Bernkastel-Kues vs Beilstein

Welcome to Bernkastel Kues, a famous winegrowing town located on the ‘middle mosel’ in the Bernkastel-Wittlich district in Rhinland-Palatinate.

The beautiful view of the rolling hills/river and architecture takes your breath away. Even on the cold, windy day we graced Bernkastel-Kues with our presence, we could still appreciate the beauty of the near perfect German scenery.[apologies for the quality of the photos]

We ducked into the warmth of Cafe Hansen in Kues for a very healthy breakfast of Apple strudel and Butter cake…. ‘healthy’ :), we then made our merry way to a small town by the name of Beilstein where we indulged in the fairy tale town’s warmth and cosy hospitality.

[Cafe Hansen, Bernkastel Kues]

It was freezing!! so we decided to swim through the sea of ‘jack wolfskin’ wearers and tuck ourselves away into cafe Hansen.

We shared an apfel strudel mit sahne und vanilleeis [apple strudel with cream & icecream] …. simply dreamy, creamy and full of tasty bad things for your body 🙂

Followed by fluffy ‘butterkuchen’ encrusted with toasted, shaved almonds and dusted lightly with melt-in-your-mouth icing sugar 🙂 aka fairy dust!! 🙂

Hot chocolate to wash it all down…. I was in HEAVEN!!!! sugar, sugar and MORE sugar… sooo bad, but soooo good. ♥

[Winzerschenke, Beilstein]

For lunch we located a gorgeous fairytale village called Beilstein, and there nestled in the heart of the town was the warmth of a Family run inn/restaurant.

We tried the local ‘spaetburgander’ – aka Pinot noir, which happened to be a speciality from winery literally down the road.

so good in fact, that we bought a couple of bottles for home, and maybe a sneaky bottle of the local riesling.

Lunch wasn’t anything to sing and dance about, but it was warm and cosy and made with love.

I had the potatoes with onion rings with warm brie. [I was fooled into thinking it was ACTUALLY like hungry jacks onion rings hahah!!…they were in fact RAW RINGS OF ONION…. FAIL! hahha]

Sausages on a bed of pan-fried potatoes with ham.

Lunch wasn’t amazing, but I would go back as the service was delightful, helpful and warm in more ways than one. Which is better…bad food/good service or good food/bad service….
Bernkastel-Kues really needs more than a few hours to explore, but from what we saw it was enchanting and full of life, Beilstein on the other hand can be walked through within the hour, an enchanting fairytale hour at that.

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Tastefully yours,

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Adiós. . . for now ☺

[Caffe Fiorino, Barcelona]

Heres a little picture story for my last spanish blog post…. for now 🙂

We started with creamy coffees and fresh OJs at Caffe Fiorino.

The view inside is warm and inviting with quick and simple food.

[Euskal Taberna, Barcelona]

We then decided lunch would be a ‘grazing’ affair, and in true spanish style we dabbled in tapas and sangria @Euskal Taberna. 🙂

The sangria was sweet, delicious and just what we needed after being on our feet all day.

[Taller de Tapas, Barcelona]

Paella was on the menu for dinner @ Taller de Tapas

Galician style octopus was amazing as usual, the fresh grilled ciabatta with garlic and tomato was crunchy and a nice break to cleanse the palatte.
And the Paella in broth was morish but quite simply not enough. We wanted more 🙂
We ended with a perfect espresso which was oddly strong for Barcelona, but still very welcomed.
As we were also quite close to Gelaaati di Marco, we once again had a nice serving of diabetes… eek!!

This concludes the ‘foodaholic in Spain’ segment… for now 🙂
Stay tuned for some more german flavoured tasty adventures 🙂

. . .

Tastefully yours,
. . .

Delicious & beautiful

[La Llavor dels Origens Restaurant, Barcelona]

Love it when I see a forecast like this! It’s sunny and blue skies. Even though the actual temperature is low, the sun is warm and soaks right into your skin.

So, yesterday morning [when I STARTED writing… finishing now :)] I was listening to Rosie on Triple J requests whilst indulging in some natural full fat yoghurt with honey – streaming it of course and some Live recordings of Jonsi came on – what a perfect way to spend a little blogwritn in the sun listening to that magical sound. 🙂 right?

Lets get right into it then….

Restaurant La Llavor dels Origens has 4 destinations tucked away in Barcelona – we happened to stumble along the one in the ‘Born zone’ [please click here for other locations] I think it’s always a good sign when a restaurant is filled to the brim with locals! – and this was no exception.

A lot of work has been poured into the overall ambience, menu, website and the ‘brand’ . By promoting locally produced and organic goods the restaurant holds strong and in the minds and mouths of the customers.

The vibe is adjacent with the view – its warm, inviting, relaxed and ‘organic’…if that makes sense? i.e. everything has a very natural feel including the very personable staff and the presentation. Very ‘home-cooked’ and oozing with love in every corner. Its warm and informative staff glide across the restaurant floor chatting and taking orders and laughing. I know… it sounds all very exaggerated…but it honestly just felt as thought they were merrily gliding along they merry way.

We were presented with what is essentially a magazine… menu yes, but it definitely covers all questions, if you had any, about the produce, the wine even right down to the vinegar.

Initially we were overwhelmed, but our angst was quickly lessened by the information provided – it essentially empowered the consumer to make the right choices for the evening and beyond.
As the menu seemed extensive and so very packed with useful information, the decision was becoming harder and harder to make.

The tasting platter choice was appealing, however maybe a little TOO much food… even for me. 🙂

Wine for the evening was the local speciality:

Now, the photos really don’t do the food justice… the lighting was low and all I had was my phone. But I tell you, the food was amazing! seriously tasty and simple food. Def worth a second, third… repeat visit.

We ordered a few dishes to indulge in together, starting with the Roasted zuchinni with mozzarella:

& Stuffed octopus with squid ink:
[this was delicious but were left with black teeth and mouths… so maybe dont order this on a date :)]

Slow cooked rabbit with caramelised onion and potatoes:
I’m not a fan of rabbit…so I didn’t have much of this one.

& Last, but not least, baby octopus stew type thing cooked in own juices and served with soft and delicious beans.

I felt satisfied and ‘culinarily’ loved through and through… after all that wine and gorgeous ‘homestyle’ local food – I was pretty much ready for a lie down and taking off the belt :)…BUT…we somehow found some room for gelato, which was down the road at Gelaaati di Marco.

This was some seriously delicious gelato with the usual and the very unusual flavours : eg Avocado, croissant, Rice…

You can never really be too full for amazing dessert like this…. really 🙂
Hopefully this cleared the bad taste in your mouths after reading ‘a huntsman abroad‘… sorry about that 🙂

. . .

Tastefully yours,

A huntsman abroad

[non spanish related post] 🙂

Yesterday, I discovered the below image on my brothers facebook page.
I peed a little.

Then, I realised they were photos from my house back in Melbourne.
I peed again…

All I could think about was that disgusting feeling of a fat huntsman crawling on your face in the middle of the night…
Yes, something similar has happened to me. And if you live in Australia, you’re more than likely to come across a few creepy crawlies around the house [ or a F*CKING BIRD IN YOUR FIREPLACE…. *breath*]

I’m not terrified of spiders, but I do not like them. One bit.
I am in fact terrified of birds- the sound they make when they do their flying thing, and their beady eyes that don’t face the same way… and yes, one day I woke up to a terrifying sound… FLAPPING….. IN. MY. FIREPLACE…. thats another story for another time, basically thanks to Ash the knight in shining armour – I was saved. [no thanks to my brother who was in the other room laughing]

Yes, I hear you… why the hell am I posting this?? it’s not even FOOD related, let alone spanish related. And yes, you’re correct – not Spanish related. BUT, in fact definitely food related. I was watching Karl Pilkington in ‘An idiot abroad‘ [if you haven’t seen, you MUST – its total wet your pants comedy gold!!] and… I think the chinese eat spiders… or was it scorpions…. either way it was weird!!!

If you can’t see the size of the bugger, please see below.

After some ‘wiki-ing’ i discovered they’re not dangerous to humans…. much. I was concerned about the wellbeing of my maltese-shitzu. He’s been known to attack possums. Allegedly.

This got me thinking… Have I eaten anything really weird before???

Have you??

The weirdest thing I ate was Tongue… mum tricked me, I ate it, there was a fight… end of story. 😀

I was going to post some more spanish delights…. but I really didn’t want to relate the two topics.
I will in fact indulge in this topic at a later date…. ‘eating things, that shouldn’t be eaten’ [like spiders, tigers and bears oh my!]

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[not so] Tastefully yours,
. . .

Diagonally shopping [part 2]

[Canas y Tapas, Barcelona]

So, its lunch and we’ve been pretty much shopping for 3 or 4 hours straight… and the men have been really patient. waiting. waiting. waaaaaaaaaaaaiting.

This is when I thought why the hell isn’t there a ‘men/baby/bags’ drop off point in shopping centres?? you know, like an area where the helpless victims of shopping go to congregate, discuss how shit their life is waiting for their ‘WAGs’ as they chew through their credit card… naturally watching some sort of manly sport event over a manly drink, like beer. hmmmm, I seem to have gotten a bit carried away with the ‘masculine’ stereotyping….

[image from here]

In all seriousness, if there was a ‘bar’ or some sort of couchy/tv/drinky area where men and women alike can rest and wait for their significant others… [like a pitstop] – I think it would really take off!. You could also leave your bags there whilst you mosy around collecting more?? I dunno, I’m just putting it out there. 🙂 I saw a billion men in pain-blank look in their eyes, wishing this would end with one hand on the hip and the other on their throat…as they died a slow and painful, shopping related death….. [omg…. distracted!!!!]

Just quietly, I thought men and women had evolved from the shopping stereotypes… but I guess these were middle aged men, and old habits die hard…

ok, where was I?…. LUNCH!!!

We stopped by the outdoor eating area, but opted for inside eating as the weather was being super Melbounrne – bipolar!!

We proceeded to eat through the menu. pretty much.

First, we have grilled chicken salad: This was lying on a bed of fresh salady leafy numbers accompanied my amazing goats cheese. I love cheese. I would totally die for cheese…totally. 😀

Fresh tuna salad on a bed of leaves. Partying on the side we have tomatoes and boiled eggs… this wasn’t my favourite dish… but thats only b/c I cant stand boiled eggs!

I ordered sauteed mushrooms with my favourite Iberico Jamon on crusty fresh bread. This was beautiful accesorised with fresh leaves and a touch of onion sprouts. Oh and I ordered a handbag/airport friendly bottle of olive oil to go!.. seriously, what was with that…. we were swimming in oils… OH heres some for your carryon luggage, pop it in with your 100mls!!! right!.

Lastly, not leastly, we have the cheese and meat platter… seriously I need to be kept away from this stuff. It is my weakspot.

Meat platter: YUM!!! JIZZ
Cheese platter: again JIZZ!!!

Fresh.Crusty.BREAD and DIPS and take home airport friendly OIL!!!!! I DIE! 🙂

To top it all off, we were presented with a gorgeous espresso that left the most creamy taste in my mouth… LOVE!

This essentially ends Diagonally shopping in Barcelona… stay tuned for the next session of ‘a foodaholic in Spain…’ *giggles*

. . .

Tastefully yours,
. . .

Diagonally shopping [part 1]

[Diagonal Mar shopping centre, Barcelona]

[image from here]

I’m supposed to be posting all the lovely foods of Barcelona, but I just cant stop listening to Burberry acoustics tunes online… SO GOOD!!!

So here I am bopping away to tunes with a British flavour, reminiscing the delicious flavours of Spain…

I probably should put out a warning regarding the next few posts…
WARNING: If you dont like spain [why on earth would you not???] and/or spanish food [again, WHY??], then please, refrain from reading the next few posts… they will be covered in paella and delicious jamon. DROOL!!!!

Normally I wouldn’t be wasting a beautiful day in a shopping centre, especially in Spain, but it was a miserable day and as the gods would have it shopping was on the agenda for that day. [I am sooo smiling from ear to ear :)]

So, first point of call is naturally breakfast!

Here goes:

A view from where we were sitting at Khenyan Classic coffee. We were at the s/c super early like eager beavers, so this was one of very few open at this hour.
As lovely as the spanish are, I’ve become used to the German punctuality and as a result just ended up waiting for a lot of things to open…. but meh! We were on holiday- all the time in the world.

Fresh croissants and coffees: you can really tell here, but spanish croissants are GIANT and drowning in glistening sugar coating. [no complains here :)]

And here we have a beautiful espresso and my new obsession: Iberico Jamon bocadillos…. oh how I miss you!!!!

after breakfast, we were off to conquer the big beautiful world of spanish shopping…. Dynamically, diagonally shopping 🙂

. . .

Tastefully yours,

Say CHEESE!! ….[or croissant…]

[A cup of Jo, blog]

Totally love these images from German Photographer ‘Oliver Schwarzwald‘.

[photos are from his website, and I first saw these images on Joanna Goddard’s blog: A cup of Jo.]

. . .

Tastefully yours,

Joanna