Fabulous Food in Slovenia

 The sun's out and it's taken me back to my interrail tour around Europe in the summer... so today I thought I'd share a few of the delicious food experiences we had in Slovenia. This beautiful country was probably up there as one of my favourites - some of the scenery reminded me of Italy but without the price tag and some of the buildings reminded me of Austria! It was absolutely lovely and we managed to try a range of tasty dishes...

Interrail Stop 7

 

Street Eats

We stayed in the capital Ljubljana for a couple of nights, exploring Lake Bled and Lake Bohenj on one day and the city and castle the next.

Just around the corner from our hostel was a bakery called 'Dunajska Pekarna' that made the best chocolate croissant I have ever had. Seriously. It was warm and soft with melted chocolate in the middle and crispy pastry around the edge...  YUM!

 
On the topic of tasty sweets, we also sampled this traditional Bled cream cake: 'kremšnita'. Lake Bled (photo above) was probably the highlight of our stay in Slovenia. Famous for the island in the middle of the lake, the area has also got a name for this incredible cake. Looking at the photo you might think that it would taste sickly or stodgy, but you must trust me when I say this is just SO GOOD! Light, fluffy cream and custard in the middle, with a satisfyingly sweet pastry base and topping... I repeat, SO GOOD!

This next street eat is Börek (or burek) and doesn't just appear in Slovenia. With Ottoman origins, we came across it in the former Yugoslavia countries, each putting their own twist on the style. In Slovenia, the burek that we ate was meat filled and tasty! Shaped in a spiral and then shared between the two of us, this was a great meal on the go. We couldn't decide exactly what it was made from - it seemed to be a dough somewhere in between filo pastry and pasta (!!) - but whatever it was, it was delicious!

And last but not least, the smell of Nutella tempted us to try another pancake - very similar to those that we had in Belgrade, but this time we chose a sweet filling. I don't think that I need to say very much for you to know that this was just awesome!!

So by the end of our stay in Slovenia we had sampled several of the street eats and (though I may have left with a couple more pounds in weight!) none of it broke the bank!

Meal Out

 

As none of the food was particularly expensive (and all totally yummy!) we also treated ourselves to a meal out to a restaurant recommended by our hostel owner. The restaurant was called Gujzina and was not far from the main square and the triple bridge.

It was a beautiful restaurant and we were lucky enough to be seated at the window. We admired the loveliness of the whole thing and then proceeded to order the cheapest meal we possibly could (I know it's a bad way to choose from a menu but we were running out of money!!), settling for a set two course meal for two, including a white wine spritzer each! When the food arrived, believe me, we could not have been more delighted at the meal we had chosen!

A cold meat board starter with freshly baked bread was our first treat of the evening - a tantalizing selection of meats with smooth pate, a tuna mix, cheese and salad accompaniments - I don't think I could have picked a better starter than this, it was absolutely delicious!





A warm, hearty stew of red meats and potatoes was our next treat - a prekmurski bograč - served in a delightful little dish hanging over a candle. The flavours were similar to that of a Hungarian Goulash, but not quite the same. The menu described it as a Slovenian stew, including pork, beef, venison, potatoes, onions, garlic, pepper and salt. I'd love to know what other spices they used to create this yummy dish!

And our final treat for the evening was the bill... 22.90 Euro for both of us, including the drinks!! So if you're ever in Ljubljana then make sure you try this restaurant!





Delicious food, friendly locals and amazing scenery, Slovenia is definitely one to go back to for a longer stay. To round off our trip to this lovely country, I just want to leave you with on last photo...

Food Delights in Belgrade

Well after a few weeks of dissertation madness, I've finally found time to blog again! Apologies that it's been so long, but I will attempt to make up for it with some more regular posts this month... finishing off the amazing food we had on our interrailing tour of Eastern Europe, some delicious meals from a family holiday to Pollenca, Majorca, and of course, some of my own recipes!!

Interrail Stop 6

So back to the interrail tour... this time I'll share with you some of the tasty treats we had in Belgrade, Serbia. We had a couple of stops before this in Budapest and Bratislava, but chose to spend our money on the beautiful and relaxing public baths instead of tasty dinners out.... so we were back to trying the local cuisine in Serbia.

? Kafana

One of the famous landmarks in Belgrade, the ? pub and bistro is about 200 years old and serves traditional Serbian food. From our experience of the local food, that means basically dishes with lots of meat and carbs - very  filling, stodgy and greasy - but oh so tasty!!


I think these few days in Serbia just about finished us off with greasy food, but we loved eating it at the time! The meal out to ? was absolutely delicious - I had a traditional burger which was nothing like burgers that we know in the UK, but more like a huge slap of meat mixed up with onions and shaped to about the size of my face!!








 My friend had something that we expected to be chicken... but it was unlike anything we had eaten before... basically chicken flattened to within an inch of its life and then rolled up around something that we couldn't name and coated in a sort of batter/sort of outer crisp. And somehow it tasted amazing! Then we shared a Serbian salad (basically cheese, tomato and white cabbage) and it just about balanced out all the stodge and grease.

The atmosphere of the place was awesome - we didn't get there until about 11pm as we had to run back for more money (being cheapskate tourists, we hadn't brought out enough cash!!) and the restaurant area was still buzzing. There were musicians playing to the tables and waiters happy to advise us on dishes.





A lovely meal and great place to try some of the unusual traditional dishes... definitely would recommend if you are visiting Belgrade. There's also an interesting history to the current name (involving the Church opposite disapproving of its name years ago as it was suggestive of a place of drinking and merriment, so they changed it to ? as a temporary name and then never changed it to anything else!)

Palačinka/Pancake

From a street cafe we also tried a Serbian palačinka... much like French crepes but somehow thinner and bigger, and we watched them make them like this!














We had them filled with ham, cheese, sour creme... yummy!! (although not to be eaten often - each mouthful felt like a day's worth of calories!!)

Pijaca/Green Market

Now a lot of the fruit and veg was cheaper around our Eastern Europe travels than it is in the UK, but nowhere was a cheap as the Belgrade Pijaca - we must have spent less than £2 and ended up with all of this!! Needless to say we had an all veg stir fry that night (and the day after, and the day after that!!) A great place to just wander around but you will come away with a lot more than you went for!!

So there you have it... after several weeks of not posting, here is a lengthy post about all the different food we sampled in  Belgrade!! I'd definitely recommend the ? Kafana and the Pijaca. Oh yeah, I should also mention that they give you a free shot of rakija on the morning walking tour... it's absolutely gross so take a bottle of water!!!

The Red Lion at Stone Edge

Sunday Bistro Dinner with Family

Photo from The Red Lion Website

As a celebration for my grandparents finally moving into the cottage next to us, we went out for a delicious pub dinner at The Famous Red Lion at Stone Edge. If you have ever visited Derbyshire then you have probably visited the pub-come-functionroom-come-bistro. Or if you are ever in the region then it is well worth a visit for quality food and a lovely rustic setting.

Right up on the hillside between Chesterfield and Matlock, in a lovely stone building with rich wooden beams and furniture inside, The Red Lion at Stanage (as everyone calls it) is relaxed and typical of the area, while still upholding a sense of quality. Luckily for me, my parents house is close enough to this pub that I can call it my local!

As there was a large group of us, we managed to test most of the small Sunday Bistro menu. One thing to be aware of with this pub, though, is that they change their menus regularly so don't have your hopes up for one of these tasty looking dishes!!

Starters

We had a selection of starters ranging from Foie Gras to Fishcake, Black Pudding and Poached Egg to Salmon Tartare, and even a good ole Tomato Soup.



I had the salmon dish which was served with quails eggs and onions - it was absolutely delicious. The salmon had a great texture, not too rubbery as it sometimes can be when its uncooked, and a lovely flavour combination with the delicate eggs and my favourite ingredient, onion.

Everyone enjoyed the starters, but I think there were some envious of my Salmon Tartare... Comparing it to the tasty but not particularly special fishcakes, it seemed to be in a different league!!

 Mains

The main course was a lot more like the typical pub food that we might expect from an English countryside pub. A couple chose to try the roast dinner dishes, from tender beef to tasty pork with apple sauce, both served with crispy Yorkshire puddings.

Others were tempted by gammon steak with fried egg and chips, or the more delicate mushroom risotto or sea-bream with capers.

I opted for a very basic, but very yummy fish and chips - the chips were fat chunks of potato with a gorgeous colour and a crunch to match, while the haddock was flaky and delicious with a light and crispy batter, and the best part of the dish was the proper mushy peas which hid under the fish.

Desert

And this needs no introduction...

All in all a great family meal, a fabulous pub and a relaxed place to go for a good quality meal. The Red Lion at Stanage... proving that sometimes the local is the best! 

A Real Wiener Schnitzel

Interrail Stop 4

While in Vienna we couldn't leave without trying the famous Austrian dish. We wanted to go to a traditional restaurant that would serve us up a real wiener schnitzel and we had a recommendation for a small restaurant cafe called Schnitzelwirt that would do exactly that.

We got so lost trying to find it that we thought they might have shut the kitchen by the time we got there... they were closing up outside as we arrived!

But luckily, my friend speaks fluent German and managed to ask them if they'd do a quick schnitzel and mixed salad for us to share with a couple of glasses of their house white.

We sat at a table surrounded by awards and newspaper clippings of the restaurant. It was a very traditional setting with lots of wood and a smiley Austrian couple sat opposite smoking, and chatting to us about our visit!

When the food arrived not long later, it was absolutely huge and so tasty - very simple with the apple and cabbage salad perfectly complimenting the pork - YUM!

As we hadn't looked at a menu, and the order had been a quick chat with a waiter at the door, we were a little concerned about the bill.

Knowing that it was recommended as a cheap place we were hoping for the best, but when the bill came we couldn't believe how cheap it was!!! 15Euro for the huge meal and two glasses of wine! I would have paid double that and felt we had got a good deal... so all in all a fantastic evening out and a delicious wiener schnitzel!

Beet Soup and Krakow Style Pork

Interrail Stop Number 2

Our second city stop was the lovely Polish city, Krakow. We toured around the castle, admired the Old Town streets, square and market, as well as paying our respects in a visit to Auschwitz (which was truly haunting but I would strongly recommend it as I learned so much from our tour guide and cannot begin to describe the scale and feel of the place in words or photos).

The day and a half we had in this city felt short, and it is somewhere that I would like to revisit for a longer period, but it was a great stop and we tried some traditional food...

After the yummy dumplings we tasted in Warsaw on the first of our interrail stops, we were looking forward to sampling more Polish cuisine in Krakow. We went to a tiny restaurant/cafe called Kuchnia u Doroty, recommended by the free walking tour group, and shared the famous Polish beet soup with croquette (Barszcz z krokietem) as a starter before two hearty main dishes - a Beef Stroganoff (Strogonoff) and Roast Pork with toast and Krakow style gravy (Maczanka po krakowsku).

Beet Soup

Croquette

We were unsure about ordering the the starter - beetroot soup, what was that going to taste like? But it was on nearly every Polish menu, so we went for it and it was absolutely delicious!! Satisfyingly salty and full of rich flavours, this warming soup had a winter food feel but without the stodge. The croquette was unusual, with undefinable meat in a pasta-come-pastry-come-potato roll, in a light crispy batter. It was a nice accompaniment to the soup, and soaked up the beetroot flavour when dipped in, but perhaps not the tastiest thing on its own!

Beef Stroganoff

Krakow Pork

The main courses were very large, very filling and unnecessarily carby (as was the case with a lot of the local food!). The stroganoff was good, but quite watery and lacking in flavour. The Krakow style sauce had plenty of flavour, but not entirely sure what flavours they were!! The pork was nicely cooked, as were the mushroom and potato accompaniments,but the toast was literally two slices of plain white bread sandwiching the pork. Obviously, with this much sauce it was just soggy bread, resulting in a very strange main course! 

So all in all, we were pleasantly surprised with the beet soup, and unpleasantly surprised with the mains!! Perhaps we were a little adventurous in ordering one of the only dishes on the menu that we had not heard of, but isn't that the point of trying food in new places?? Anyway, we had a great time, the staff were very friendly, the price was unbelievably low, and the cosy traditional setting made the meal a good one!

Polish Dumplings in Warsaw

Interrail Stop Number 1

So for our first stop on our interrail tour around Eastern European Cities, we went to Warsaw, Poland. We had been told to expect a very industrialised, built up and new looking city, which it was in some areas. But we were pleasantly surprised with the Old Town and castle, as much of what we walked through was gorgeous!

Anyhoo, the food... we had the most Polish dish we could find on the first night... dumplings!! Me and my friend ordered some refreshing lemon drinks, a portion of Great Hungarian Style Pancake (with goulash) and a mixture of savoury dumplings. Absolutely delicious but sooooo filling!!