Los Caracoles

Boyfriend and I decided to continue our little vacation with a visit to Spain. First we went to Barcelona and then headed to Madrid, where we had friends and family. It was interesting to see the contrast between the two cities, in architecture, language and, most importantly, prices. 

The performance in front of the Cathedral

The fact is, Barcelona is more of a tourist city than Madrid. Every corner you turn in Barcelona there is someone doing a performance, a concert, playing something. At one point, we stumbled upon a performance of an orchestra (!) in front of the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia, probably playing some traditional style of music from the region, because there were circles of elderly people dancing. It was so amazing! And then we walked ten steps far from them and there were two guys doing break dancing to the sound of "tchetchereretche" - to those who don't know what this means, it's the incredibly catchy brazilian song "Balada Boa" that has been played all over Europe. Five steps, there were two guys playing Spanish guitars in a small alley... oh I wish I had seen more Spanish guitar players... regret number one. Barcelona also had some tourist traps. For example, the prices in the menu will not always be the price you pay. If you are sitting outside, you will pay 10% more of the price that is written on the menu. Obviously, no one will tell you that until you actually ask. Being the amazing tourists we were, we only found out about it on the last meal we had (of course). Other than that, it is an incredible city. The works of Gaudí are insanely beautiful, and even more impressive when compared to their surroundings, which are not plain at all. Here are some of them: the Casa Batlló, Sagrada Família and La Pedrera

Aside from the beautiful architecture, Barcelona also has amazing food. I mean, amazing ham. I mean, AMAZING jamón!!!!!!!!!!! I can't even explain how much I love the Spanish jamón ibérico. I made a point of eating it every single day for at least one of my meals. The result was I didn't eat a lot of paella (regret number 2). But it doesn't matter, I wouldn't have done it any differently. The Spanish know what they are doing. They classify their pigs for what they EAT. I'm dead serious. Depending on what the pig eats, the ham is more or less expensive, because it tastes different. How hardcore is that?!

yumyumyum

Instead of eating it at restaurants, where you pay 15€ for a plate of jamón that is not even the best one, we found a small shop close to the hotel where we could buy 100grams for around 7€. A hundred grams of ham is a LOT of ham. It was great! Needless to say, we were at the shop a lot, even if we just spent 3 days there. One night, we bought a baguette at the baker, then we bought the jamón, some fancy cheese and a bottle of wine at the shop, and then went to a supermarket and bought arugula and tomatoes. BAM! Budget fancy dinner for less than 20€!

"Los Caracoles", however, is no place for budgeting. One of the oldest and most famous restaurants in town, it is quite hidden in one of the perpendicular streets from the famous Ramblas. On the outside, it is just a simple, small old-looking little door. When you get in, you go through a bar - at least we did because we went to dinner super early and it had no lines - and then through the kitchen (!) to get to your tables. The restaurant must have three floors of seating, which was a huge surprise. Considering the amount of people they had waiting at the bar when we left, I would suggest making reservations. 

Snails

We started with caracoles (snails), because we had never tried it and we were curious. I have to say, they were good, but nothing special. They came in a brown, earthy sauce with a little bit of parsley. It wasn't what we were expecting... very plain. Funny fact: they served it with two breads, in the shape of a snail! AH - another tip about Spain: they put bread on your table, but don't be fooled: you pay for it (only if you eat it). Yes, they bring to your table even if you don't order it. Yes, in every single restaurant they make you pay for it. So, if you don't want to pay, you can't touch it. This system seems very unfair to me. I mean, you just brought me bread, unexpectedly, didn't say anything about why is it there and then left. How do you expect me not to eat it?! It's bread! Either make it free or don't bring it without me ordering it. Or, at least, tell me I'm gonna pay for it! As I said, we were the perfect tourists.

Snail-shaped bread

For our main plate, we ordered the seafood paella. We had been having long discussions about paella the whole time we were there, because the paellas we saw seemed very different from what we had eaten in Brazil or the States. The rice wasn't bright yellow, but brownish. It looked more like a risotto than like a paella, because there was a lot of sauce. Still, we were in Spain, and we wanted to try it to see why it was so different. And we weren't disappointed.

It had mussels, shrimp, crayfish, and i'm gonna say calamari too... and some other seafood that I did not identify, but tasted good. The plate was delicious, but very different from the paellas I have eaten. My conclusion was that probably there is another part of Spain that makes paellas differently, and that's where we got it from. Nonetheless, we were happy with the meal we had and ready for dessert! I was, anyway. I chose what they call crema catalana, a dessert that resembles the French crème brulée. Since the last one is my favorite dessert ever, I had absolutely no problem enjoying the catalan cream. It was very rich, with a soft, full texture under the crispy sugary crust. Yum...

Crema Catalana

We had a great night and a delightful meal. The only downside of the whole night was the waiters, a little bit. Maybe I have a weird age complex, but I feel that because we are young, at times we don't get the best treatment in restaurants - especially more expensive ones. I find it very annoying, since to me the quality of the service should always be better than the quality of the food. To me, service changes everything. If you are at a restaurant and the service is amazing, you just want to love everything about your time there. At "Los Caracoles", they were not very friendly during the night and took a while to clean dirty plates. Until then I was not that bothered. But when the waiter came to give us the check, he very "kindly" pointed out that the price did not include the tip. That was just plain rude. Yes, I know it only includes the 10% you make from every single table. If I were to give you a tip, you just lost half of it right there. It was really a shame, because we having such a pleasant night. 

And it was our last one in Barcelona, too. Then we headed to Madrid, where the food was cheaper, as was the beer and we were WAY more prepared for the tourist traps. We had a great time, even though it was freezing cold. Since it was the end of our trip, we were on a tight budget, and did not eat out that much. We found a place called "Museo del Jamón", where the glass of beer was 70 cents (!!!!!!) and a jamón sandwich was 1€ (!!!!!!). Granted, the "sandwich" was more like one slice of ham inside of plain bread. Still, it was one euro. Again, it became our favorite place to go to (I wasn't joking when I said I made a point of eating jamón every single day.) They have restaurants all over the city, which was even better. We would just wish for it to appear and there it was: 

Look for it if you're there! It's not hard to find at all. 

Oh, Spain, you treated me well, even with your little traps to trick me into spending more money with you. Hope to see you soon!

City: Barcelona, Spain

Restaurant: Los Caracoles

Food: Great

Service: Average

Price: €€€

Mare e Monti

On the last week of October, I received a visit that I was eagerly awaiting: my boyfriend. We had planned a great two-week trip, counting on a mid-term break I got at school. The first week of the trip we spent in France, during which we headed to Toulouse, "la ville rose" (the pink city).

The Hotel de Dieu

Sunset at Garonne river

Yes, it is. Pink, I mean. Everything is built with small red bricks, which gives the city a certain romantic air unlike the others I had visited in France before. Toulouse is also famous for its university, the Université de Toulouse, one of the largest in the country (which explained why there were SO many people our age walking down the streets.) Some of its famous landmarks are the Capitol, and of course loads of churches. My favorite part, however, was walking by the Garonne river. On the first day, we bought a bottle of French wine in a small shop, got ourselves two plastic cups and waited for the sun to set... 

Let's get to the interesting part though: the food. Toulouse is situated in the Mid-Pyrénnes region, which is famous for the duck breast and foie gras. I must warn you from the beginning: I am not a big fan of duck. I have eaten delicious duck, which I liked very much thank you, but it is not my favorite type of meat. I'd much rather have lamb, for example. So, unfortunately, this post is not going to be about the amazing duck I ate at this cute little restaurant. Or the amazing foie gras we bought at the shop in the corner. It's going to be about risotto! 

Walking around after our little late-afternoon drinks (the bottle of wine mentioned earlier), we stumbled upon a small, cute alley which had a restaurant with outside seating - this is a little redundant in France, I know. It looked like the most romantic place, so we chose it. They had the foie gras my boyfriend was dying to eat and were reasonably priced, so we thought "why not?"

The little alley

Why not indeed. I ordered a risotto. No wait, let me rephrase that. I ordered THE risotto. The most amazing, delicious, tasty, mouth-watering risotto ever. Ever. It was just that good. 
It had mushrooms and a different kind of dried beef, called viande de grison, produced in Switzerland - you can find more info about it here - and loads of parmesan and heavy cream. I know, it sounds like your average risotto, but no. No. It was delicious. The flavors were all there, the meat was strong but not overwhelming, the parmesan was enough to make it pleasantly salty and the mushroom was a nice compliment. None of the different ingredients clashed, in every single bite they all came together perfectly.

THE risotto

Eating good food just makes me so happy! 

Moreover, the service was great... it was a Monday night and even though we were the only customers left, we felt super comfortable to stay there and have a long, nice meal. The price was not cheap, but it was worth every penny. 

City: Toulouse, France
Restaurant: Mare e Monti
Food: Excellent
Service: Great
Price: €€€

Tabl'O Gourmand and the five stages of hunger

This weekend my friends and I went on a quick trip to Nantes, a beautiful city on the margins of the Loire River. The region is close to Brittany, home to delicious crêpes and apple cider. The result was a majorly gastronomic experience, and we were all so happy about it.

On the second day, after getting to the center from our hotel (which was far, far away – a little logistics mistake), we decided to go to a part of town that we hadn’t explored yet, so we headed west (I think). I should just mention that it was Sunday and in France NOTHING works on Sundays. NOTHING. It’s incredible, but it’s true. So, it was raining, so cold and everyone was hungry. But we ended up heading, inadvertently, to the fancy side of town, where all the (closed) shops were. All we could find were sandwich and fast-food places, which had no inside seating – thus no heating.

After a good hour of walking (which later turned into dragging our bodies) around, we found a small little café called Tabl’O Gourmand with several choices on the menu. We walked in, all kind of half dead from starvation, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited a little more.

And when we were about to get up to leave, the waitress came. After taking our orders and cleaning our table (which had been disgusting for the half hour we waited), she disappeared. While we waited (again) for our food, my friends and I came up with what we called The Five Stages of Hunger:

Stage 1: Acknowledgement

That is when you realize you are hungry. Your stomach does a little rumble, which is pleasant in a way, and you get really excited about eating. You start thinking about your options and mentally picking what you are in the mood for. That is the only pleasant stage of hunger.

Stage 2: Denial

That’s sometime after you’ve realized you’re hungry, but hasn’t been able to grab anything to eat yet. Since you have been feeling hungry for a while, it’s like your body gets used to it and you deny your hunger. It’s the famous phase: “I’m not even that hungry anymore.” – don’t fool yourself.

Stage 3: Hysterics

That’s when you start to get a little crazy from being hungry. All of a sudden you get really restless and can’t concentrate on anything. Your stomach starts doing very long, loud rumbles. Like my friend says, “you feel like it’s eating itself.” If someone tells a joke, you start laughing and you can’t stop. You have little fits of laughter from desperation. You find every action in your body very hard to control.

Stage 4: Depression

In this stage, your energy is out of the door, into the train, waving you a long goodbye. You’re so hungry, you’re just sad. You almost feel like crying and whining like a little baby. This is the lowest stage of hunger. You’re miserable, and so is life. Some people also get VERY grumpy in this stage (myself included).

Stage 5: Fulfillment

This is when the food arrives. It’s funny what happens then. You barely even register what you are eating, how does it taste, what’s its texture. All you need is food, so you can get out of the sadness you were feeling five seconds ago. When I am in stage four and the food arrives, I always try to eat slowly so at least I can taste whatever it is I am eating (of course, it doesn’t always work… sometimes you’re just too desperate). After fulfillment, the world is a better place and your life does not suck anymore. Life is worth living again, and all your problems will solve themselves.

Well, let me tell you that at that little café in Nantes I went through every single one of these stages to their depth and back, until I could get something in my belly. Since the service was terrible, we had to wait an eternity to get our orders taken, and it didn’t get much better afterwards.

I ordered the Traditional Breakfast, which consisted of a hot drink, bread, a muffin, an apple and raspberry juice and honey. To accompany the meal, we had jars of homemade or just unique spreads of different things: we had strawberry jam, a weird jam I can’t remember the name now, hazelnut chocolate spread, dark chocolate spread, white chocolate spread and butter biscuits spread (a.k.a. heaven).

My hot drink of choice was a Nutella Belgian hot chocolate, which was divine. The muffin did taste good, though not incredible. The bread was freshly cut (right next to us) and delicious, as only bread can be. However, we did have to remind the waitress that hey, we need bread, and water, and napkins, and the honey that was supposed to come with our food. We never got proper silverware and we just ended up not bothering to. 

Although the service was terrible, the food was amazing. Everything was fresh and delicious and seemed to be very high quality. Still, it was an hour and a half long meal that could’ve been waaay shorter. Granted, the waitress was alone to attend all the tables in the small café, which sat no more than 30 people.

The price wasn’t so bad, but a little more to the expensive side. We ended up paying 9.20€ each, but I just attributed the cost to the amazing hot chocolate and bread with spreads.

After we left the café, the day had become sunny and people were in the streets (which was a pleasant, but enormous, surprise). The rest of the day was mostly dedicated to sightseeing and picture taking. There is still one more place we went to though… just wait until the next post!

City: Nantes, France

Restaurant: Tabl’O Gourmand

Food: Great

Service: Poor

Price: €

Le 7ème Vin

"Is there any other food but French food? Isn't all other food just something we live on because we are not French?" - Alton Brown, celebrity chef. 

Although I do not agree with Mr. Brown, I think I have to agree that French food is truly amazing. I thought this quote would go along with my next finding in Paris: Le 7ème Vin. 

Mom and I were walking from Les Invalides, towards the Tour Eiffel and looking for a place to eat that looked nice and wasn't ridiculously expensive - quite hard in that area, let me tell you. Since it was close to midday, lots of restaurants offered the "formules", which is essentially a deal of a choice of determined plates for a set price. I love formules - obviously - but they always make me eat more than I was planning to. 

Le 7ème Vin

So, strolling down and doing our research (isn't the part of looking for a restaurant almost as exciting as actually choosing one?), we ran into this cute little red bistro. Looking at their chalkboard, we found out the "formule" of an appetizer and a entrée cost only 13.50€! And they seemed to serve very typical French cuisine. On we went, and we were not disappointed. 

The inside was almost as cute as the outside, decorated with red and white checkerboard towels over the tables and wines on the walls. Even though the space was really small inside, I never felt like it was tight, but rather cozy. 

By the time we sat down at our table, my mom and I already had in mind that we wanted to make that experience as French as possible - we wanted beef bourguignon (yes, I had to google that)

Yuum

As a starter (in French, entrée), I ordered a roquefort salad. What I got was melted roquefort on top of a toasted french bread, and in the middle some lettuce with a weak vinaigrette. 

I am not complaining though. I love blue cheese - when my brother and I were little our favorite dish was pasta with a Gorgonzola sauce that mom makes. So, the roquefort was creamy and delicious, all melted on top of that crunchy toast... yuuum. First dish: approved.

The main dish was the beef bourguignon we were dying for. And this was worth it. The meat was falling apart with the touch of the fork, just a little bit of pink on the inside so the it was cooked to perfection and the sauce tasted amazing. It was served with tagliatelle, which didn't have any particular taste and fitted in perfectly with the richness of the meat. We paired the whole meal with red house wine, and its flavor went perfectly with both our dishes. 

YES! 

 The entire meal - two formules and the wine, which was around three glasses each of us - cost 40€. I thought it was a great deal, given the ambiance of the restaurant and the food. Plus, we got kind of tipsy which was really fun afterwards (never thought the Eiffel Tower would be so amusing to look at)

City: Paris, France
Restaurant: Le 7ème Vin
Food: Great
Service: Good
Price: €

La Dulce Terrasse

Last weekend, mom and I decided to visit the Val de Loire and its châteaux. The region has more than 100 castles, but we only had a day and a half, so we could only visit four of them. We got a train to Tours, a cute little town by the river and then headed off in a excursion the next day. 

While visiting the Châteaux Villandry and its breathtaking gardens, we stopped at this restaurant right outside of the properties' walls. I was skeptical about eating at a restaurant so close to a tourist attraction because, let's face it, they usually are overpriced and serve bad food. This one, though... big surprise.

For starters, the place is adorable. It was actually a terrace, although there was a wooden covered deck on the right side. The weather was nice, so we decided to stay in the open part.

The cocktails and the eggplant chips

Our first choice from the menu was one of their non-alcoholic cocktails made from fresh fruit and vegetables. I chose a mixture of grapefruit, orange and lime juices with mint, and my mom chose a carrot and apple mixture. Both were delicious - and I was really surprised, since they had no alcohol on them... the cocktails came with some eggplant chips (!) that tasted way better than regular chips. Seriously, I wanted to buy a big bag of them, they were so good. 

Amazingness

The main courses we chose were the meat of the day for me and fish of the day for my mom. It was the first restaurant in France I've been in that served a vegetarian option, which was quinoa-stuffed zucchini. 

My plate was this amazing filet-mignon of pork, with a honey and lime sauce and baked vegetables. Hum, I can still taste it... from the presentation of the plate, you can infer how amazing it was. My mom's plate was salmon with quinoa and vegetables and she loved it as well. 

More amazingness

Then, we went to the fun part of the meal - the crème brulée! I have to start by saying that this is one of my favorite desserts in the whole wide world, specially when done perfectly. And this one, was pretty close. The cream was cold (as it should be), and the sugar was crunchy... although they left one side of it undone. It had a hint of lavender, from the garden of the château... delicious!

The price was not that bad either - the cocktails were 3.50€ each, the plates 14€ each - mine cost 17€ because I had dessert with it (so worth more than three euros). I would say it was good value for money. 

And here are some pictures of two the seven beautiful gardens we visited and of the château:

The Vegetable Garden

The Ornamental Garden

Château Villandry viewed from the garden

City: Villandry, France

Restaurant: La Doulce Terrasse

Food: Excellent

Service: Great

Price: €

Le Relais de l'Entrecôte

Last Saturday I went to Paris to meet my mom who flew from Houston to spend a couple of weeks with me (yay!) After strolling around Montparnasse,  the Luxembourg Gardens and Notre-Dame, we were starved.

We had this amazing list of restaurants to choose from (courtesy from a friend of mom's), and we decided to go to Le Relais de l'Entrecôte for dinner. The place was packed, and waitresses dressed as maids ran all over. We sat down and all the waitress gave us was a quick "bonsoir" (good evening) and a tiny, tiny menu, which contained only desserts and beverages. It turns out they only serve one thing: entrecôte, or rib steak, and fries, for a set price per person: 24.50€

Another tip to eat in France: if you like your meat medium-rare, rare, ask for it medium. From what I have heard, it's rare that French restaurants will cook meat well done - an exchange student from my school tried to order duck well-done at a restaurant once and the waiter refused to take her order, which was pretty funny - so if you ask for it well done it's very likely you get it close to medium. 

But let me cut to the chase: the meat comes cut in stripes and with an amazing sauce on top of it. The fries are delicious and taste fresh. I was missing red meat so much, since I had not had any ever since I arrived (3 weeks!!), so this rib steak was like heaven in my mouth.

Definitely recommend it, especially if you are not in the mood for looking over a menu and having to choose whatever you are going to eat - price is not so bad, compared to everywhere else in Paris.

The plate

Notre-Dame

City: Paris, France

Restaurant: Le Relais de l'Entrecôte

Food: Good

Service: Ok

Price: €€

Le Roy d'Ys

For my birthday, my friends and I decided to try a creperie close to my place called Le Roy d'Ys. First thing one must understand when walking into a creperie in France (at least from my experience so far) is that a savory crepe is not actually called a crepe, but a "galette"and it's made of a thin dark dough. Crepes are sweet and usually smaller than galettes.

The place was really cozy, probably because of the somewhat rustic decoration on the inside. Since we were eight, we were directed to the mezzanine, where we had the room for ourselves. While reading the menu to order, a friend pointed out a special offer: if you are at a table of four people (or more), and it is your birthday, you get the dinner - a galette and a dessert - for free! And you can choose ANY of their options on the menu! 

The savory crepes (galettes) are not very expensive, mostly around 10€. The desserts run around 6€. Overall, a nice not-so-expensive meal.

I chose a st-jacques, chestnut and mushroom with a cream of herbs galette and a banana crepe with strawberry sorbet and vanilla ice cream. The sizes of the plates were very much to my liking (big) and so was the taste.

Galette

Banana crepe

I would definitely recommend this place, the service was great and so was the food! They also have homemade cider, for those who enjoy it (I certainly do). 

It was a nice way to celebrate my 22nd birthday :)

City: Poitiers, France

Restaurant: Le Roy d'Ys

Food: Good

Service: Good

Price: €€