I love walking down some dingy alley and stumbling into a hole in the wall like Yarl Hotel. This is the real deal folks, not something you’ll find in a guidebook. You won’t find Foodies here either, but real people looking for real food to fill them up for a day of hard work. My cousin Sam and his son took me here because they know I like Jaffna food, the spicier Tamil cuisine found on the north of the island (“Yarl” is the Tamil name for Jaffna). Wellawatta, a suburb of Colombo, is about 99% Tamil, so this is the place to find some serious Jaffna food. And in Jaffna, they love their seafood–fish, prawns, crab, and squid. They also love their chilies, and so do I!
It would not be an exaggeration to say that I am Koo-Koo for coconuts. I love everything about them–the milk, the water, the oil, and, of course, the white “meat,” all of which is heavily utilized in Sri Lankan cooking. Until recently, the coconut’s highest profile in the west most probably came in candy bar form–either Mounds or Almond Joy (or for you Brits, a Bounty). But today you see coconut water everywhere. Whether due to a Hollywood trend or health craze, numerous brands of coconut water have hit the market with a vengeance, and while it’s great that it’s finally available here, paying $2.50 for a 16 oz. carton, is, well, slightly loco.
some of the popular brands of coconut water or thambily as it is known in Sri Lanka
What if I were to tell you that you can get this stuff all over the streets of Sri Lanka–and sip it straight out of its natural container–for only about 40 cents a pop. Not only that, but the soft, jelly-like lining of this fruit (not botanically classified as a nut), is also yours to enjoy, gratis. In fact, in Sri Lanka, the man who cuts open your king coconut with a huge machete will also fashion a spoon from the outer shell so you can scrape out the delicious innards.
cutting off the top
to expose the inner skin
I have always heard that coconut water is supposed to be an excellent health tonic, filled with electrolytes. It’s prescribed for a variety of ailments in Sri Lanka including upset stomach. Did you know that in a pinch, it may even be used in a drip as IV fluid? But all that aside, I don’t drink 3 or 4 coconuts a day when I’m in Sri Lanka for my health. I drink it because it tastes bloody good as well as being so refreshing on a hot, humid, tropical day. And did I mention it only costs about 40 cents? Come to Sri Lanka and I’m buying. Thambily for everybody!
Whoa! Slow down. Wait a minute! Who forgot to tell me about Burmese food? I did, after all, date a girl from Myanmar once, and I have eaten at at least one Burmese restaurant in New York, but nothing I have experienced up to now could prepare me for my first real Burmese meal at Burma Superstar, Oakland. As an Asian food freak, who has tried practically every cuisine of the continent and subcontinent, I can now say that Burmese ranks up there as some of the best. It’s not quite like Chinese and it’s certainly not like Indian, but somewhere in the middle–as reflected in the geography of the country of Myanmar itself–there lies the perfect fusion, which is Burmese food.
I first heard about Burma Superstar through my friends Bill & Gigi. Bill having dined at their San Francisco location only had great things to report. Gigi’s sister Tiyo, managed the place, so when I was looking for places in the Bay Area to have my book party, it was a no brainer. You already heard about how well that event went, but I have a secret confession to make: one reason I wanted to have my book party at Burma Superstar was so that I could try their food. In fact, I had to purposefully abstain from eating the Sri Lankan food that I had prepared for the party in order to have room for a full dinner at the restaurant–a small sacrifice which was well rewarded!
out front at Burma Superstar Oakland
Joining me for dinner were 9 friends from the Bay Area (I didn’t know I even had that many friends in the Bay Area), who were all veterans of Burma Superstar. While we perused the menu deciding what to have, Tiyo just started sending dishes out to us from the kitchen. First came the salads–the legendary tea leaf and rainbow salads–both of which were featured on Food Network. I had more than one recommendation to try the tea leaf salad, especially since it was dressed with a unique paste of fermented tea leaves. How do I describe the flavor of this special ingredient other than to say it was…singular…and most delicious! The salad comes with all of it’s individual ingredients–including fried garlic, peanuts, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, romain lettuce, and dried shrimp–unmixed and the waitperson tosses them together at the table, which also adds a nice touch. The rainbow salad came with a similar presentation, helpful in identifying all 22 ingredients it is composed of, before being quickly devoured.
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The dishes kept coming in such quick succession that all of us were kept very busy, spooning delicious tidbits onto our plates and making room at the table for everything. “Ooohs” and “Aaahs” replaced regular speech as we voiced our collective foodgasm over the great dishes we were tasting. So greedy was I that I forgot to take notes about individual plates, but much of my recollection of that evening is imprinted on my tongue. The curry pork with potatoes was incredibly moist and tender; the fiery tofu with vegetables, spicy/sweet; the sesame beef had a tanginess from the added tamarind; and the tender strips of chili lamb had a serious kick. The mango shrimp, a dish I had seen prepared in the kitchen also had the spicy/sweet combination, which I have come to associate with Burmese food. No where was there any coconut milk or curry leaves like Sri Lankan food, or kaffir lime leaves and galangal, like Thai. Simply Burmese cuisine in all its glory!
After such a feeding frenzy, I don’t think anyone at the table was in any shape for dessert, but we had to go for it anyway. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen 10 stuffed people share one dessert, the sticky black rice with coconut ice cream, which was, of course, another victory. Eating at Burma made us all feel like superstars.
Just another lunch at my Aunty Dora's flat on Park Street
I didn’t title my cookbook Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking for nothing. The best Sri Lankan food your are likely to get in country or abroad, for that matter, is not in a restaurant, but rather at someone’s home. Don’t get me wrong: I love to eat out when I’m traveling and check out new places, but sometimes you get food fatigue on the road. The best remedy for that is a home cooked meal. You know exactly where the food came from, who cooked it, and you can have it as spicy as you like–and as much of it as you like as well!
My Aunt Dora’s flat on Park Street in an area called Slave Island, is usually my base of operations when in Colombo. It’s centrally located, and my regular trishaw driver Nimal hangs out at the temple under the Bo tree across the street. I call on him to make many of my lunchtime excursions because he knows all my regular spots, and can weave in and out of gridlocked traffic to get me where I want to go, no problem. It’s sometimes a hairy ride, but never a dull one.
One Saturday, I was ready to take my cousin Sam’s family out to lunch somewhere, when his wife Charmalie started complaining that they had too much food in the house. Iraesha, the cook, had left several curries in the fridge, and they would apparently go bad if we didn’t eat them that day. Far be it from me to waste good food. Plus, I had been eating out almost every day for both lunch and dinner since I had been in Sri Lanka, and I needed a little break.
rice, the starting point of any good meal
parippu or dahl, when added to rice makes a perfect protein
miris malu or red fish curry
polos or young jackfruit curry
mallun or sauteed greens
fresh gotu kola salad
a gotu kola sambol
curried brinjals or eggplant
potato curry with kiri hodhi
fried onion sambol
I counted 10 different dishes–including rice–and all of them were good. I certainly didn’t expect such a grand lunch, but then I realized that this is how they eat everyday. And why on earth would you want to go out if you had food like this? They must look at me like I’m crazy or something.
Sometimes these blog posts don’t work out as planned. I had planned, for example, to do a post on string hoppers, the rice noodle “nests” popular in Sri Lanka for breakfast and dinner. Problem is, I wanted to buck tradition, or conditioning, or whatever you want to call it, and have string hoppers for lunch. Not such a big deal, you might think, but try finding string hoppers at lunch time in Colombo. My cousin Cane and I set off for Bambalapitiya with high hopes, but kade after kade, we struck out. In a land where rice reigns supreme, and lunch is the main meal, it seems as though it’s a serious breach of dining etiquette here to expect string hoppers for lunch.
string hoppers with fish ambul thiyal, kiri hodhi, pol sambol, and onion sambol
So we ducked inside Hotel De New Pilawoos, a member of Colombo’s popular Pilawoos franchise (but neither a hotel or French or new), and settled instead for some biriyani. Sri Lankan biriyani is slightly different to what you’ve come to expect from this dish. For one, there’s no yogurt involved. The meat and rice are also cooked separately–and in this case the chicken is actually roasted while short-grain samba rice replaces the traditional long-grain, fragrant basmathi. You also get a whole hard-boiled egg, a side of minchi (mint) sambol, gravy for the chicken, and a piece of pineapple for good measure. We supplemented our biriyani with a side of beef curry because it looked so good!
the main event
with a side of gravy
and, of course, some beef curry
I must say that even though I did not get my string hoppers for lunch, I was not mad at this meal. The rice was bursting with flavors, prominent among them the essence of rose, which Muslims love to use in their cooking (and biriyani, of course, originally being a Moghul dish). The roasted chicken, though juicy, was much aided by the addition of the curry gravy. The minchi sambol added a cooling component to the whole meal (as did the sliver of pineapple), and the beef curry, though a little tough, tasted fine.
Of course, I couldn’t wash down a Muslim meal without a traditional Muslim dessert, so we chose to have some faluda. Faluda is a sweetened drink made with milk, ice cream and rose syrup, which is super sweet, and gives the drink it’s signature pinkish hue. There are also sometimes bits of tapioca floating in the drink for texture. You essentially stir up the whole thing and enjoy it like a milk shake. I hadn’t had faluda in a while, and this one was perfect because it was not overly sweet for my tastes. Though I had been to Pilawoos many times before, I can understand why it is the goto place for such foods as biriyani or Kothu roti in the evening–consistency is the key!
Mmmmmm!!...Faluda
Hotel De Pilawoos
417, Galle Road, Colombo 3. (btw 6th Ln & Alfred Pl), Colombo, Sri Lanka
Colombo has no shortage of Chinese restaurants, most of which serve food with its own particular character, shaped, of course, by local tastes (meaning, it’s much spicier than the run of the mill storefront Chinese in New York or any western city for that matter). It’s also probably nothing like the ‘authentic’ Chinese food you get in China. That’s why Juchunyuan is such a find: It’s a Chinese restaurant in the heart of Colombo that obviously caters to a largely Chinese clientele looking for a true taste of home.
You could call this well-worn establishment a hole-in-the-wall because it’s off the eaten path, but a clean one at that exuding an odd charm. Though not heavy on ambience, the downstairs dining room, with its 4 semi-private booths, is at least spotless and cooled by AC. While upstairs offers additional seating, both times I have been there it was empty (which might have something to do with the waitresses not wanting to carry the large chafing dishes of hot soup up the stairs).
the upstairs dining room
Besides the paucity of décor, the first thing you notice upon sitting down is the gas burner built right into the center of your table, definitely an omen of good things to come. Also of interest is the single-page, double-sided menu that flashes Chinese characters at you (another good sign), but fret not as closer examination reveals tiny English subtitles written beneath. And anyway, didn’t you always want to know how to write “pig’s heart” or “sheep’s stomach” in Mandarin?
Once again, don’t be intimidated by the menu, because at least one of the waitresses speaks passable English and she will help you out with ordering.
“So how do we do this?” I shamelessly blurted. I might be a gastronaut, but never professed to being a know-it-all.
Our helpful waitress, Lena, directed our attention to the other side of the menu, which lists the different kinds of soup available. They’ve got fish, chicken, “pig bone” and even duck with beer among the offerings. You can order it spicy or not. We settled on the “three sort sea food with short rib soup,” extra spicy, of course.
Soup's On!
Soup is not only the starter here, but the star, as well as the medium in which you will cook your meal. That’s right; if you thought the chef was going to do all the work, guess again. This is, after all, not just any restaurant, but a “Resraurant” as the sign proclaims.
Sign by Scooby Doo
The flip side of the menu features a dizzying array of ingredients. In addition to the afore-mentioned offal, they also have more normal stuff like prawns, cuttlefish, beef, mutton, and vegetables such as mushrooms, kelp, cabbage and kan kun.
“What’s good, today?” I asked Lena. She recommended the prawn wonton.
“We’ll have an order of those.”
I also got up to peek at the table next door, filled with a group of Japanese men happily swilling cold beers with their hot soup, and decided on getting some prawns, white cabbage, kan kun, and noodles.
“That should be enough for now.” I said, thinking about the “three sort seafood and short rib” that came with the soup.
Lena disappeared and reemerged with our utensils, an array of tools fit for us budding soup chefs, which included a tiny soup bowl and porcelain soup spoon, two metal serving spoons, one with holes; a fork; and a set of chopsticks. She flitted back and forth behind the scenes, returning with a delectable assortment of condiments—fresh chopped garlic and cilantro, peanut sauce, soy sauce, and a thick chili oil.
condiments and raw ingredients for the soup
“Wow! This is getting more interesting by the minute,” I said to my cousin Cane, who had turned me onto this place, though he had only eaten some fried rice on his initial visit. Cane was visibly excited because like most Sri Lankans, this was an entirely new dining experience for him.
Lena appeared next with a large stainless steel bowl of soup, whose broth was practically bright red from the preponderance of chilies. It’s good to see that extra spicy meant exactly that. She rested it on the gas burner in the center of the table, and turned on the flame. Then the stuff we ordered started appearing on the table in quick succession, raw, of course. Our mouths sufficiently watering by now, we wasted no time, sliding a couple jumbo prawns (with head and tail intact) into the mix along with whole leaves of white cabbage, some freshly made prawn wontons, and kan kun (stems and all).
Cousin Cane ready to get into some soup
While this stuff quickly cooked in the bubbling cauldron, it was time to assemble our bowls of soup. First in went the pre-cooked rice noodles, over which I ladled several spoonfuls of the spicy broth. Next I added a bit of all of the condiments, and finally some of the now cooked vegetables, wontons and a rosy red prawn. I gave it a little stir and sipped a spoonful of the broth.
“Wow! Flavor” I said as both mine and Cane’s eyes seemed to light up at the same time.
YUM!!!
The broth alone was something worth writing home about with its three kinds of seafood and pork ribs. We found out after the meal that the seafood in question was actually dried squid, oysters, and mussels, which had been imported from China, according to Lena. As far as I knew, you couldn’t get this kind of stuff in Colombo.
The "three sort seafood" flavoring the broth -- dried oysters, squid, and mussels
More raw ingredients went into the broth and fished out cooked into our bowls. After much slurping and chewing it seemed like we actually made a small dent in the huge chafing dish of soup. But this was clearly a meal fit for a minimum of four people.
So we went away happy and satisfied with our taste buds thoroughly titillated, and resolved to bring the rest of Cane’s family to help us conquer the next bowl of soup (and next time we did go for the pig’s heart and cow’s stomach). Juchunyuan proved itself a marvelous and surprising find in the middle of Colombo, and if you ever find yourself with curry-fatigue, it’s got just the tonic for you.
One of the new Sri Lankan food trucks selling lunch packets
Lunch being the main meal in Lanka, I noticed that there’s a ton of places to get a quick, midday rice and curry—from street side stands and trucks that sell 100 rupee rice packets to the informal, sit-down restaurants that cater to the office crowd. While most rice packets are perfectly fine, they have usually been sitting around since morning and because they are already boxed, you really don’t know what you’re getting until you open it up. That’s why I prefer to go to a place like Gamay Kade. Though you pay a little more (240 for the basic rice and curry meal with 4 vegetables and a meat dish), you get a load of different dishes to choose from, all piping hot and fresh in the traditional clay chattys in which they were cooked. This is Sri Lanka’s version of fast food, served in a clean setting, under spinning ceiling fans, and on real plates.
My plate at Gamay Kade: fish, prawns, dahl, mallun, beets & mango curry
I checked out the Gamay Kade (which roughly translates to ‘village diner’) on Union Street in Colombo with my friend Arjuna, a Sri Lankan filmmaker, and went away quite satisfied. Not only were there about 15 different curries from which to choose, but they also served Chinese food, buriyani, and Malay specialties such as Nasi Goreng. After taking a peek at the sumptuous offerings before us, we told the cashier what we wanted, paid, and got a ticket, which we presented at the buffet line. Here, a lady served up a heaping mound of rice (red rice for me), as well as red fish curry, prawn curry, dahl with spinach, beetroot curry, mango curry, and mallun (sautéed greens). Arjuna got some jackfruit curry instead of the beets, and we also got a side order of fried fish. After washing up at the washing station, we dug in with our hands (the traditional way of eating rice and curry) thoroughly enjoying the feast before us. The total food bill—a whopping 680 rupees (US $6.18 or $3.09 per person). It tasted as good as home made, and we did not go away hungry.
Although I did a much earlier post about the “Battle of Lampreis” in Sri Lanka, I realized today after lunch that there really is no competition: The lampreis at The Dutch Burgher Union is hands down THE BEST and only lampreis worth eating. For all you novices out there, here’s a little refresher course: Lampreis is a complete rice & curry meal wrapped and steamed in a banana leaf. Authentic, traditional lampreis is comprised of the following individual dishes–samba rice cooked in marrow bone stock; tempered brinjal (eggplant) curry; a fish cutlet or frikadel; a mixed meat curry of pork, beef, and mutton; seeni sambol; fried ash plantain curry, and blachan (a tasty condiment paste made of dried prawns, onions, lime, salt and spices).
Though she appeared a little creepy on the No Reservations: Sri Lanka episode, a little Burgher lady by the name of Lorraine Bartholomewsz, is still the one who makes the lampreis sold at DBU, and she certainly gets massive kudos for her cooking. The delicate samba rice was perfectly cooked and amazingly flavorful due to the rich stock it was cooked in, yet not greasy at all. The tempered eggplant was melt-in-your mouth delicious, while the fried ash plantain had body to it and was not mushy in the least. The mixed meat curry featured tiny cubes of pork fat to enhance its taste, and both the seeni sambol and blachan were bursting with flavor. Instead of only one cutlet or frikadel, there were two. The fact that each individual dish would have been amazing on its own explains why this little package of rice and curry was the equivalent of a multiple foodgasm. If the lunch crowd in Manhattan could get a hold of this, FUHGETABOUT IT!
So, thanks, Lorraine, for your skills, and thanks to the DBU for making this available to the general public. I would recommend calling ahead and reserving yours in the morning as the lampreis becomes available at 11 am and is usually sold out by noon. While normal rice packets sell for about 120 rupees, the DBU lampreis is certainly no steal at 390 rupees, but certainly worth every finger-licking mouthful. Enter around the back of the DBU where there is a little counter where you can pick up your order, and they even steam it for you, so it’s ready to eat!
Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon
114, Reid Avenue
Colombo 4
Sri Lanka
GiGi performs in Addis Ababa for the first time in 14 years
Having long been a fan of Ethiopian cuisine, I was very excited to be spending a week in that country’s capital of Addis Ababa, where I was filming a concert by my good friend, Ethiopian songstress GiGi, who was returning to her native land after a 14-year hiatus. My anticipation of the concert was almost dwarfed by the prospect of being able to sample the broad range of authentic Ethiopian cuisine in the Motherland itself—an experience on par with eating world-renowned Kobe beef in Kobe, Japan.
a typical Ethiopian butcher
Not that I expected the food to be radically different from what I had eaten In Ethiopian restaurants in Baltimore and DC, but I had heard, for example, that injera, the staple, pancake-like sourdough bread usually made of teff flour is more commonly made with wheat flour in the States. Teff, a grain native to Northeastern Africa, packs a very high nutritional punch and contains far less gluten than wheat. I was also looking forward to trying such specialties as tere sega, or raw meat, as well as drinking coffee in the land where it supposedly originated.
My first Ethiopian meal (breakfast)
We arrived in Addis on a bright, sunny 70-degree morning following the 12-hour direct flight from DC. With hunger pangs buzzing, I decided to try the complimentary breakfast at our hotel, The Intercontinental Addis, where they had put up quite a spread of Western and Ethiopian food. I, of course, opted for the latter filling my plate with firfir (torn up bits of injera mixed with butter and berbere spice), kai wat (beef cooked in berebere), gomen (minced spinach), sils (a hot tomato and onion sauce), and coconut rice. I’m not sure the rice was a native dish, since I only ever saw it at the hotel, but one ingredient that is distinctly Ethiopian is the spice mixture known as berbere. As many as 16 different spices go into berbere, including chili powder, cardamom, clove, fenugreek, cinnamon, turmeric, and allspice, but like curry powder, everyone has their own special blend.
Later that night, GiGi’s father hosted a dinner at the popular cultural restaurant Yod Abyssinia, which features live traditional music and dancing along with its fine cuisine. Amongst a mostly local crowd, we enjoyed a gut-busting meal of derek tibs (meat fried and served ‘dry,’ without sauce); the national dish, doro wat (chicken and hardboiled eggs served in a sauce of butter, onion, chili, cardamom, and berbere); messer, a lentil curry; tibs (strips of lamb pan-fried in butter, garlic, onion, and sometimes tomato), and aib, a fermented cheese, which
An enticing plate at Yod Abyssinia
was the only thing on the communal plate that I did not really take a liking too. There was also a selection of vegetarian dishes—called ye som megeb–including sautéed collard greens, cabbage, and green beans, and a spicy dipping sauce called awazi. In addition to the injera, which had a remarkable sour taste and far superior to any I’ve had stateside, there was a flatbread made of darker flour, whose name unfortunately escapes me right now. The extra strong Ethiopian honey wine, tej, is definitely an acquired taste, so I washed it all down with the popular Ethiopian beer, St. George. Intense, black Ethiopian coffee was served after the meal accompanied by bekolo (popcorn) and a smoking dish of frankincense for effect.
Ethiopian coffee
Tej, or honey wine--not my cup of tea
This first night’s extravagant menu was the blueprint for every subsequent meal I was to have in Ethiopia with the injera providing both the roughage and a utensil by which to pick up and eat the various dishes. On the adventurous side, I also sampled trippa (tripe), which tasted kind of ‘funky’ and finally tere sega or raw meat. I was expecting beef or ox, but was served raw goat meat instead, which surprisingly lacked any taste, gamey or otherwise. It came with several dipping sauces including a spicy mustard (senafich), and a spicy reddish powder similar to berbere called mitimita. Texturally it was very similar to sushi, and while even cooked goat is known to be somewhat tough (unless it is cooked for a very long time), this raw goat was pretty tender.
tere sega or raw goat, an Ethiopian delicacy
from the buffet at Habesha Cultural Restaurant
beef and lamb tibs, spiked with chilies and rosemary
Condiments: Awazi, salt, mustard (senafich), and a spicy powder called mitimita
Food and music being two of the great joys of life, and having just returned from another music tour of Europe, storming through 14 cities in 16 days, I’m compelled to share some of the culinary highlights of my trip. Life on the road can be hectic, but since it’s customary for the local promoter to take us out for a magnificent feed before the show, this provides a major incentive for touring itself.
Though I’m usually looking for Asian food, which is not hard to find around Europe these days (like the ubiquitous kebab stands), this time I stayed close to the local specialties. After all, when in Rome…why not enjoy a good pasta, right? So breaking out of my usual mode, I ate nothing outrageously hot and spicy, but rather simple, basic cooking with good, fresh ingredients grown, farmed, or fished locally.
As a lover of all of the fruits of the sea, it was a blessing to kick off the tour in Spain and Portugal, which share a reputation for fine seafood. Vigo, a rustic harbor town in the northwest corner of Spain, is known for its sardines, but when I visited a local restaurant and caught site of the chubby langoustines, I had to order a plateful. Simply grilled with a little salt and finished with a squeeze of lemon, and served with their spiny heads intact, my first bite released all those tasty juices in the cranial cavity. Believe me, I didn’t even waste the crunchy shell and tail. While the swordfish I ordered for my main course was good, too, it arrived at the table swimming in an unfortunate mayonnaise sauce.
Next stop, Porto, Portugal, a city famed as the birthplace of port wine. Supposedly the British are really responsible for this drink because they would add sugar to wine coming from Portugal so it would travel better. I skipped it altogether and went straight for the bacalão, the salted codfish which maintained Portuguese sailors and explorers on their worldwide conquests. After soaking the salted cod in water to get rid of all that excess salt, it tastes like a fresh catch. Here I had some huge fried cubes of bacalão served with potatoes, red bell peppers and a salad.
My next great meal was the following night in Lisboa, a city of amazing architecture and vibe, which I am sure to revisit. This time I definitely took note of the restaurant we were eating at—Toma Lá Dá Cá –because we had to wait about an hour for a table. But the promoter was so adamant about how good the food was here, and I was so taken up by the winding, cobblestone alleys of Bairro Alto, that we stayed, and of course it was well worth it. The Vino Verde, a Portuguese green (but really white) wine complemented my perfectly grilled sea bass so well that I attained the heights of food nirvana.
I was excited to return to Madrid after such a long time, and rediscover its diverse tapas. Last time I was there during college, my Spanish girlfriend took me to these bars called caves, each of which specialized in a unique snack to have with your beer. Unfortunately, due to the volcanic activity in Iceland, I could only grab a quick kebab after the show and figure out how we were going to get to our next gig in Milano (which we eventually missed). With planes grounded and French trains on strike, we ended up taking a 15-hour van ride to Paris to catch a train to the next gig in Lille. We stopped once, at a typical French rest stop, and although we were too late for a hot meal, we ate at the buffet, which is nothing like your typical fast food highway stop in the US.
Though not happy about missing Milano, which would have been my first visit to this fine city, I did make up for it in Brussels, where we ate at a nice little Italian restaurant whose owner serenaded us. My friend had a pasta with meat, and I opted for a brick oven pizza with ham and mushrooms. You might think that pizza is pizza, but once again, it was all about the freshness of the ingredients, the wine, the ambience and the good company.
I regret not taking a photo of my meal in Leipzig, Germany where we played at a club that is also connected to a vegan restaurant, which did the catering. While I had turned my nose up at the vegetarian goulash we were served here on previous trips, this time, the cooks were on point with a Thai-inspired stir fry soaked in coconut milk and served over rice with some fresh greens. Our only vegetarian meal of the entire trip, it was also one of the best.
In Berlin, a world-class food city with affordable eating to boot, I had to break down and have some Indian food. I ordered lamb vindaloo, extra spicy, a Portuguese-inspired dish from Goa, prepared by two guys from Bangladesh living in Germany. Talk about fusion. For lunch you can’t beat half a roasted chicken with a large salad for only 4 Euros. See, Berlin is cheap.
I finally got my tapas revenge when we played in Huesca, Spain, a small town in the north central part of the country. Though it was a Sunday, the day of rest for the party hearty Spanish, we did manage to find a nice traditional restaurant that was open after the show. We had sampled some tapas there earlier—including sardines, anchovies, bacalão, stuffed mushrooms, and chorizo stuffed potatoes—so when we returned for a more substantial meal after the show we ordered pate, tempura vegetables, and a type of Spanish omelet featuring fried potatoes, blood sausage and an egg, broken over it at the end. We also had this goulash of wild game made with boar, venison and rabbit meat in a kind of red wine sauce. Had to top off this amazing feed with a traditional Spanish flan and, of course, some café con leche.
wild game goulash
In Marseille, the southern French port city where we have friends, I had requested bouillabaisse, a rich fish stew which is the local specialty, but our gracious hosts said, “It is impossible,” as you must order the dish 24 hours in advance. It was customary for our hosts to cook for us, anyway, so Chantal and crew whipped up some amazing pork with a delicious minty couscous and salad. There was also a whipped white vegetable, which I was unable to identify, but which tasted good all the same. For lunch I had a slice of cheesy lasagna and a salad,while my friend opted for some delicious vegetarian crepes. I don’t think they serve bad food in France.
I didn’t know what to expect from the food in Linz, Austria, a town I’ve played in many times before—but always at a club on the outskirts. This was the first time I got a chance to see the city center, which is bisected by the beautiful Danube. I also found out that Linz was the cultural capital of Europe last year, and any town that’s into the arts must also be into good food. The promoter took us out for Italian again, but I ended up ordering the mixed grill, with lamb, turkey and pork, slightly closer to Austrian fare. Plus, you can never go wrong with grilled meat.
Eating in Europe was a blast, but I also overdosed on bread and cheese. Next week it’s Sri Lanka and back to some fiery food
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Paneer
