Apr
08
At last, we got some dinner. We went to this hotel called U Hrnčiře that has a restaurant serving meat dishes and a large variety of vegetarian dishes. I read about it on WikiTravel, and I’m glad I had my meal here! I got some amazing soy goulash and potato pancakes. Both were quite spicy and very fresh looking and tasting. Petr ordered some pork but he ordered speaking (poor) czech and I don’t think the waiter understood. Actually when Petr ordered I could sense the waiter didn’t think he ordered an entree, and I told Petr but he said that no he got it. I got my food and then like 20 minutes pass and his pork hasn’t come yet, but he got his salad. I tell Petr to ask the waiter what’s up — but he’s being stubborn and not listening to me! Finally the waiter comes back again and he asks and yeah, there was never any pork ordered. So we waited another 20 minutes and it finally came. As soon as he finished we rushed out, hoping we’d catch a cab somewhere in this dead town that would take us to the train station to catch the next train (if we walked, we would have missed it). Luckily we found one!
Apr
02
1 cup brown sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar (or 1 teaspoon of vanilla)
1/2 cup butter – around room temperature
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
2 eggs
3 overripe bananas
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
Preheat oven 325 F. Mix the sugar (and the vanilla sugar) and butter together very well. Beat in the 2 eggs. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking soda and salt. Then combine the two bowls and mix well. Mash up the bananas in one of the empty bowls. Add the walnuts and mix. Combine walnut/bananas with the main mixture. Mix some more. Pour in a bread loaf tin. Add some chopped walnuts on top. Bake for about 80-90 minutes.
Apr
01
Oh man, I had the most amazing dinner last night at this restaurant called Lehka Hlava. I went there with my new friend Paul or Art Zog (you could see him pictured in the crammed metro photo in the previous post). He’s friends of an SF friend and an awesome artist in residence here in Prague. Anyway so we went to this restaurant and it was fantastic. He ordered these couscous-feta croquettes and I had a bulgar-tempeh pilaf sort of thing. So delicious. The restaurant was decorated interestingly, there was a starry ceiling and the tables where like lamp-tables.
Mar
27
I had a bunch of left over spinach, so I made this!
Very easy to make. First chop up one small onion and cook in some olive oil in a large pan until translucent. Then add like 4-6 cloves of garlic (that are smashed). Take 4 smallish tomatoes and smash with hands, add to pan. Add salt, pepper, oregano. Basil if you have some, but I didn’t use any because I didn’t have any. Let this cook for a while. After 20 minutes or so, add some spinach. Cover pan so spinach could wilt faster, then remove lid and just let the spinach and tomatoes cook or whatever. Remove garlic cloves. Add a little bit more oil and salt if needed. Start boiling some water at some point and cook your gnocchi. Strain gnocchi and then add to tomato/spinach. Mix it up real good. Add some mozzarella. I used this string cheese stuff they have here and it worked out great. I might have added too much cheese but it was still delicious! (In that picture you see with the non melted cheese, I added twice as much cheese as that. Add whatever seems good.)
Mar
26
I’ve been wanting to cook this Persian dish for a few weeks and since I am settled in Prague now, I finally have time and space to cook. This is a really easy thing to make.
1) Finely chop up:
3 cups fresh spinach
2 cups fresh parsley
1 cup fresh dill
3 green onions (the larger ones… if its small, get 6 of them) – chop both the green & white parts
2) Mix all the vegetables together
3) In a separate bowl, beat 5 eggs, mixed with 1 teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper
4) Pour the eggs into the vegetable mixture and mix up a lot until all the vegetables are coated with the eggs
5) In a large pan, pour a good amount of olive oil and let it get hot. Then add all of the vegetable mixture, flattening the top of it. Cover pan and let it cook for about 10 minutes on low heat.
6) After the bottom part seems like its cooked (10-15 mins), cut into 4 pieces, and flip over each piece, allowing the other side the cook (another 10-15 mins).
Done! Eat with lavash bread (or any kind of bread… or no bread) and lots of plain yogurt — I like making wraps with lavash and yogurt. Yogurt is mandatory!
Mar
24
I’m in Prague now, subletting a place for almost 3 weeks. I checked out another cafeteria style veggie place (they’re just cheap…), here is my meal, it was OK. Slice of pizza, some mashed potatoes, some tofu thing, and some veggie sausage/potato thing. Name of the place is “Country Life.”
Mar
19
Took a short train from Budapest to Bratislava and then hopped on a plane to Frankfurt. I arrived at my couchsurfing host’s flat in Offenbach around 1am. We chatted a little bit, had some tea and then passed out (my first time sleeping on a floor this whole trip, not too bad). Tonight I am going to see Spectrum so I didn’t have much time to explore except going to eat at a Persian restaurant called Chandis. I had wanted to check out a place called Pistazie, which makes lots of Persian dishes with a tofu option but they are closed in those hours between lunch & dinner. Chandis was nice though, I had a vegetable stew with basmati rice. Below you will see my new hair, a funny German advertisement for metro passes, a random store front and then my dinner place and foods.
Mar
17
I met up with Kyle again and we saw the Pest side of the city today: Hero’s square, the other castle, parliament, and other things. After parliament we ate dinner at Eden Vegetarian, yet another cafeteria style place. We shared the plate of food. After dinner I went to get my haircut, and it was the most stressful haircut ever, the girl was just doing things that I was not used to, like straightening my bangs so she could trim them and also I had wanted to keep my length but it became really short. (There was someone translating to her what I wanted. I guess that was lost in translation). In the end the haircut turned out good, I think. The bangs are a little bit off but not super noticeable. Dora knew where I was getting my haircut at, and she rang the place while I was there. Her and Martin came to say a proper goodbye to me since I was leaving the next day. After the cut, I met back up with Kyle and the sun was down now. We chilled near the Danube for a little bit, became a little bit mesmerized by the fast-flowing water, which looks like gold with the reflection of the lights on the water.
Mar
13
So I took the overnight train to Budapest and on the train I met two other travelers. One was this British guy, named Shaun, and the other was this Canadian guy, named Kyle. We all shared a cabin together and chatted. Shaun had been traveling in India and then he lost his bankcard, so he was taking the train back to London to get a new bankcard so he could resume his travels. Kyle had been away from Canada for a few years, and he was last living and working in South Korea, but now traveling to make his way home. We were all tired and so we converted the couchettes and tried to sleep. It was quite cold though. I think I managed to get maybe one hour of half-sleep. We all arrived in Budapest around 5am, where Shaun realizes his wallet is missing. Kyle tries to help him look for it, but no luck… I exchange information with Kyle since we are both staying in Budapest for a few days and then I guess Shaun is heading back to London, on the train, with no wallet, meaning no Inter Rail pass he was using to get to London? I’ll never know what happened with that guy. Hope he found his wallet.
After I slept, the first thing I did was eat at this falafel/hummus place called “Hummus Bar.” Mmmm, some of the best falafel I’ve had (no picture of falafel, sorry, but there’s a picture of the sign leading to the bar). I did a little bit of wandering (very little) then I became tired so I returned to the hostel for a nap. During the night I went to this place called Szimpla with these Brazilian girls I met at my hostel (with like a group of 10 people, they met up with some euro travelers that they’d met in Berlin).
Mar
10
It seems like almost every city I go to, there exists one vegetarian restaurant that has cafeteria style food, where they make a different set of things each day. This one was really tasty and somewhat cheap compared to regular food in Belgrade. I paid about 6 dollars for this plate of food below (including that muffin!). It’s located at Palmoticeva 5, right behind Parliament. Supposedly its a brand new place to eat, but I think there used to be some other veggie place at this same address.
