be in the proper Slovenian countryside). Petra was apologetic about our first meal as she'd promised the girls homemade pizza. However, this meant we got to taste her delicious pickled mushrooms, picked locally and watched as the girls stacked up our pizzas to resemble something Jackson Pollock would be proud of. 

The 'artists' at work on our pizzas

Though working as a lawyer, taking care of two young children and running a large house, Petra somehow found the time and energy to ensure we tasted traditional, home cooked, Slovenian food. A particular favourite was the pork preserved in mountains of its own fat. For a Sunday tea we spread the fat on brown bread and then layered thin slices of the pork (which had been soaked in water, salt and herbs and then cooked in a pan over an open fire) on top. The next morning, before venturing out into the snow, we ate eggs fried in the pork fat. 

The lovely Petra with the pork and pork fat

During our stay, we were invited to a neighbour's 80th birthday party. We were treated like royalty - if being treated like royalty is being taken out onto the patio for a shot of homemade blueberry brandy and being fed until we nearly burst. All the vegetables were homegrown and the desserts were all homemade. Our eyes lit up at the stack of baklava and we devoured potica, a bread with sweet walnut paste that's eaten on special occasions. We also tried Vatican Bread, a kind of fruit loaf that apparently you only make once in your life and divide the mixture to give to friends and family so that they can make their own. A kind of 'chain-bread' if you like. We spent an enjoyable but admittedly bizarre afternoon getting drunk on sour, Slovenian red wine that smelt of Stilton, watching people test their blood pressure (a machine was produced), avoiding being dragged onto a man's lap and being asked by the birthday girl if we could dance 'gangnam style'. We can't. And if she'd asked us a week ago we wouldn't have had a clue what she was talking about.

What a Slovenian 80th birthday party looks like!

Hmmm. I'm feeling a bit peckish. In fact, I'm feeling a bit Hungary! Onwards!

...Italy (Never tell an Italian that their bread is rubbish)

Eating with new friends in Turin (shortly after ´bread-gate`)

There are millions of books waxing lyrical on Italian food and pages upon pages analysing 'why Italians love food'. Quite frankly, I've spent over two months in this country and I can't really say that Italians love food more than any other nation I've had the pleasure of eating in. And I include Briton in that. What I have observed and feel I can confidently say is Italians seem to take food and drink more seriously than most cultures. And I would like to use this post to illustrate this point. And tell you some other random stuff I discovered.

Firstly, the title of this blog refers to an occasion where Finn announced to a table of Italians that he thought that Italian bread wasn't very good. The jaws dropping around the table suggested he had made a big mistake. You do not criticise their food it would seem. When we later pointed out that someone at the table had agreed, we were told ´Yes but he can be a real sh*t sometimes`! Excuses and then recommendations were made for where to find 'good' bread. (We never found it).

In a small town near where we were staying in Emilia Romagna, we were advised that we could take any wild mushrooms we found to a man at the council offices who would identify them for us. If he wasn't available then the mayor could do it instead.

Wild mushrooms

When residents of Modena, a large town in the north famous for its Balsamic vinegar, heard the church bells warning of American bombers during World War Two, they fled with their cherished possessions including small kegs of the prized vinegar.

You can buy lasagne hot from vending machines (Finn thinks this says the opposite to my point about Italians being serious about food but to me, it suggests they think 'well if you want a cheap and quick fix then have a lasagne rather than a Mars bar).

Lasagne vending machines

To cook Florentine T-bone steak, you are advised by cook books to follow the rules of the 'Association of the Florentine T-bone Steak Academy'.

A sign in a Florentine butcher

You can buy dried pasta in vending machines.

Women in Umbria are advised to eat a chicken everyday for forty days after giving birth. In another region it's chickpeas.

Many bars do 'aperitivo' where you buy a drink and get access to a buffet. However, whereas in Britain we'd just get scotch eggs and sausage rolls (though I'm not complaining), here we tucked into plates of lasagne and pasta.

Good balsamic vinegar makes everything taste glorious. Including ice cream. And bland lasagne which is made even more tasteless by racist waiters.

This post is the last for Italy. It has been difficult to decide what I should write about as we really have eaten some very tasty things. Earl grey and chocolate ice cream, small calzones bursting with mozzarella and Parma ham, 50 year old balsamic vinegar, homemade cheese, a meal where every course was based on mushrooms, rich and thick hot chocolate. We've had memorable experiences too. Discovering the farm where we were working had a room where they made balsamic vinegar, dipping Tuscan biscuits into Cuban rum, learning how to make pasta, eating homemade pizza with a family on a Saturday night in their living room which they'd turned into a cinema for the night, having to describe to a table of new friends exactly how our meal tasted, cooking over an open fire, watching Finn's face slowly turn black from the squid-ink pasta he was eating. Italians (and ex-pats!), I am eternally grateful for what you have taught me about food and hope you will eventually forgive us for thinking (and telling you) your bread is a bit rubbish. But really, everything else is pretty frickin wonderful. Good job.

Making pasta

We've got three weeks until we catch our home-bound train from Paris. I guess we might as well go and see what they eat in Slovenia...

...Italy (The Sound of a Good Cheese)

There is a sharp intake of breath all around as the Italian gentleman in the white coat moves towards the shelf labeled 'Carlotta'. He lifts the 40kg golden cheese and taps it with his little silver hammer. "Tap tap", he knocks around the side, "Tap tap", he raps it on the top and the bottom. The cheese is placed back on the shelf and the sound of breath being released followed by a spontaneous round of applause from us spectators echoes around the vast hall. For the cheese has passed the test. It's a good 'un which is a relief as it belongs to the owner of the farm on which we are staying.

The Parmigiano Reggiano factory we are visiting is award winning and has been awarded gold status. This means that last year every cheese passed 'the hammer test' (when you consider they produce 12 cheeses a day, that's no mean feat). The white-coated official is listening for hollows in the cheese. Hollows suggest bad quality and less superior taste (but this is good for us because it means we can buy the rejects in Lidl at a reasonable price. Oh the shame!).

So how do you make an award-winning cheese? Firstly, the cows must be fed only hay otherwise the cheese won't bond. Milk taken in the evening sits in long troughs and is mixed with 'morning milk' the next day in a big copper vat where the 'cheese' drops to the bottom. After being 'blessed' (the sign of the cross is made in each vat) the rest of the milk is taken to be used for making ricotta (or to reduce swellings - you immerse the affected limb in a jug of the stuff!). The cheese is then wrapped in muslin and put into moulds. For the next 20 days the cheese sits in a salty bath (mmmmm salty bath). This causes a chemical reaction within the cheese that makes it easier to digest - you could give it to a baby and they could digest it, though you might want to grate it first (the cheese that is). After that the cheese sweats the last of the salt out in a Turkish bath (mmmmm salty, Turkish bath). It then sits in a large hall on a shelf to mature from anywhere between 12 and 52 months.

And here we are, back in the factory gazing at rows upon rows of glorious cheeses. We are taken to taste cheeses of different maturities which contort our faces to degrees a professional gurner* could only dream of. The cheeses are surprisingly sweet and are tasty on their own. The idea of biting into a lump of Lidl's parmesan is unthinkable (for a start it would probably break my teeth). But the Parmeggiano Reggiano is often served as a cheese in itself. With a drizzle of balsamic vinegar over the top. Bellissimo!

 

* if you are unfamiliar with this word it would be far more satisfying for you to google it rather than have me explain it. Trust me.

...Italy (Pig Cheeks)

(Apologies for the absence of photos, having a few technical problems. Just imagine my happy face with a big bowl of pasta and glass of red wine and you've pretty much got it).

On our last night in India, rather than be all reflective and stuff about our trip, I flicked through the Rome section of our guide book and did a little research on Roman delicacies. Sadly it would appear that things have moved on since Ceasar and co dined on dormouse stuffed with pork and rolled in poppy seeds. To my utter joy, I discovered a dish that combined tomato, pasta and that classic ingredient, pig cheeks. I immediately turned to Finn. 'WE CAN EAT PIIIIIG  CHEEEEKS IN ROME!!!  I LITERALLY CANNOT WAIT!!!'. I exclaimed in capital letters and lots of exclamation marks for, after all, I was exclaiming. He was somewhat surprised by my enthusiasm (we have a vague memory of me being vegetarian once) but I explained that for 20 whole frickin weeks of the year we have been denied pork due to the whims and fancies of various religions . Ten weeks of those were about to end and if there's one part of the pig I'd choose to eat after this porky drought, it'd be the fleshy cheek. In his sage-like way (no, no, not annoying at all), Finn calmly suggested I might be envisaging a rosy-cheeked cartoon pig (with a cartoon apple in its mouth). And, as usual, he was right. But I was still excited. Pig cheeks!

So we arrive in Rome and I cannot tell you how excited I am to be back in Europe mainly because a)the weather is like nowhere else, b) there are fewer things trying to bite me and c) no one stares at us which means I can wear clothes that suit the weather (but I'm still pretty modestly dressed compared to these European hussies! Ha ha!). Anyway. It is our second visit to Rome and we immediately know we've made the right decision to come back as we wander past shop windows stacked with fat sandwiches bursting with gloriousnessness. On our way to the hotel, I go into the train station to find an ATM and come out with a hot baguette oozing greasy slices of dark ham. We are however on a budget. And in that respect we are in the worst place in the world. Everywhere you turn there is something tempting you, dammit. At least, I think, I'm not on a diet. Thanks to ten weeks in India, I need to put some weight on.

So being on a budget, we have to limit ourselves to the odd restaurant visit. I find one with the pig cheeks dish (bucatini all'amatriciana) and we head there to find queues of locals. We get a table and experience the no-nonsense approach to dining that I've missed. What do you want to drink? What do you want to eat - pasta or soup? Within 2 minutes we have half a carafe of full-bodied red wine, within 10 minutes two bowls of pasta arrive. 'Ten minutes!' I hear you say. 'that's nothing! That's McDonald's speed!'. Well, what do you expect when you only have 5 options of pasta sauces, each comprising of a maximum 5 ingredients and the pasta is as al-dente as a tough old boot (though a classy one and one that you'd really like to just, you know, have a gnaw on because it looks soooo lovely)? And you can stop imagining a big flappy pig cheek. I counted no more than 4 slivers of fatty cheek and do you know what? That's all that was needed. Why oh why in the UK we insist on drowning food in meat is anyone's guess. Less is more! And the Italians know this and that's why the food in this country tastes so delicious and healthy. Shockingly, on our table there was no salt nor pepper and parmesan was not an option, it was a NECESSITY. The dish arrived simply smothered in the stuff. Of course it helps that the tomatoes and onions used in the sauce are local and have not travelled an obscene and totally unnecessary distance. And yes, the fact the pig clearly had an enjoyable life rolling around in meadows, taking long afternoon baths and rollerblading or whatever, makes a massive difference. But I can (and do) grow good tomatoes in my kitchen, I'm sure I can grow an onion and I have an amazing butcher round the corner which is admittedly so expensive, once a month we treat ourselves to 4 rashers of bacon. But the point is I don't need to use a lot of meat! It's so very obvious and wonderfully simple that I feel like an imbecile.  LESS IS MORE! Hooray! (Though perhaps different rules apply here when it comes to fake tan. Just an observation).

...India (Journeys)

 On a train in the Rajasthani desert

At midnight, two hours into our train journey we were informed that the train had been diverted and was now hurtling 8 hours away from our destination. We quickly consulted our map and realised we could go to Varanasi instead. This added another 12 hours onto our journey but we both knew what the other was thinking. Twelve whole extra hours to enjoy the Indian train food experience.

It started as soon as we peeled ourselves from our grimey bunks. "Chai, chai, chai". There is no better way to wake up than with a cup of sugary chai served in a terracotta cup to be smashed out the window once empty. But what to have for breakfast? I was holding out for the 'bread-omlette' wallah (seller) but the samosa wallah beat him to it and we were soon eating hot potato samosas smothered in florescent pink ketchup.    

Finn tucking into another unhealthy breakfast

Next along was the coffee wallah, followed by the monkey-nut walllah and then the cucumber-chilli wallah. The procession continued with bananas, biscuits, slices of coconut, barbecued corn-on-the-cob, tomato soup (with croutons!), ice cream... Until lunchtime when the biryani wallah came along and we filled ourselves up on the greasy rice and sachets of hot Indian pickle. On another train journey we were surprised to find a man distributing business cards for a restaurant. Some clever so-and-so has had the brilliant idea of offering a food delivery service where you call up, order some tasty morsels which are delivered to you on your train at a designated station. Wonderful!

A vegetable biryani

Buses are not exempt from the procession of gourmet wallahs. Before a night bus into the Himalayas, we filled up on vegetable momo, plump Tibetan dumplings served with a hot chilli sauce (the best I've had were fried cheese and potato ones. Unbelievable). In a 4 hour traffic jam over a high mountain pass, chaat (snack) wallahs showed ingenuity by weaving between the vehicles offering fried corn and bhel puri (puffed rice with onion and a sweet sauce). Why doesn't this happen at home?!

Chaat wallahs on a Himalayan pass

Buses always stop at dhabas too, a cheap restaurant serving rice, dhal, curry and, of course, chai. Just what you need when an 8 hour journey in the mountains turns into a two day test of endurance. After travelling on buses for 8 months, a well positioned dhaba restores the faith of a lost soul who is beginning to tire of the seemingly endless road ahead and who begins to dream of a decent pillow and proper cup of tea. Well, almost.

A welcoming dhaba at the top of the pass

And yet it would appear this journey does have an end. This part anyway. After much soul searching we are heading back to Europe. An urge to do some work is driving us back west and quite frankly, we miss Europe. We plan to work on organic farms and hope to learn how to make among other things, honey, olive oil and the best goddam bolognese sauce you ever tasted. My next entry will be coming from the land of food and wine (ah wine! Sweet, sweet wine!). I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read my ramblings, let alone comment on them and email me! I will continue to tell anyone who will listen about what we ate but hopefully also a bit about what we made. I hope you will continue to join us as we start the last phase of our trip. That cup of tea will have to wait until Christmas. Itaaaaaly here we come!



...India (Five Cures for Homesickness)

Sun setting on the ex-British hill station town Shimla

Seven and a half months on the road begins to take its toll. So thank god for India which has the amazing ability to make one (well, me) homesick and at the same time offer 'cures' for said homesickness. Surprisingly, India is great for comfort food. When our tropical-ized bones rattled in the very British climate (i.e cold and damp) of the mountains, our bodies called for chicken curry and they were answered satisfactorily. Very satisfactorily. To the point where once again, I daydreamed about the actual number of our feathered friends I've consumed on this trip. Though they may no longer consider me a 'friend' I suppose. Where was I?

Rainy Shimla

In the ex-British hill station of Shimla, we sat on a bench eating local honey ice cream. If a food could capture an English summer's day (a rare non-rainy one that is) then this was it. It tasted of meadows, sun light breaking through trees and...hay fever. Really, it reminded me of my hay fever treatment which is akin to snorting a meadow. Still, as we sat in the damp cloud, like so many 'Britishers' before us we dreamt of 'home'.  Which was all golden and happy with an acoustic guitar soundtrack. Basically a mobile phone advert.

Another taste of home has come in the form of the utterly divine gulab jamun, a small ball of sponge cake drenched in butter and syrup. It is like treacle pudding and is at its absolute loveliness when served piping hot (sometimes I force myself to feel homesick so that I have an excuse to eat one). 

A sweet maker

While not quite a taste of home, there is one snack that I am considering exporting to Britain as it incorporates standard ingredients of British food - bread, potato and batter. To make bread pakora, take one slice of crappy white bread, cut into two triangles and fill with boiled potato. Dip into a spicy batter. Deep fry. Serve with ketchup. I had to try it, though perhaps having it for breakfast before a 13 hour bus journey wasn't one of my finest ideas.

Another unhealthy breakfast

And finally, cheese! In Rishikesh, we'd planned to do some meditation* (me with the aim of staying awake for the whole session). On an 'off day' we managed to score some cheddar cheese (one of the better legacies of the British empire). While enjoying a sandwich in our room, I looked over to the open door to see a figure. At first I assumed it was a stray dog but then I realised it was a huge bruiser of a monkey. Dear reader, I confess I shrieked! Finn assumed an ant had crawled onto my sandwich but then he too saw the beast, stood up, shrieked and fell back on the bed. I searched for something to throw and my gaze fell on the tin plate with my sandwich on. My sandwich! Could I sacrifice my cheese sandwich? No! Don't be ridiculous! By this time, undeterred by our shrieking, the monkey was eying up the room. AND MY SANDWICH! Thankfully, Finn had (unlike myself) pulled himself together and leapt up again, this time to bravely shut the door. Saved! I spent the next 5 minutes laughing and crying hysterically. I then finished my sandwich. The monkey returned later to wee on our balcony. I don't know what that means.

* In my third mediation session, I was overwhelmed by a vision so strong, it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. A burger, to be precise, a Big Mac (I haven't eaten a Big Mac in about 20 years), came floating towards me out of the darkness. Aware that imagining a juicy beef burger in the middle of a meditation class in a Hindu ashram might not be appropriate, I tried to shake it off. But I couldn't! I could even taste the damn thing. And again, I am moved to write the sentence: I don't know what that means. Actually, what am I on about? It means I want a burger.

...India (The Importance of Food!)

The monsoon finally arriving in Varanasi

The woman on the plane next to Finn leans over "please have just one more roti", I decline once but she can see the hunger in my eyes and I greedily accept on the second offer. Finn's stomach lurches, a leftover from moving too fast these past few days but the woman won't take no for an answer. He must be fed!

In the last few months, Indian food has played an important role in the direction of our trip. Over chai and aloo paratha in an Indian cafe in Phnom Penh, we decided to cut our stay short in south east Asia and booked a flight to Calcutta. Ten days later we were eating thalis in a restaurant in Siem Reap when one of us raised the possibility of bringing our flights forward. Five days later and here we are on a plane to India. That shouldn't have happened for another two weeks.

Aloo Paratha - a spicy potato flatbread - with lime pickle for breakfast

So Indian food has a lot to answer for. And we know we've made the right decision before the plane has even touched down on Indian soil! On arrival in Calcutta we head for chai, the sweet and spicy tea India sustains itself on and the long dreamt of 'butter toast'. Munching away we get chatting to a local who invites us for dinner with his family. We meet in a park where two plates and several dishes are unpacked and soon we are devouring home made chicken curry, rice and pickles while the family watches on. Not for the first time on this trip  we have to deal with the discomfort of being invited for dinner and being the only ones to eat.

The next evening we locate the restaurant where 6 years ago we ate the most amazing tandoori chicken. Thankfully our memories haven't deceived us. It arrives with a lime and coriander dipping sauce and the chicken is as succulent as I remember, it is marinated right down to the bone! 

Tandoori Chicken

In the holy city of Varanasi, we fight through crowds of Shiva worshipers clad in orange to a restaurant that does a mean thali. A thali is the best value meal money can buy. You receive a large, metal plate with several compartments in. Though the contents varies, you usually have one or two curries, a pickle, dahl, chapatis and rice. You mix the curries and dahl into your rice and then get stuck in with your hands. There is something very satisfying about eating with your hands but there is an art to it. The curries stick the rice together which allows it to be rolled into a ball. You take the ball onto your fingertips and then push the food into your mouth with your thumb. The really great thing about thalis though is that men come round the tables refilling your plate at no extra cost. The whole thing costs about 40 pence.

A Thali

Later we meet a traveller who recounts an experience he had in Delhi. On a tour of the sights, he asks his rickshaw driver to recommend somewhere good to eat, somewhere 'alive'. The driver takes him to a bustling restaurant. The food is amazing. Thirty minutes later he is running for the toilet. Perhaps it was a little too 'alive'. Welcome to India...

Graffiti on Varanasi ghats

...Bangkok (Three Days to Eat)

The reclining Buddha in Bangkok

 Day 1
'Where's the best place for Thai food?' we eagerly ask the owner of our guesthouse. We're staying 10 minutes away from the infamous Koh San road, famed for its 18 year-old gap yearers in branded beer vests (you drink cheap foreign beer, well done you) and banana pancakes. In that respect it doesn't disappoint. There's also a surprising amount of kebab stalls. I think we've eaten enough of those in the last 6 months. The owner twists his mouth in concentration. 'Somewhere round here?' he replies unconvincingly. We press him further,  'Where do Thai people eat round here?'. His mother is summoned and after a shriek of laughter responds with 'No Thai people eat round here!'

We've been in the country 4 hours and our one meal so far has been a disappointing Pad Thai, over-sweet and undercooked. And we're desperate. After initially allowing a week to eat the delicacies of Bangkok, we reduced it to two days as we realised we didn't actually want to spend any more time in this part of the world.  After traipsing along Koh San Road we find an alleyway with a cart serving locals up bowls of noodle soup and dumplings. It's good but we've been spoilt by the fresh noodles and dense flavours of China's superior version. Two meals down. Oh dear.

Day 2
After some research and a breakfast of sweet sticky rice and mango we head for an area where a food tour goes (at $33 dollars a head we decide to do it ourselves). On the way we get distracted by the stunning 46 metre long gold, reclining Buddha. We edge our way through markets, the air perfumed with lemon grass, galangal, garlic and lime. We stop and buy sweetcorn fritters from an old lady. The tasty fritters are dense with straight-off-the-cob corn and are smothered in sweet chilli sauce. Things look promising.

Sweetcorn fritters

We walk and walk but all we pass are noodle soup stalls. Eventually we stumble into China town and land in a smiley man's restaurant where we eat rice and pork, too tired to venture further. We catch a boat back and I eat a Magnum which is quite possibly the loveliest thing I've eaten in a long time. I feel no shame.  I haven't eaten decent chocolate since a French girl produced bars of Lindt in Kashgar.

A lunch stop in China Town

In the evening we head out to a restaurant nearby that seems to offer a different menu to all the other places. I eat a rich tomatoey curry with noodles and chicken on the bone. It is delicious and I feel victorious. Finn however, has ordered a green curry which he's disappointed with. He kills the dish with our ultimate put down: 'I could've made this at home'. I'm relieved he doesn't add the final blow of 'but I wouldn't bother'. Yes, we really do care that much about food.

Day 3
I have been in touch with some ex-students of mine from Bangkok and we arrange to meet. I'm excited about seeing them because a) they are absolutely lovely and b) we've asked them to take us somewhere amazing and cheap for dinner. But first we hit the market.

Chatuchak market is, by anyone's standards, utterly huge. After the excitement of buying a tiffin carrier that exactly matches my cream and green kitchen pans, I need to catch my breath before I cry in front of everyone at its shear beauty. Soon we are scooping creamy coconut ice cream and toasted peanuts from a coconut shell. Someone has even thoughtfully left some of the coconut meat in and once again, I have to hold back the tears.

Coconut ice cream

Back to the shopping and I start to notice Finn dragging his feet. He wants lunch. We head to an area of stalls selling the usual suspects but also lots of nice looking seafood dishes. Finn has fishcakes which I have a nibble on and agree they taste quite lovely and very lemongrassy. I opt for a man with a contraption that turns boiled potatoes into spirals which are then deep-fried in oil and then dusted with paprika. Et voila, crisps on a skewer. I'm delighted with my find.

A 'potato kebab'

In the evening Boss and Meow (so-called because he is the only boy in the family and she used to cry like a cat!) lead us back to Koh San Road. Finn and I share looks ranging between confusion, disappointment and fear. But we are wrong to judge. Meow confesses she doesn't like Thai food so Boss takes control and orders us a smorgasbord of loveliness. The restaurant is famous for Tom Yam Soup. A salty, seafood soup. I try a little without the offending articles and have to admit it is delicious.

Boss dishing up Tom Yam Soup

We also eat chicken cooked in bamboo which is juicy and tender and complimented by a soy and sesame dip.  We wrestle over the bill, they win but after a quick teacherly re-cap on the difference between desert and dessert (we never stop working!), we head to a street stall for the latter. We sit on plastic stools on the pavement with mango and sticky rice, red beans in coconut milk, dyed rice flour with crushed ice and coconut milk and durian with sweet rice. Durian is a fruit so offensively pungent that one of the rules at our hotel is that you are not allowed to eat it in your room. The taste is a little less offensive but there is something a bit 'rotting' about it. I win the fight over the bill and promise to return the favour of paying for a meal when they come to London again.

Meow, Boss and dessert

We end on our overland journey on a high thanks to Boss and Meow. From the first sandwich in Brussels to the last plate of sticky rice in Bangkok, eating has (generally) been a pleasure. But eating with old and new friends is really what it's been about. It's not over though. For tomorrow we fly to India, specifically Calcutta where 6 years ago I had one of the best meals of my life. Now I just need to remember where the restaurant was.

...Cambodia (The land of the Sweet-Toothed)

Shadow puppets in Phnom Penh

So onto Cambodian food. Something we've really noticed is how sweet the food is here. On a cookery course in the capital Phnom Penh, almost every savoury dish we made involved copious amounts of palm sugar. When mixed with water it takes on a treacly taste which in the chicken curry we made, was incredibly overpowering. Perhaps too overpowering. 

The curry paste for our Khmer chicken curry (fresh turmeric, ginger, lemon grass,garlic and shallots)

The result

The other source of sweetness comes from a surprising ingredient. Condensed milk. For the ignorant, this is sweetened cow's milk with the water removed, resulting in a creamy consistency. Two brands dominate the competitive market, My Boy and Best Cows. Just as funny if you swap the words (though My Cows would get my money every time). My own direct experience of the stuff up until now has been watching my dad pour it over his bowl of cornflakes and muesli before adding hot water. So you can understand why I steer clear of it. However, it is difficult to avoid here. A breakfast in the market consisted of cups of tapioca, under-ripe bananas, jelly sweets and a generous lash of the creamy stuff. I'm glad I tried it but shan't be repeating it again (though the fact I could eat jelly sweets for breakfast was very exciting and felt like eating chocolate biscuits from the posh tin for breakfast on Christmas day). 

A tapioca breakfast in a Phnom Penh market

The gelatinous 'sweets'

Where it is welcome is in cold coffee. If you order just a coffee here, it'll be cold (if you specifically ask for a hot coffee, it'll be tepid). We have likened it to an upside down Guinness as strong coffee and ice sit on a layer of condensed milk at the bottom, allowing you to stir in as much as you like.  Attempts at making cold, milky coffee at home have never quite hit the spot. Now we know the secret of a good one. I urge you to try it (make sure the coffee is really strong).  

Aside from sweet stuff, I have been taking every opportunity to eat lok lak. This heavenly dish consists of thin slices of beef in a light tomato sauce served with rice, salad and a fried egg. Yes, I agree it does sound like something you might concoct yourself when you can't be bothered to go to Sainsbury's. But the dish is really pulled together by the dip of soy sauce, fresh lime juice and black pepper. In one place they served it with crinkle-cut chips. I had it two nights in a row. You can take the girl out of England...

Lok Lak

On a completely different note, we wandered past a restaurant with a sign promising 'You'll leave wanting more'. Our appetites insatiable, we kept walking. Amazing how such a sentence can be misinterpreted.

...Cambodia (Dining Out)

An idol enjoying a 'full-English' in Phnom Penh. Half the people don't eat this well.

After an overlong bus journey, we arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. We hadn't eaten for 9 hours. A record!  We wandered down alleyways lined with security guards protecting the shiny 4X4s whose owners were karaoke-ing nearby. Eventually we came across a bustling Chinese restaurant (Cambodia has a large population of Chinese). The food wasn't interesting and not worth mentioning. The dining experience however, was.

First up is the 'beer lady'. This is something that popped up in Laos too. You order a beer in a restaurant and you get a 'beer lady', your own pretty lady dressed in an outfit that is of the same colours as the beer logo. Her sole reason for living is to keep your glass topped up. Now I have to say, I've never really had an issue with topping up my own glass. I'm not bragging here, I wouldn't say I'm amazing or anything but I've never found it to be a problem. A 'beer lady' brings a whole new angle to the experience. She waits out of sight and as soon as you've put your glass down she's there, topping you up. Before we knew it she'd swiftly opened a second bottle and deftly emptied half of it into our glasses. This put me on edge as I didn't want her to open the third bottle she'd snuck on the table (oh she's good! She knows what she's doing!) because quite frankly it tasted of wee. It didn't help that she kept putting massive ice cubes in our half pint glasses which watered down the offensive liquid even more than the manufacturers had clearly already done.

Next to us was a group of 8 middle-aged (i.e. old enough to know better) men having a boys' night out. They were clearly in the mood to flash their cash and sat drinking Beck's! The 'Becks ladies' were a classier breed than our lady and also kept the gents topped up with whiskey (is that classed as moonlighting?). The bottle said Johnnie Walker but it is entirely possible to 'hire' a bottle of a well-known spirit to make everyone think you can afford it while you drink the cheap and nasty stuff. I guess it would be like having a bottle of blue WKD on the table while you drink Fairy Liquid. Though you could argue the taste of the latter is preferable. After a while, the 'Beck's ladies' joined the gents, giggling at their jokes behind perfectly manicured fingernails. It is also possible to 'hire' yourself some female company. Nothing dodgy mind. There are plenty of massage parlours about for those kind of shenanigans should you so desire.

While all this was going on, beggars circled the tables. Men, women and children.  A young man waited outside and when a table emptied, would take his plastic bag and fill it with any leftovers. The amount of food wasted in that restaurant was shocking and it was refreshing to see it not being throw away (credit should go to the staff who didn't stop him). I was struck by how he did it with such dignity and without any shame. In just an hour, Cambodia was laid bare in front of us. And it was pretty ugly.

...Laos (Shakes and Steaks)

The Mekong gushing past our hut on Don Det, Four Thousand Islands

My word, I can't remember eating so healthily on this trip. We have lost our borek and kebab-induced layers that kept us warm during the cold days and have emerged as toned, bronzed and glossy beauties. Kind of.  

But Lao food is seriously doing us some good. Thanks mainly to the cheap and wonderful fruit shakes available everywhere (this is after all backpacker-central). The fruit is so abundant and amazing here and when whizzed up with ice it's better than chocolate. Having a long lunch on mattresses laid out on a bamboo platform over the river, we sipped fresh, fluffy coconut shakes.

A coconut shake by the river

Rambutan, looks a bit 'spacey', tastes like a lychee

In hammocks outside our bamboo hut, we downed a combination of watermelon, papaya, mango and banana. Our German 'neighbours', who share our addiction, worked out they had so far spent 200 euros on the blessed things. And they're only halfway through their trip. 

At least one meal a day involves a bowl of foe - rice noodles in a broth with a little meat. You receive a basket of herbs including Thai basil and fresh mint and pile it in. On the table you have a variety of bottles of different sauces . Pungent fish sauce, fluorescent chilli sauce, dark soy sauce all vie for your attention. We've learnt the best way to do it is to add a little of everything and then keep adding as you go along. 

Foe

Dinner usually involves lightly fried meat and/or vegetables in a sauce with small cylindrical baskets of sticky rice. You mould the rice into a ball and then dip it into your sauce. It is seriously filling stuff. 

Laos food does get a little monotonous and there are plenty of 'backpacker cafes' offering standard fare. We haven't succumbed as we know it will only end in disappointment. However, on a stop over in Vientiane (officially the most boring capital in the world), we came across the most French French-bistro you can imagine. We gorged on beautifully cooked, plump, rare steaks with roquefort sauce and mustard and quaffed a carafe of red wine. We may be backpacking but you'll be pleased to hear that in a tangle of drunk, white people in vests eating 'happy pizzas'*, we have not let our standards slip. 

* a pizza topped with marijuana

...Laos (Cooking)

A temple in Luan Prabang, Laos

Perched on the edge of the Mekong in the humid evening, a British contingency sat supping cold Beer Lao. A bucket of hot coals was brought to the table and plonked in a hole in the centre. The bucket was then capped with a slitted, metal dome with a deep ring around the centre. Baskets of vegetables, eggs and rice noodles were placed beside it along with plates of thinly sliced meat. Preparations for our Lao barbecue were ready, all we had to do was cook it.

Once the dome was hot, we rubbed squishy pieces of pork fat over the cap and then fried slices of meat. In the ring we poured the hot stock, adding chillies and garlic for flavour. The noodles went in to cook, then the eggs to thicken the broth and finally, the vegetables. The fat from the meat dripped down into the broth, giving it a delicious smokey flavour, contrasting nicely  with the freshness of the vegetables and the squidges of lime we added. We cooked and ate, cooked and ate and left with full bellies and a sense of achievement. We hadn't 'cooked' for months. So, all inspired, we booked ourselves onto a day's cooking course. 

Cooking dinner with Ben, Abbie and Melissa

We would cook lunch and dinner and learn about the varied and unusual key ingredients in Laos cooking.  First we took a trip to the market where we were introduced to specialities including dried water buffalo skin (boiled and then left out in the sun to dry), bowls of fermenting fish that was so pungent it stung our noses and sweet chilli sauces in plastic bags. Back in the kitchen, we were ready to prepare lunch. We made two dishes, the first a salad with an egg mayonnaise dressing. Pretty boring I hear you say. Ah but what was special about this mayonnaise was that it used boiled egg yolks instead of raw. This meant there was no panic over the mixture scrambling and it also means it will keep longer. Clever! The second dish was fried sticky rice noodles with chicken. Controversially, we didn't separate the noodles when we fried them, instead adding a beaten egg to bind them together into a pancake. This was then chopped up and we mixed in fried chicken, spring onions and tomato, adding oyster sauce, soy sauce, lime and chilli. 

The result (the sweat pouring off us is not from hard work!)

We sat down to enjoy our creations (secretly eyeing up our fellow students' attempts). But not for long, as there was dinner to prepare...

Our teachers prepared five dishes which we tasted and then chose three to cook. I won't bore you with all of them but the favourite had to be the fried aubergine with pork. Incredibly easy to make and really rather tasty. The basic ingredients were aubergine, pork, garlic, spring onions and oyster sauce with a little sugar to caramelise the aubergines and even less salt. For so few ingredients we had a dish rich in flavour. One that we will definitely recreate at home.  

The last three dishes

 

Through the cooking course I discovered how meat is predominantly used to add flavour and protein rather than be the main focus of a dish. And in a country where a high percentage of the population only live on one dollar a day, meat is considered a luxury. I also learnt how much power flavouring has in a Laos dish. This may sound stupid but a lot of the ingredients we used for the dishes overlapped but through different splashes of this and that we had very different results. Finally I was also surprised to find how noticeable the absence of a glass of red wine was when I was cooking. Worrying.