Tiny sausage

In Chatuchak market I saw street vender was selling those tiny sausages. They are only little bigger than a fish ball. Not sure how it tastes.

Chicken rice noodle

In Chatuchak market in Bangkok, a 25 baht thin rice noodle came with a big chicken leg and some knuckles (for bones and skin texture flavor), even some green veggies. What a great value. The meat has been cooked in a big pot for long hours so they are super tender. The soup is also very tasty!

Saucy Chicken

Not sure if it is influence by southern Chinese cooking, the chicken dish came out really saucy. It is quite tasty but I don’t like too much corn starch in my dish. Maybe it is better eat with rice than alone.

Tripe in Tomato Sauce

In Brig (Switzerland) I had tripe in tomato sauce as a main dish. Very similar to the ones I tried in France. The tripe are soft and tender, totally fits my Chinese stomach.
Brig is a small town close to Italy border. I only passed by for few hours and enjoyed that yummy lunch.

Ethiopia House

I don’t know really why I am addicted to Ethiopia food. The first time I tried it was about 3 years ago in Toronto and ever since I craves it every week.
Ethiopian cooking is very spicy. In addition to flavoring the food, the spices also help to preserve meat in a country where refrigeration is rare. However the restaurant in Canada has been adapted: not all dishes are spicy. I recommend everyone to try it! Over the years, I tried other Ethiopia restaurant, but this one always has consistent quality.

http://www.ethiopianhouse.com/

I normally get veggie and meat combo for two. It includes beef, lamb or chicken, lentils, beans, cheese, etc. The food is slow cooked with savory flavor. All food is served on a large soft sourdough flatbread. My favorite part is the bread soaked with meat sauces. Heavenly!
Don’t ask for forks. No utensils are used as their tradition. And it is great that they encourage peoples try their way in the restaurant. Not like in Chinese restaurant, they gave forks to all non-Asians, even for those who knows how to use chopsticks.

“Ethiopia was under Italian military control for a period (1935–46) when Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) was in power. Except for that time, Ethiopian culture has been influenced very little by other countries.”
http://www.foodbycountry.com/Algeria-to-France/Ethiopia.html

Nota Bene Restaurant

Nota Bene is a really elegant restaurant located at 180 Queen Street West. I was there once for my birthday and happy enjoyed every dishes.

www.notabenerestaurant.com


Starter:
Nova Scotia lobster salad: Avocado, maple bacon, blue cheese buttermilk dressing (Top left)
Crisp duck salad: Sumac-dusted green papaya slaw, Cashews (Top right)

Main:
Suckling pig & boudin noir tart with truffle vinaigrette (Left Bottom)
Lake Huron pickerel filet with smoked cherry tomatoes, cauliflower puree and basil pesto (Right Bottom)

Crunchy Pig ear

It is really ear from pigs, but at least they are sliced thin and lost its original form. You can buy them in a container in China town: pre-spiced and ready to eat. They are spicy and crunchy. Since it is ear, it is not about meat, it is about the texture!
In Madrid, I had it with salad, quite good!

Beef bourginon (French)

The first time I had beef bourginon was in Dijon, France. The beef was braised in red wine for many hours and it melt in the mouth.

Beef bourguignon is one of many examples of peasant dishes being slowly refined into haute cuisine. Most likely the particular method of slowly simmering the beef in wine originated as a means of tenderizing cuts of meat that would have been too tough to cook any other way. The slow cooking and simmering in the wine tenderized the meat, while keeping the meat flavor in the dish. Over time, the dish became a standard of French cuisine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_bourguignon

Chicken feet (Phoenix claw in Chinese)

When speak of chicken feet, most of my non-Asian friends think they are disgusting. But for me they are addictive. It is a pure enjoyment of skin and tendons, very gelatinous.

There are many ways of cooking chicken feet. In Toronto, since many Cantonese own the restaurant, it is much easier to find it in dim sum style. The chicken feet are deep fried or steamed first in order to make them puffy before being stewed and simmered in a sauce flavored with black fermented beans, bean paste and sugar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_feet

Rustic Roman restaurant - Da Enzo

Da Enzo is an original rustic Roman trattoria on the less-touristy side of Trastevere. It serves up classic fare such as spaghetti amatriciana, with a mouth-watering selection of home-made desserts. I had lamb and was tasty but bit dry. The price is reasonable.

Check out their menu in the pic. But it is in Italian.
I went there at Saturday night and it was fully packed. Many people didn’t get it. Too bad I had to eat on the street tables and didn’t get an chance to take a good look at inside decoration.

Porchetta – roasted pig

“Porchetta /por'ket:a/ is a savory, fatty, and moist boneless pork roast of Italian culinary tradition. The body of the pig is gutted, deboned, arranged carefully with layers of stuffing, meat, fat, and skin, then rolled, spitted, and roasted, traditionally over wood. Porchetta is usually heavily salted in addition to being stuffed with garlic, rosemary, fennel, or other herbs, often wild.

Porchetta is one of two iconic culinary products of the Lazio region, the other being the sheep cheese pecorino romano.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porchetta


I had it for the first time in a small village (castel gandolfo) 30 mins south of Rome. Few slices of porchetta in white bread for lunch. Really savory!!

Horse meat? – le coppiette

In a small village 30 mins south of Rome, I saw the spicy horse strips (le coppiette) in a prosciutto store. It looked very dry.

“The coppiette are some strips of meat, cut with special blades that preserved with salt and natural spices, and make mature about sixty days. Before they use meat of horse but at present, pork (thigh of the pig) is used instead.”

http://www.gustoblog.it/post/1335/coppiette

I am not sure the one I saw is horse or not, at least my friend said is horse. You can see it is 40 Euros/ kg. Too bad I didn’t try it. That store has all kinds of Salami, very imressive!

Cow neck prosciutto

A really simple dinner, a friend bought white pizza (pizza cooked with nothing on it) and we ate with prosciutto. The star is the cow neck prosciutto, which is made and brought by his mother from south of Italy. That is priceless because you can’t buy it anywhere, but eat at his mother’s place.

Chicken with mixed nuts

What a pleasure when a guy cooks for me!
My Italian friend Roberto in Athen is a talented translator and great creative cook! He picked some existing ingredients at home and created this wonderful dish: chicken with mixed nuts. We enjoyed it with some salad on the sunny warm balcony, accompanied with Italian conversation in Athen! What an experience!

Cow udders - Viva M’Boma

Viva M’Boma restaurant in Brussels is reviewed everywhere on Internet. It is true that they offers many “weird” dishes, such as: veal kidney, tripe, balls, pig feet, cow udders, etc. If you are looking for some exciting dishes, that is the place to go!

http://www.sensum.be/en/resto/show/viva-m-boma?Brussels


For starter, I ordered cow udders and really didn’t know what to expect. The udders came in 3 different forms: Pâté, thin slice and deep-fried. Everything taste just like normal meat. If they don’t tell you that were cow udders, you won’t even notice. Did we really pay 15 Euros for the cow udders?


For the main course, we had pot au feu (a French beef stew) and horse steak. The horse steak is the most tender I ever had. Same as the pot au feu, so flavorful! The bone marrow was heavenly rich and smooth, melt in your mouth!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-au-feu

Deep-Fried stuff in Brussels

A friend brought me to a night food booth for my first night in Brussels. He said that is local special: deep-fried sausage. I am not very convinced. But there were many locals waiting in the line to order some fried meat and French fries. For me it was interesting to see the place, but the food was not so good.

Rabbit in Brussels

I had a rabbit dinner at a high-ceiling bar-restaurant in center of Brussels. The rabbit is cooked very tender.

Chicken in peanut sauce

There is always a risk to try restaurant randomly especially on holidays. I knew nothing about this African restaurant in Brussels’ African neighborhood, neither did my friend. I ordered chicken in peanut sauce (5 Euros). The peanut sauce is too creamy and heavy. I took them almost an hour to bring me this simple dish!

Tripe, Beef, Fish Tapas in Toledo

I randomly went into a bar-restaurant in the center of Toledo (a small town in Spain). It was almost empty besides few coffee drinkers because it was only noon. No one eat lunch that early in Spain! But I don’t care, I was hungry!

The waiter didn’t speak a word of English and there were nobody to help out. I can only point through the glass window to order food. It was hard to know what exactly I ordered.

The dish on the left is stewed beef with peas. Really tough meat!
On the right is a chunk of sea fish with roasted tomato as topping. The fish texture is dry and old. I only had one bite, what a terrible dish! What kind of fish is it?



The only dish I liked is the tripe, which is slow cooked in tomato sauce. Can’t go wrong with that! Really tender and flavorful.

Sudestada Restaurant - Fine Asian Cuisine

Located at Modesto Lafuente, 64 / Madrid, Sudestada is a minimalistic decorated fine Asian restaurant. Every dish is prepared with interesting Asian ingredients and various fusion spices. From grilled meat to stir-fry, each dish is a present treat. I am surprised to see pig ear salad on the menu. As Chinese, I eat them all the time, but it may be a bit weird for other culture. The crunchy cold cuts of pig ears fits well with fresh salad.
Generally speaking, fine Asian food is more expensive in Europe. The average price is 30 Euros/person.