gastro-travel

[sage butter gnocchi, florence]

SO. It’s been a while. Dreadfully sorry for prolonged absence, oh dearest cyberspace, but I’ve been gallivanting about Europe eating my weight’s worth in deliciousness.

I had many a fantastic meal, and here are some highlights in photo form. Details of all the great or grotesque places we went to have been washed away by the gallons of liquor consumed throughout, but I definitely have a few tips under me travelling cap.

[THE flatbreads from Terre a Terre]

DO take advantage of the vegetarian fare in Brighton. High student population means there’s a lolly bag of options. Terre a Terre (71 East Street, www.terreaterre.co.uk) was our favourite. The food was stunning (spiced flatbreads with baba ghanoush, so delightful we went back for them two days later... ) and the staff chatty and forgiving, even when I mispronounced items and asked quite blatantly for their cheapest wine (the bane of backpackers budget with an inconvenient penchant for a nice meal: having to be stingy in fancy restaurants). 5 chickpeas, an easy feat considering their aim is to cater for vegetarians.

[vegie burger with handcut chips at the Lord Nelson pub - our favourite! - London]

[panzanella from Florence]

DON’T seek Asian food in Europe, despite your cravings. Although there was such a varied concoction of culinary treats, an orgy of gastronomy glory, I could only ever find high-end snobby sushi trains in Soho, or cheap n’ tasteless hangover food from noodle huts in tourist clubbing precincts. Most people I met didn’t even know what a laksa was!? A life without laksa is barely worth living!

[a nutritious backpackers' meal...]

[zuppa from the Sagra della Zuppa in Tuscany]

DO have three serves from the kitchen at ‘Yoga On Crete’ in Chora Sfakia. Ok, so this tip is a little bit specific to my trip, but it’s important! The yoga retreat lasted for one week, and each day the resident cook, Christina, would serve up a royal buffet of epic proportions (minus, perhaps, a whole pig with an apple in its mouth). All healthy vegetarian fare, with inspiring dishes, including eggplant pilaf and a hundred and one ways to make a salad.

[greek salad & beer in Crete]

DON’T choose the expensive place over the local looking one with plastic table-covers. Usually, I would avoid cheap paper napkins and any place that has over saturated pictures of its food on display. However, I got my greedy lil’ paws burnt when, selecting a whizz-bang wa-hoo restaurant in Rome and receiving the.worst.eggplant.parmigana and an even more miserable looking bill.

[pomodoro pasta from Lucca]

DO become regulars, wherever you can. Tranquillo, a (mostly) vegetarian bar/restaurant on Perissa beach in Santorini was a hangover-hidey-hole for my travel partner and I. And after gorging on a serve of beetroot n’ dill salad, or hand cut chips with a mystery source, we would down their scrumptious smoothies. By night, this combo would be replaced with the micro-brewery beer on tap (much better than the ubiquitious Mythos aka piss water served at every other greek bar) and their alluring cocktails. Regulars meant chats with the international crew of wait-staff, AND free drinks. It also meant we weren’t so embarrassed to frequent the joint at least twice a day.

[grilled octopus, crete]

But I’m back to the familiar restaurants of Perth, the Outback Jack's Grill, the $9 Heinekens, and having waitstaff pack up chairs by 10pm. Ahh, it's good to be home...

[wrap with fetta and capsicum from small cafe in Brick Lane, London]