food

Day trip to Córdoba

/ Greg / Leave a comment

I have a bit of a compulsion to include a few day trips on any of the longer trips I take.  If I’m within a two hour train ride of somewhere interesting, I always feel a pull to loop in one extra place or one more location to explore.  On our trip to Spain last fall, we had all kinds of options for day trips out of both Madrid and Seville.  Consciously, we decided to ease up on the day trips so we could kick back a bit more than on previous trips.  For me, there was one day trip that couldn’t be sacrificed – a visit to Córdoba while we were staying in Seville.

The pull to Córdoba was to visit the Mezquita – the religious site that has switched back and forth over the last 1300 years from a Catholic basilica, to a half mosque half basilica, to a full mosque and now to a Roman Catholic church. A straightforward morning train ride from Seville had us in beautiful Córdoba in under an hour.  We made our way to the Mezquita as our first stop and entered the Patio de los Naranjos, the inner courtyard of the site.

Inner courtyard of the Mezquita

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Living off tapas in Seville

/ Greg / 5 Comments

In my perfect universe, every meal would be tapas style.  Small dishes, lots of sampling and experimenting, sharing – these form my idea of how to eat.  I’ve already written about a week’s worth of eating in Madrid where every single meal we had outside of our apartment was tapas style.  Well, we continued that trend for our time in Seville too.

On our third night in Seville, we started the night at Bar Alfalfa.  It’s a compact place with the noise of conversations filling the high, arching ceilings.  We were lucky to find a table along the windows on a rainy night.  The draw for us here was their gluten-free friendliness allowing my wife a few more ordering options than at other places.  That alone would put a smile on her face, but on this night, a man at the bar with his pet bird on his shoulder made her, and everyone smile:

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A week of tapas in Madrid

/ Greg / 3 Comments

Not one single proper sit down meal in two weeks in Spain.  Honestly.  Zero.  Nada.  I was far too enamoured with the idea of tapas to give away precious space in my stomach to a “normal” three course meal.   See, tapas is the perfect solution to my natural inclination to inhabit more informal and casual eating and drinking establishments and for my desire not to commit to one portion of any food.  If you’ve ever eaten in a group with me, you’ll know me as the person eyeing everyone else’s dish with envy.  For a week in Madrid (and I’ll write separately on my tapas adventures in Seville later – this post will be long enough as it is), I hopped, skipped and jumped my way through some outstanding bars and snacks.

I got started on my first afternoon in Madrid at the Mercado San Miguel.  Jammed wall to wall with people having the same idea as me, I did a circle of the eating stalls before settling on a perfectly perfumed paella served with a rustic Rioja.  The server made sure I had my fair share of the charred rice bits in my dish (those alone should be a snack!).  My first tapas in Spain was a rousing success.

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Gluten-free tapas in Madrid

/ Greg / 1 Comment

Prior to our fall trip to Spain, while I was researching tapas joins and all the interesting dishes I was going to be trying, my wife had resigned herself to two weeks of jamón ibérico as a staple of her diet on the account of her Celiac.  Not that plates of jamón ibérico are a bad consolation prize, but for her, she had accepted that she wouldn’t be sampling widely from the menu as we saddled up to bar after bar.

Thanks to Taberna La Concha in Madrid, my wife got the Spanish tapas experience she thought she would miss out on.   On our second night in Madrid, we wandered about ten minutes from our La Latina apartment and  held court at a little table in the basement of the bar.  My wife’s face lit up when she was presented with a dedicated gluten-free menu and I turned the night’s ordering over to her.  The first dish: anchovies in pesto

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Favourite travel experiences of 2015

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Another year has passed, and I again feel fortunate to have watched a great deal of the world pass below me out an airplane window on journeys east and west of Halifax.  After a stretch of years traveling where food wasn’t as much of a focus, for a second year in a row, many of my favourite travel experiences have to do with food and drink or have a meal as a focal point to a memorable moment.  The other unifying theme this year was “quiet” with many of my favourite experiences being unexpected, subtle, or reflective in nature.  After time spent in British Columbia, Southern California, Mexico, Texas and Spain, here are my favourite travel experiences from 2015.

1. Tapas with my wife in Madrid – Thinking this would be a more difficult trip for my wife to enjoy the food culture of Spain (as she must eat a strict gluten-free diet on account of Celiac disease), we were both blown away by Taberna la Concha in the La Latina neighbourhood near our rented apartment.  The dedicated gluten-free menu and the quality of the food gave my wife an authentic Spanish experience.  It was so good, we went back another night and had a second amazing experience.  To see her face light up on those two nights (like mine was for the other nights of the trip) was a great thing to see.

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Texas through tacos and barbecue

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I have a confession to make.  Nearing the end of a week in Texas spent sampling some really good craft beer and eating almost solely at barbecue and taco joints, I thought about ordering a salad.   Luckily, I didn’t follow through on that crazy idea until I got back home.

On my first day in Houston, after taking in an exciting Astros game, a short walk got me to Jackson Street BBQ.  It was almost next door to the ballpark, and even if I tried to get lost, my nose would have been able to follow the smell of smoky meat right to their front door.  My first Texas barbecue experience was delicious as I tried the sampler plate with sausage, ribs and brisket, a side of beans, and an Oktoberfest ale from Saint Arnold Brewing:

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A week of tacos

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I have written many times about my love of really good tacos, so it will come as no surprise that before leaving for San Diego I had a long list of taco places I wanted to visit.  In particular, I wanted to try what might be the official food of San Diego, the fish taco.  So, wasting no time, on our first night in the city my wife and I made our way to the downtown location of Puesto, a restaurant that consistently wins the “best fish taco” award in a couple of San Diego’s alternative weekly papers.

Another great thing about Puesto, and really all of the taco joints we would hit, is they offered great gluten free selections for my wife.  Unfortunately, no Baja fish tacos (they’re normally breaded and fried), but she didn’t mind as she enjoyed (and happily shared!) her plate of chicken verde, carnitas and vegetable tacos (picture on the left).   That drink in that picture was a mango margarita and hands down the best drink of the entire trip.   My fish tacos (picture on the right) were incredible.  The fish was perfectly fresh cod, battered using blood orange beer and topped with cabbage, chile cream, avocado and tomatillo roja.   One night in, and I would have agreed to live in San Diego just to keep eating these tacos.

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A meal with a view

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When I pulled into Sooke, BC, toward the end of my day long road trip around Vancouver Island, I knew I was in for something special.   Down the hill from the main road through the town and perched just above the Strait of Juan de Fuca is the Sooke Harbour House.   This award winning restaurant and hotel has long been on my bucket list, and when I knew I was going to be in British Columbia this past April, I arranged my plans around dining here, going so far as to make a reservation four months in advance.

I arrived a bit early for my reservation so I could wander around their picturesque property.   After living through a winter unlike any before, it took some head shaking to realize I was standing in a fully in bloom garden in April.

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Last day in Rome

/ Greg / 1 Comment

I always end up feeling a bit nostalgic on the last day of any long trip.   Maybe a bit bittersweet as well.   That lends itself to laid back, slower and somewhat indulgent experiences the day before I hop on a long flight back home.  On our last day in Italy, we made our way back to Rome as that’s where we were flying out of the next morning.   After dropping our bags at the hotel, we had simple, relaxed plans for the last day – wander around the Villa Borghese park and have a couple of nice meals.

With deep appreciation to the travel weather gods, we had another beautiful day to explore.  This one with a few clouds, but warm and not a drop of rain, making it a full two weeks without rain on this trip.   Villa Borghese is a massive city park in the heart of Rome and is a lovely escape from the noise and bustle of the city that surrounds it.   On this fall day, there were times we felt like we had the park almost to ourselves.

Villa Borghese

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Delicious (and gluten free) Sorrento

/ Greg / 2 Comments

After being in bustling Rome and Naples, spending five nights in Sorrento was like a vacation within a vacation.   Even with the day trips we were taking, the pace of life slowed down significantly, especially in the evenings once we returned back to Sorrento.   And evenings in Sorrento meant dinner and wine in Sorrento.  On a couple of those evenings, we decided on a picnic like meal in the inner courtyard garden of our apartment, just off Piazza Sant’Antonino.  Not a bad place for a meal!

Apartment courtyard in Sorrento

On Canadian Thanksgiving evening, we stopped by the grocery store and picked up a nice spread of smoked cheeses, some cured meats, gluten free cookies, bread (for me), paprika chips (a European tradition for us) and a bottle of prosecco.   We’ve now had a few of these al fresco Thanksgiving dinners in Europe over the years.  There’s something special about eating under the stars…

Thanksgiving in Sorrento

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