Food - Spanish Tortilla

It's our last night in Madrid, and we convinced our good friend Alberto to teach us how to make an authentic spanish tortilla. Tortilla is a traditional Spanish tapa made with egg and potato. Other ingredients such as onion, chorizo, spinach, pretty much anything you want can also be added into the mix. At first it was intimidating but after watching Alberto make the first one with onions and potatoes, I quickly and easily whipped together the second one(with chorizo and onion). His came out perfectly but mine needed a bit more salt. Both were delicious, we ate them with him and his roommates at the traditional spanish dinner time 11:30 pm. The tortillas were accompanied by other traditional Spanish tapas like, jamón iberico (ham), cheeses (gouda and sheep's milk manchego semicurado), and olives. It was a wonderful last meal to eat in Madrid.

Food - Chorizo

Mahou pronounced MAO like cow, a very easy drinking lager that cools you off in the 31 degrees celsius heat. For you American readers thats the low 90's, and keep in mind air conditioning is typically reserved for stores here in Madrid. To escape the heat we ducked into El Neru, near Plaza Mayor in Madrid. This is a tapas bar in the style of the region of Asturias in the north of Spain. We enjoyed more than a few glasses of Mahou and with every round they bring you pinchos (a small order of tapas on the house). We ate queso de cabrales, a stinky, salty, spreadable sheep's milk cheese, the most amazing chorizo that either of us have ever consumed (chorizo a la sidra), slightly salty and incredibly flavorful, and as a special treat our friend Alberto treated us to a bottle of sidra. This amazingly fun drink to pour is also refreshing. Although made from apples it's not overly sweet like most other ciders i've had.

Food - Dussledorf Shinennagins

If you read the post Berkley made about all of our flight difficulties then you will realize that this is our one and only German meal. And wow this was spectacular, a bratwurst served to us at Shumacher (a traditional German beer hall) near the Düsseldorf train station that was crisp on the outside and  bursting with flavor. The sauerkraut was nice and tart and they balanced that out with buttery mashed potatoes and thin light gravy. We also drank two each of their in house lager. How wonderful it is to be out of the United States where everyone thinks that hops are king and they need to hop the crap out of their beer. This lagger was golden, crisp and perfect for a warm German day.

Food - That aint' no ordinary bagel

The line to my wife, Berkley, when she said she wanted to get bagels this morning was, "a bagel is just a bagel lets get something interesting instead". Needless to say I'm officially a convert. We went to Tal Bagel on 1st ave near 55th St in Manhattan. I ordered the Salt Bagel with scallion cream cheese and lox, with an iced coffee to help with the 100 degree heat. The outside of the bagel was crisp and the inside was pillowy but had a really toothsome bite. The salt on the top in retrospect was a little to salty, but at the time I was loving every bite. I'd go back to New York just to get another one of these.

Food - Japadog

On our last day in New York we decided to revisit a hot dog joint we had gone to months earlier, in Vancouver, called Japadog. They have different house made sausages and hotdogs that they top with traditional japanese ingredients, for example KEWPIE mayo, tamari, shoyu bbq sauce, nori, shredded daikon, etc. I love these combinations, and it sure livens up a traditional hot dog. I ordered the Terimayo, a traditional dog topped with KEWPIE mayo, nori, and a sweet teriyaki sauce. My wife ordered the Oroshi, a german bratwurst topped with wasabi mayo, grated daikon, and scallions. We loved every bite, we plan to go back and further explore the vast menu. 

Food - Eataly

Mario Batali has done a wonderful job at creating a European style open air market. It was well into the 90's in Manhattan and to escape into an air conditioned food theme park was about as wonderful of a thing as I could ask for. Meats, cheeses, fish, pasta the list of goodies seemed endless. We had to start somewhere, so we ordered a dozen oysters. Sweet, briny, and topped with freshly grated horseradish, lemon and home made hot sauce. They were a perfect cool treat after the 90+ heat outside.

I forgot to mention the wonderful fragrant bread they brought before the oysters, but what shined through even more then the bread was the olive oil. Barbera Lorenzo #3, this oil had a delicate floral note with a spicy pepper finish, it complimented the house made bread perfectly.