| Masterpiece Theatre of the Edible Presents: |
[Aug. 9th, 2007|10:31 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | paris | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  drained | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | modest mouse - buttons to push buttons | ] |
The Definitive Selection of the Foodstuffs that Sustained my European Travels, here in all their pictoral glory for your viewing pleasure:
from the hallowed dining room of the augustiner bierhalle in munich, germany: pork, pork, pork and pork, with some potatoes and sauerkraut thrown in for good measure. i was with an agnostic jew who made a point of repenting before he ate all of his sausage and a good chunk of mine - "well, if what they say does turn out to be true, this meal may be the tip of the scales that sends me to hell." cost with two pints of beer: 17 euro.
warsaw, poland: i grew up on homemade pierogis and these were still the best i had, until that point, ever tasted (sorry, mom.) filled with some delicious polish ingredients i couldn't identify and served with a side of garlic sauce and white borscht. mmmmmmm. cost: 12 zloty, about 3 euro.
communism crushed just about every aspect of polish life, leaving a country that to this day is somewhat of a sad, decayed shell...but it did leave these restaurants called milk bars, where you order off of a corkboard with a rotating list of food and pay at a soviet-era cash register then wait as some sour-looking women in blue aprons rattle around a massive industrial kitchen, creating huge pots of just about every typical slavic dish you could ever possibly fathom. when it comes your turn, they glare at you because you can't answer their rapid fire polish questions, slap your food onto a tray, and shove it out at you. in ordering blindly off the menu at breakfasttime, i got this surprisingly delicious cold sweetened milk soup with rice, hot tea with lemon, and that kind of sad looking kielbasa sausage that ended up also being wonderful. cost: 6 zloty, or roughly about negative thirteen euro cents.
hot dog, train station, lodz, poland. apparently this is what happens when you ask for 'sos' (the blanket word for everything from ketchup to gravy in poland) on your hot dog. the fork sticking out of the side came in handy. 4 zloty.
pierogi, borscht and croquette, krakow, poland. these pierogi were even better than the last, despite the absence of garlic sauce - they were filled with soft cheese, garlic, and oatmeal. the croquette was a giant hunk of ground beef wrapped in mashed potatoes, deep fried, and smothered in some kind of red sauce that was beyond belief. the borscht was heartwarming. cost: 14 zloty.
hot dog, train station, prague. the bankomat spit out a 500 kroner note at me, not especially helpful when all you need is a 2kr tram ticket. so i bought a hot dog, which in czech translates as 'dried hunk of sausage, dough made from flour and water, baked, served cold.' it was gross AND the guy tried to rip me off 100kr. cost: 13kr (about 30 cents), my appetite.
almond bailey's cake, cafe grand orient, prague: i went because the cafe is one of the best preserved examples of cubist design in europe, and if the cake had been bad i still would have felt justified in my visit (the cafe was incredible.) however, the cake was not bad - it was delicious, soft, creamy and so rich that i couldn't finish it. cost: 60kr, or 2 euro.
train station cafe, prague: my texan hostelmate's eurail timetable lied to me, so having several hours to wait for my train to austria, i had a traditional czech breakfast of potato pancakes and omelette. i still refuse to believe the pancakes were actually made out of potato, as they were a strange shade of not-potato-grey on the inside, but it was yummy and filling nonetheless, especially after three weeks of eating stale bread and instant coffee provided by hostels for breakfast. cost: 100kr, about 4 euro.
on most trains, when you order food, it was made yesterday in a factory and is popped into a microwave before being delivered to you steaming hot. in eastern europe, if you're lucky enough to be on a train that has a cafe car (usually the international ones, to keep up appearances with the neighbours) there's actually a dude cooking on a gas stove in the back who makes everything fresh to order. nothing was pre-prepared at all - a look into the kitchen revealed a chef chopping, dumping oil into hot pans, etc.as i can barely stand on a train without causing grievous injury to myself or others, my hat goes off to the guy who made this incredible goulash and presented it so nicely, although i still refuse to believe those pieces of bread were the promised 'dumplings'. cost: 75kr, about 3 euro.
...and now i'm back in paris, eating the leftover 'vegetarian' pad thai i bought in interlaken yesterday (secret ingredient: chicken!). today i extended my six-hour route from interlaken to zurich to strasbourg to paris by another two hours in order to take the 'panoramic route through the alps'...a trajectory i slept through. excellent. two and a half days to clean, pack, leave. tonight will be the first uninterrupted sleep i've had in five weeks. |
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