Posts Tagged ‘food tour’

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Eating Xianese if You Please

December 24, 2015

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

four story Chinese tower

Bell Tower, Xian China

We traveled by overnight train from Shanghai to Xian. I recommend this form of travel. A private sleeper with a private toilet cost less than the cheapest airfare. Worth it. Not the easiest sleep, but overall it is low stress.

We checked into our hotel. Hunted up some soup and dumplings. Then took a long nap.

two bowls of soup

Won ton soup – noodles, cilantro, seaweed, and tiny tiny shrimp

In the evening, we went on a food tour provided by Lost Plate Tours, which we highly recommend. There were two other couples with us on the evening tour and it was a lot of fun. We squeezed into two tuktuks and bounced all over town to eat some really fantastic foods off the tourist track. We ate like locals.

steaming basket of dumplings

After a good night’s sleep, we got up and did it again, going on the morning food tour. This time it was just DaddyBird and I with the guide. More fantastically delicious food.

round flaky pastry

We spent the afternoon walking back to the hotel. We happened upon a Daoist temple on the way.

Daoist temple

To see all the pictures:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Posted in China, food, travel adventures, vacation | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

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Fujairah Food Tour

October 6, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

Friends from Dubai came to Fujairah for a food tour of our favorite restaurants. We began Thursday evening with Nepal Kitchen House.

chicken dumplings

We started with the signature momos (steamed chicken dumplings).

four dishes of food

Pictured above (upper right, clockwise) Aloo Jeera  (potatoes, cumin seeds, tumeric), Aloo Dum (potatoes, coriander, tumeric), Chicken tass (chicken, puffed rice, crispy onions), and Badam sandeko (peanuts, onions, tomatoes, chilies).

rice, vegetable curry, lentil soup

We also sampled vegetable rice and chicken rice – rice, lentil soup (daal) and curried vegetables/chicken.

After all that, we called it a night and headed off for a good night’s sleep before starting again with an 8 am breakfast of paratha (flat bread), chana (chick peas/garbanzo beans in a curry sauce) and tea at Al Khan Restaurant.

flat bread and chick pea curry

This breakfast cost 36 AED ($9.80) for 6 people ($1.63 each). They kept the bread coming and would have refilled our bowls, but we had to pace ourselves.

beach

We headed to the corniche for a bit of sun. It didn’t take long to have gotten more than enough heat. It isn’t quite winter, yet. The temperature high that day was 97F.

egg, garlic rice, beef

“Second breakfast” was at Sizzling Restaurant which opened at 11 am. Doing this tour on a Friday was problematic due to Friday hours. Many businesses are closed, some until 4 pm. Any future food tours will have to be done on Saturday.

Sizzling Restaurant is one of three great Filipino restaurants in town. Breakfast entrées consist of fried egg, garlic rice and a variety of meats.

egg, rice, chicken adobo

We ordered and shared three items – tapsilog (beef), adosilog (chicken), and tosilog (chicken).

egg, rice, chicken

Next, we attempted to explore the discount stores, but again ran into the Friday hours problem. Only one store was open.

inlet waterway

We headed down to Kalba mangroves to look for turtles. The mangrove area has been closed since March due to plans to develop the area. We weren’t even allowed to walk out onto the bridge to get a better view of the turtles, but we still managed to see a few.

When we returned to Fujairah, it was a bit too early for the bull butting and too early for bread at the Afghani restaurant, so we were off to Oriental Restaurant for Singaporean/Malaysian food.

table full of dishes and food

Pictured above is crispy shrimp omelet, egg plant sambal with shrimp, chicken and salted eggs, and mixed seafood soup.

beef with kai lan, hainanese chicken

Beef and kai lan is my personal favorite. Also pictured is hainanese chicken.

two bulls butting heads

We returned to the bull arena in time for the last bout.

One last stop at a discount store ended our day around 8 pm. A long, busy, and tiring day. Great fun with great people.

If you would like to get Mita’s take on our tour, read this Mita56’s Blog: Fujairah Food Tour

Posted in food, Fujairah, restaurant | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Athens, Greece: Day Eleven

December 28, 2011

Posted by Kanga.

We took a food tour through Context Tours called “Beyond Feta.” Our guide was Nikitas, a Greek who is an architect by profession, but does these tours because he loves the city, food and history. Normally, the tours are done for up to 6 people, but we had Nik all to ourselves and it was a splendid day.

bakery selling sweets and breads

We followed him through several bakeries, getting sesame seed covered pretzels and dense brown breads. We stopped in at a shop that carries a variety of local wares – marmelades, wines, soaps, liquors, cheese, etc. We tasted a liquor made from Mastik, which is the sap from a bush that grows only on one Greek island. No one has succeeded in growing it anywhere else. It tasted like you would imagine alcohol from bush sap would taste, a little “pine-like.”

spice and herbs shop, large bags of wares on the floor

We also went to this spice and herbs shop. We learned that brewed oregano is good for digestive tract trouble (but tastes very nasty). Genuine tea is not very popular in Greece, but there are many herbal teas that are used and enjoyed.

a cheese shop with glass display case full of cheeses

On to the cheese shop where we got some smoked cheese and yogurt. We also walked through the meat market (again). The stalls are prized and passed down in families for generations.

display case full of pastrima

Sausage and preserved meats are a relatively new addition to Greek cuisine. Many other things are “relatively” new also – tomatoes & potatoes (as New World discoveries), citrus fruits (new with the Crusades), preserved meats (new with the Turkish occupation). With an ancient civilization comes a long view definition of the word “new.”

our guide and myself

My camera’s battery was out of action, so DaddyBird was in charge of taking pictures. We stopped at a basement “wine and food” restaurant which is owned and run by a lovely old man who inherited it from his father and grandfather. He makes his own wine. It is retsina wine which means that it has resin added solely because of the taste it provides.

four bowls of food, salad, chickpeas, large bean soup, fava bean paste

This was supposed to be a “tasting” not a lunch, but we ate our fill. Greek salad, chickpea soup, bean soup, and fava bean paste. Very delicious. DaddyBird liked the fava beans so well, I suspect he will research how to make it in future.

man making donuts

We ended our tour with sweets. These aren’t called donuts, but they are the best I have ever had. They are not as sweet as American donuts even though they are served drizzled with honey. They are best eaten immediately and are crunchy on the outside. Very good. The other pastry is filo pastry with a creamy filling. Very good.

six donuts on a plate, one rectangular pastry on a plate

Our tour may have been over, but our day was not. We decided to walk down to the Temple of Zeus.

ancient church nestled among newer buildings

This church was built by the “smoke tax collector.” There was a period when if you had a cooking fire in your home, you were taxed for it. (One way to determine “wealth.”) The tax collector may have had something weighing on his conscience, so he funded this church. Later, it was slated to be destroyed, but those who wanted to protect it got the attention of the king and it was saved.

ruins of the temple

We did finally arrive at the Temple of Zeus, but like all tourist sites, it closed at 3 pm. So, we had to be content with looking in through the fence.

ruins of the temple

Nearby is Hadrian’s Arch.

large stone arch with a Roman colonnade on top

It was a very busy, educational, and enjoyable day.

Hadrian's arch

Tomorrow, we are on the road to Delphi!

Posted in Athens, food, Greece | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »