Amfora, Ghent

On a brief visit to Ghent last weekend, we had lunch at this unassuming place, and I was very pleasantly surprised by how good the food was.

The restaurant is located on a pretty square a few minutes away from the central place of the town, in a nice shopping area. From outside, it looks like a café with simple snacks for food and when you enter, the downstairs guestroom is far from charming. However, there is an upstairs which is inviting and has a lovely view towards the square the restaurant is on and the interesting architecture around it.

The place is indeed more a cafe than a restaurant in that it is open only during day and offers mainly cafe-type dishes, which also has a very positive effect on the prices, and all dishes and drinks we had were excellent.

I had a quiche with a shrimp and cheese filling (a local specialty), which sounds odd but tasted marvellous, my partner had meatballs in a spicy vegetable sauce, which came with really good fries, our friends an omelette and a focaccia filled with goat cheese.
For dessert there were pancakes with chocolate sauce and a really good vanilla ice-cream. The pancakes were wonderfully light and fluffy - if I'd known before, I'd have had them just with a sugar sprinkling, as they didn't need a sauce to help them go down.
For drinks, there was an ample choice of Belgian beers and I had a tea that came in style in a little cast iron tea pot.

Definitely a recommendation if you need a bit of a refreshment between shopping and enjoying the beauties of Ghent.

http://www.zone09.be/wca_digi/resto_detail/63/52157/Amfora-.html

Lobster at The Landing, Kennebunkport, Maine

When it comes to food, I'm normally of a somewhat inland persuasion. I love the sea, though, I'm near a major river and I like to eat fish, too. I've had fantastic fish dishes, esp when staying at the coast. I'm not too much into shellfish of any kind, though - not a fan of the texture and I tend to find the taste not worthwhile the risk of getting ill from a bad piece of shellfish. However, I'm always happy to give new things a try, and when we went on a holiday to New England last September, one of the things I'd definitely wanted to do there was to try some of the seafood specialties of the area.

In addition to chowder (or, more precisely "chowdah" ;) ), which I had delicious examples of at various places, the main challenge was lobster.

I'd not eaten lobster at all before in my life, and I was quite excited about the whole thing. My chance to try it came at a weekend trip to Kennebunkport in Maine. Here, we were happy to find The Landing, a restaurant with all kinds of lobster-variations on the menu and idyllic waterfront seating.



I ordered whole lobster, which came with butter, excellent chips (fries) and a really good salad - plus, of course, that requisite of humiliation, a funny plastic bib.



I needed a lot of advice of what to do and how, but I managed to crack the critter open and enjoyed the process of finding the food inside.

And, oooooh, how good this food was! I hadn't expected the lobster meat to be so sweet and tender and juicy. I even went on to eat the green bit inside, which I was told was edible though opinions were divided - some people scorned it, others relished it. Encouraged by the success of the lobster-eating-experiment so far, I dipped my chips in it and found it of exquisite taste.

(I tried not to think too much about what it might be - after all, it looked, to all intents and purposes, as if it might have been nothing worse than that staple of British pub food, mushy peas - and it certainly tasted better than those. ;) :D )

I had lovely glass of white wine with it, which complemented the lobster very well.

Prices and service were both alright.

Definitely a recommendation for a lovely place with good food.

http://www.landingintheport.com/

New Year's at the Limbourg

My sweetie had booked a table at the Limbourg for us to welcome the new year with a leisurely meal.

The restaurant right round the corner from Friesenplatz (Cologne's party mile) looks small at first sight, but actually has a second floor, so is not quite as small as it seems.

I had been doubtful at first, as Friesenplatz is not my favourite part of town and the restaurant had looked almost too understated at a first quick glance.

Getting there on New Year's Eve, though, it was soon evident that is was an excellent choice. Right round the corner from the tram, it was nevertheless quiet - hardly any background music throughout the evening - non-smoking, and the other guests seemed perfectly bearable on this evening. Also, in spite of the brick walls, the atmosphere as well as the temperature was pleasantly warm and comfortable. The tables were decorated perfectly for the occasion, with lots of silly paper toys and balloons to amuse you during the evening. There were even a couple of crackers provided.

The meal consisted of six courses, spread out perfectly over the evening, starting at eight and ending shortly after eleven. The amount for each course was perfect, too.
We had aperitifs and then a bottle of Champagne during the meal.

There was some bread with salsa first, probably to keep you entertained or as amuse geule. I had stupidly forgotten my insulin, so I had to take it slowly on the carbs, which worked ok, though. (The nice thing about classy meals like that is that they tend to come with very few carbs. ;) :D )

The meal opened with scallops in a pine, date and mince sauce. The pine kernel with the dried fruit made a very curious texture sensation in the mouth.

Next was a smoked duck breast, thinly cut, with lambs lattice, cheese and balsamico. The meat was delicious (if intense and at times a teeny bit chewy - just so much that I was glad for the salad and some bread). I couldn't detect the balsamico, though, but as it didn't spoil the taste, that was ok.

Next was a lemon sorbet. This was my favourite course of all, as it was exactly what I'd always imagined sorbet to be like, from what I'd heard of it. So far, what I'd had had mostly just been more or less frozen juice. This, by contrast, was certainly 'half frozen' in texture and consisting to a large part of sparkling wine, as it was swimming in a glass of prosecco.

This providing a nice break and transition, for the following main course you could choose between meat and fish. Both of us chose the meat, which was haunch of lamb, briefly fried, with a morel sauce, sweet potato slices and a half pear filled with a thyme-creme.
It was very good, although I prefer my lamb cooked tender. I had a few inedible bits on it, which wasn't helped by the fact that my knife had an edge as sharp as an eraser.

The first dessert was Lebkuchen-mousse in a chocolate ring with slices of mulled-wine-jelly. The mousse with the chocolate was excellent, though I wasn't convinced by the jelly.

To finish up, there was a cheese course, with four different cheeses and some grapes and bread. The cheeses were all delicious, and just enough to be filling without being too much.

We had finished the Champagne by then, and I had a glass of French dry Muscadet with the last course, which was really good, too.

When it went on midnight, glasses of Prosecco were poured for everyone to take, which was really nice, I thought - not having to make sure you order in time so you have a glass in your hand in time. A slight disadvantage was that no one was officially checking the clock and counting down the time, so we went a bit stumbling for the time - but it was pretty much around midnight, certainly while it was still 00:00, that we clinked our glasses and cheered the new year, then all went outside to see what fireworks were being let go on Friesenplatz.
It wasn't as crowded as I'd expected - it's probably a bit off-centre for a night like that - but, then, no drunken crowds was just what I'd wanted, so that was good; and we still saw a nice amount of rockets, too - and not seeing a part of them, because we didn't have eyes for them just then. ;)

When the rocket spectacle was over, we went back inside and settled down for a nightcap.
I had a shot of Williams pear spirits, which they made a very generous glass. It was very good and provided and a nicely rounded finish for a wonderful, delicious, fun New Year's Eve.

http://www.limbourg.mynetcologne.de/

Back and bringing a quick and easy home-made autumn meal

Wow - I've been in hiatus from blogging for almost half a year. Just didn't get round to updating - the less so the more there would have been to post about.

Life has been good and we got around a lot, enjoying good food in lots of different places. :)

To pick up the threads again, though, I'll make a start with a meal I cooked a couple of weeks ago for my sweetie and me.

I cook for myself very regularly, but am yet not used to cooking for others or, indeed, to cook more than one course. So I hardly knew what went into me to make plans for a three course meal - just so many different things that I wanted to make. And, best of all, finding a series of things that sounded easy to make, and really were a pleasant evening's work for my first ever three-course meal. And very yummy they all were, too. :D

For starters, we had potato soup. I love soups, and I'd made this one first a few days before (inspired by having just the kind of sausage that needs to go into it) and was surprised how easy it was.

Potato Soup (makes a starter for two or a small meal for one)

175 grams (approx. ;) ) potatoes - peel and dice
1 onion - peel and dice
1 knob of butter - melt in a pot and stew onions until glassy. Add potatoes, stew for five minutes, adding a little salt.
400 ml veggie broth
100 ml cream
- add, bring to a boil and let simmer with the lid on for 15 - 20 mins.
Puree with a hand-blender, spice to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

The recipe suggested adding diced, fried bacon and oregano. I added a few chives and cut up Mettwurst - a traditional requirement for Rhenish potato soup.

As it was pumpkin and squash season, and I love pumpkins and squashes, we next had squash filled with minced meat, lambs lettuce and bread.

Filled squashes or pumpkins (serves 2)

Originally, the recipe asked for small pettipan squashes, one per person. I couldn't get any pettipans, but I happened to have the lower, conveniently bowl-shaped part of a butternut left and bought a small Hokkaido pumpkin in addition.

Here's how to make the dish:

Cut top off pumpkins and remove the seeds.

1 small Spanish onion (or two normal onions) - peel and dice

200 - 250 grams minced meat, half pork, half beef

2 tbl sp oil - heat and stew onions in it, add minced meat and fry until cooked while stirring, so that it becomes crumbly. Salt and pepper to taste. (Garlic is an option here, too, though I didn't use it.)

2 beef tomatoes - briefly dip into boiling water, then chill; peel and cut into stripes, removing the seeds. Add to the meat. (Leaving some for decoration later.)

1 teasp salt, a little Cayenne pepper - rub the inside of the pumpkins with the spices.

Fill meat into the pumpkins.

Place pumpkins in an oven dish, place leftover tomatoes on top.

2 teasp butter

4 tblspoon parmesan cheese

- sprinkle butter flakes and grated cheese on top

Fill dish with approx. 2 cm water

Bake for about 40 mins at 200°C (until pumpkin seems done).

Dress lambs lettuce with a fine vinegar (whichever you prefer) and olive oil, salt, pepper, dried herbs.

Serve with French or Italian bread.

Dessert was fun to make and surprised me with how good it was. I guess you have to be in Germany to be able to make this, though, but nevertheless, here goes:

Stracciatella-Quark (serves 2)

4 chocolate kisses - remove wafers, squash in a bowl

250 grams quark - mix with squashed kisses

(if available: 1 teasp grated peel of orange - mix with quark. If oranges with edible peel are not available - couldn't get any myself that day - just let the juice of the orange (see below) you fillet drip into the quark and stir again)

1 orange - peel and fillet and serve with the quark

Deeeelicious! :D

I guess this is a rather German meal all through. :D There's ingredients in each course that won't be easily available abroad.

Instead of the Mettwurst in the starter use the bacon the recipe suggests. A soft salami might work, too. Mettwurst is similar to that.

Instead of mixed (half pork, half beef) minced meat, I could imagine you could use any other kind of minced meat just as well.

For the dessert, however, I'm afraid I can't think of replacements. You'll have to visit Germany and try chocolate kisses and quark for yourself. :D

You can see, though, why this is fun and easy to make: you only need one pot per course, plus a couple of bowls, leaving you with hardly any dishes. The dessert can wait in the fridge, and the two first courses have fairly long cooking times during which they hardly need any supervision, giving you time to work on other dishes and clean up. A kitchen not in utter chaos after a three-course meal for two was a really pleasant surprise. :D

Adolph's Brauhaus, Cologne

This place - a humble Brauhaus and a bit out of the way (in Weidenpesch, just outside the Cologne city centre) - was a wonderful surprise find.

We were walking in search of dinner from my partner's flat and happy to try anything that looked comparatively smoke-free and half-ways appetising. This place exceded all my expectations.

A 'Brauhaus' is a brewery pub, and normally that means beer and plain (though mostly decent) food. Here, however, they also offered a very decent choice of wines and other drinks, and food that even on the menu looked unusually ambitious for a pub.

The one thing that immediately caught my eye was "Viennese Schnitzel (veal)". Now, in order for you to allow calling it "Viennese Schnitzel" it has to be veal, but they did well to make a special note of it, because otherwise you'd have assumed they were misnaming it - because real Viennese Schnitzel is really, really uncommon here. What you get in virtually all pubs is "Schnitzel, Viennese style", which then means a chunk of pork with a bread-crumb batter. I do like bread-crumb batters, but what makes Viennese Schnitzel so adorable is the fact that it's ultra-thin veal and a very fluffy (from proper frying, I think) batter. I had to try this one.

And wasn't disappointed. It was utterly delicious. My partner had steak with fried potato chunks, which was very good, too. The salad was the only thing that was less than great - typical pub-style, that is - and the fries (which I had with my schnitzel instead of the recommended potato salad) weren't perfect either, but very edible.

Now, a plate-sized schnitzel with fries is normally enough even for my appetite, but I had spied something on the dessert menu that had tickled my interest - Palatschinken.

This is an Austrian specialty (which, together with the proper Viennese Schnitzel made me suspect the chef was Austrian, which the waiter confirmed), one of their many egg-based delicacies, this time in form of a pancake or crêpe. (Palatschinken)
I'd heard much of them, but never tried any.

They came with an apricot or cherry filling - or both, and I opted for both.

At first I was a little shocked when I saw two large-ish pancakes on my plate. I'm not normally a great fan of pancakes. I eat them mostly because I like the idea of pancakes. I tend to find the texture unpleasant and the taste not sufficiently interesting to outweigh the unpleasantness of the texture - and that goes for any pancakes I occasionally make myself, too.
I never thought I'd be able to eat more than half of one of them.

However, I soon found that these were a different matter entirely! They were airy and fluffy and the more I ate, the more I wanted. I finished both of them easily and thought I shouldn't have minded some more.

The interior of the restaurant itself is simple but tasteful, with a bar area (with a TV, to show football games) and a generous dining area behind, TV-free, plus seating outdoors in a quiet street parallel to the main street on which the building is situated. Smoking, thankfully, is outdoors only.

Prices were nice, too - typically Brauhaus/pub, really.

The restaurant doesn't have a website of its own, so here's an entry for it in a pub-listing: http://www.gaffel.de/index.php?nc=82&firmaid=905

Manala, Helsinki

On a recent weekend visit to Helsinki, Finland, we went to the "Manala" for dinner. We were in search of local food and weren't disappointed.

Apparently, "Manala" means "Underworld" in Finnish, and the restaurant greets you with a merry devil painted on the door. But neither is the restaurant underground nor is the food in any way hellish.

On the contrary, it's a big, airy place with a comfortable dining room that is a pleasant mix of the rustic and the stylish. There is also a bar, probably for when you are waiting for a table or just want drinks. Both are, according with sensible Finnish law, non-smoking.

Food and drink were good, and some dishes on the menu sounded decidedly local.

I had sautéed reindeer, cut up in tiny bits with (somewhat too watery) mashed potatoes and the seemingly omnipresent but very tasty lingonberries as a sauce. They also served excellent salmon chowder and an interesting pudding with buckwheat sauce for dessert.

Though alcoholic drinks were, typically for Finland, extremely pricey, the food prices were decent enough.

The only iffy thing about the place is the fact that you are first faced with a cloak room to which it is obligatory to give up your coat or jacket - for a fee. That's the first time I've seen a restaurant make money of its customers' clothing. They also sold a bunch of 'fandom'-items with the name of the place on it there - also not something you'd exactly associate with stylishness. Odd that they should resort to such measures to make an extra bit of money, when the place seemed fairly popular with customers.

http://www.botta.fi/MANALA.3.0.html?&L=1

Ouzeria, Cologne

This Cologne restaurant is a jolly little mix of cuisines from all around the Mediterranean (with a bit of the rest of the world thrown in for good measure), mostly Greek and Spanish, situated fairly centrally in the fashionable 'Belgian quarter'.

Good wines, both by the glass and by the bottle, Ouzos (of course) and other interesting spirits accompany a wide selection of tapas, some of which come as a full meal, too.

(Distinguishable only by the price, which might lead to some confusion as some tapas are a bit pricey and look like they might be a meal.)

In addition to a rich standard menu, there is an interesting list of the day's specials, too.

The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, the interior a bit noisy, on account of being kept in a Mediterranean mix of bare stone, wood and plaster.

I've been there twice now: once coming in late for a dessert and drink only, we found the place very lively at about 11pm. The desserts on offer then were certainly very imaginative, if not entirely convincing (I had an asparagus zabaione).

The second time I visited with a large group, which could barely be seated (I don't think the place could take groups of over 20 people), but the waiters worked hard and patiently to get everyone pleasantly seated.

This second time, I had three tapas, which were all very good, even though, oddly, the first one was served as a starter. The two for 'mains' were potato-chips with cheese (nice price option, if you just wanted a snack with your drink) and some rabbit, very pleasantly spiced with cinnamon and coriander. I had a traditional Greek yoghurt for dessert and a white wine from Crete, which was very pleasant drinking, plus a good Samos and a sweet herbal liqueur.

A place to come back to and try the many interesting things on the menu - it is also commendably non-smoking.

http://www.ouzeria-koeln.de/