Food in Madrid

Living in London, I rarely eat seafood anymore as it tends to be quite expensive and not very good, but being half Italian I am constantly craving all the seafood in the world, especially if it's cooked in a Mediterranian style. Well Madrid fulfilled all those cravings!

1€ tapas at the mercado de san Miguel

           
Eating out in Madrid is really really cheap. Ok not as cheap as Hong Kong's $13 congee or noodles, but for Western Europe, it's cheap, especially in comparison to Italy who is essentially Spain's long lost brother. In many of the cafes/restaurants they had lunch deals for 10€ which included an appetizer, main course, dessert and a drink. The food wasn't that great in these places and tended to be quite basic (salads, paella, soup for appetizers. Chicken escalopes, fried fish or steaks for mains and then flan, ice cream or store bought mousses for dessert), but it was still a good meal, and a very good price.

At one of these restaurants.

Cheapest Sushi In Town (with Froyo for dessert!)

This place is one of my favourite places to drop by whenever I'm needing a quick sushi pick me up (let's be honest, when don't I) and also me and my best friend's favourite place to hang out at.

This is me and my sis' FAVOURITE (We call it the jizz salmon roll)!

 When this bad boy starts making its way down the conveyer belt we just stand up and walk over to where it is and snatch it before anyone else gets it. Yup we're crazy!

Why? Its only $8 (hkd) a plate!!!! That's $1USD!! For everything and anything !!!

There's no menu here, just grab whatever you fancy off the conveyer belt! The service is rather mediocre but the sushi isn't bad (considering the price!!) And even sashimi is the same price.

It does get busy here during peak hours, especially on the weekends, but the wait is usually no more than 15 minutes but there is a 50 minute time limit until they evict you. 

Not fat at all (ok we shared that)

They also have dessert like cream puffs, cheese cake or puddings!!  But we usually skip dessert here so that we have just a little bit of space left for some delicious frozen yoghurt across the road at tuttimelon. yum yum!

Green tea, passionfruit, Angel something (Strawberry and coconut) and japanese yoghurt flavoured froyo with blueberries, mangoes (trying to be healthy here!), strawberrry flavoured crunchy dots, GREEN TEA MOCHI and mango flavoured popping bubbles. YUM YUM YUM. yes i realized that I went overboard after I threw everything in...)

Sushi Express

G/F, Taurus Building, 21A-21B Granville Road, Tsim Sha Tsui  

(Opposite The One) 

Tuttimelon

Shop L308, TheONE, 100 Nathan Road

PS: Some exciting news! I have been invited to London Fashion Week which will be coming up in less than two weeks! So watch this space guys! 

xx Vagabond Girl

Russian Food

One question I got a lot after my stay in Russia was, what do they eat there? Not going to lie, I had no idea what Russian cuisine was either. I just assumed it involved potatoes, meat and..well vodka.

My family were so worried that I was going to starve to death as I don't eat meat, while I just saw my trip in Russia as a "pre-bikini-season-diet" since there was probably not much I could eat. Oh how wrong I was....



For starters, everyone remembers the insanely gigantic portions I got for breakfast from my crazy babushka right? Well I was told by a Russian teacher that Russians always say "At breakfast you eat a lot, then for lunch you give half of it to your friend, and for dinner you give half of your lunch to your enemy" and to be quite honest, that is actually good for you...

Anyway, on the top left we have these pancake things made of grated courgettes, egg and smetana (my arch-nemesis) which is sour cream and is put in everything. However it is not the normal sour cream that you find in your nachos, but like his weird Russian cousin. Those were alright, but the smetana in it gave it a very strong sour, off-milk kind of taste which I wasn't a big fan of.  To the right we have that nasty fish which I refused to touch (I think it was herring). Then to the right of that, is a sort of scrambled egg thing with beans and tomatoes, sometimes it would just be tomatoes, and once I got scrambled egg with macaroni, it wasn't bad. Oh and let's not forget the vast quantity of dill that would coat that dish. And most other dishes of course. Honestly, the word DILL sums up my Russian experience - it's everywhere! Pasta! Pizza! Sushi! Soup! Salad! Now even i'm hooked and resort to buying Dill and putting it on everything! (#truerussian)

Next we have some strawberries, they were always smaller and wild looking, not those massive British ones that i'm accustomed to, but they were nice. Sometimes Babushka would use a fork to mash them up, but sugar and then pour tea on it to make some delicious strawberry tea. Yum! On the yellow plate is just a boiled potato. To the right is a type of "kasha" or porridge. Babusha made me many different types of kasha, like normal kasha which was like oats cooked in milk, "Manna" kasha which was like semolina cooked in milk and this one here which has rice and pumpkin. Babushka always used to bury a massive lump of butter somewhere in there too! There was also the obligatory glass of milk, which sometimes looked very watery with lumps of cream floating on the top, but hey if it tasted fine, I drank it. Whatevs. Never got delhi-belly! Usually there was also a boiled egg in the corner, begging to be eaten, and also that bowl of biscuits which just chills there.

Baked milk via

Babushka also sometimes made me some food for tea, as that woman was forever trying to feed me, and trust me, I'm not a skinny girl! She sometimes made plain cake with those strawberries in them, "buterbrot" which is just a slice of bread with cheese on top (like an open sandwich), or I would just eat the damn boiled egg.

via

One thing I really liked was tea with "baked milk" or топлёное молоко which is this kind of milk which has been simmered for 8 hours or longer and has this brownish tinge to it and a caramel-y kinda taste. When added to tea, it reminded me of Hong Kong style milk tea and made me feel right at home.

Obviously there was Mcdonald's in Kazan. Conveniently situated on the main street, Baumana, it was where most of my friends had lunch and hung out after class while taking advantage of the free wifi. Being not a big Mcdonald's fan myself, and also not being able to eat much that's on the menu anyway, I think I ate there once, and it was just for a hot fudge sundae. I mean, I WAS in Russia to try it's cuisine! Right....?

 Not really... Being the incredible sushi whore that I was, I frequently had sushi. And that means every 3-4 days. Sometimes even two days in a row, because this bitch don't care. This was a "5 person sushi set", and we beasted it in 3...and left the restaurant still hungry. (We paid about 400 roubles each, so like £8 each?) But it was a very fancy restaurant!

Ресторан "НАО"(Nao) 
Адрес: Казань, ул. Галактионова (Galaktionova), 6
Телефон:  236-16-94  link

Yes caught in the act here! This time it was after a long day at the beach! One thing which was very popular in Kazan (and maybe in the rest of Russia? I'm not sure) are "Pizza-sushi" places. Although it may sound like a weird combination (I mean come on Pinocchio/Small Tokyo was the name of this place! ^ ), it worked out very much in my favour because I was always annoying the hell out of everyone, trying to get people to have sushi with me. However with pizza-sushi places, they could choose to have pizza if they weren't cool enough to have sushi with me! Win win situation! This restaurant was nice too and rather decently price, (a sushi set like what you see on my plate there was about 300 roubles? so £6)

Pinocchio/Small Tokyo
улица Профессора Нужин (Professora Nuzhin, right off Pushkina)

Thanks to Pola for the photo 

However, bad service in restaurants and shops are the norm when in Russia. Here are me and Pola happily munching away while Ellie just sits and starves. Her food arrived when we finished!

But my favourite place of all was Планета Суши, which is a big chain sushi restaurant in Russia, but the lunch set was such a good deal that we always tried to make it in time to have it! 210 roubles (just over £4) for a drink, an appetizer for example, 8 sushi rolls (i always got the Philadelphia roll) and a main course, like noodles or rice (The mushroom and Salmon noodles with sesame sauce was my fave!). So cheap and SO filling, we always walked out clutching our bellies and desperately finding the nearest bench to have a food coma in. The a-la-carte menu is also amazing with really funky sounding fancy rolls and even dim sum! But it is a little pricier than other place for that!

Russia also had an amazing selection of crisp flavours. Here i'm holding up a packet of the new Salsa flavour by Lays. Yum! They also had many other amazing flavours like Mushroom, potato with butter and dill, pickles and dill, smoked cheese, bacon, crab, sausage, salmon and cream sauce and my favourite flavour of all : RED CAVIAR. 

The root of all my problems.  via

Another hotspot for us poor students was the кулинария "5 рублей" (Kulinaria pyat rublei), a self service type cafe right on Baumana (number 21, opposite Dom Knigi) where everything is lacto-ovo-vegetarian, and incredibly cheap while being incredibly delicious. From pirozhki (these baked or fried pastries with fillings such as potato, cabbage or mushroom and cheese) to semi fried buttery potato cubes, to soups, to rice, to kotlets (cutlets) made of beans or cabbage and salads too. It was just a great place to go and eat as it was so cheap and delicious.

(Left) Rice with mushrooms and carrots (it even had a saffrony taste to it!) - 30 roubles, (Top Right) Baked пирожок (pirozhok) with mushroom and cheese - 15 roubles, (Bottom Right) Mushroom and potato salad with mayonnaise and spring onions  - 30 roubles.  Total of 70 roubles which is £1.40!!! )

The inside of the cafe. There were always long lines at lunch time. Lots of students and workers eat there. Great place for a quick bite.

Another similar buffet/self-service style cafe we went to every now and then (especially if this place was too packed) was чак-чак (chak-chak), just up the road on Baumana as well. It was slightly more expensive with a similar meal costing about 180 roubles but with a little more variety and meat dishes as well.

Credits to Pola

 Of course the infamous дом чай (Dom chai) which is also on Baumana is also another similar place with similar food again. However the prices just cannot compare with кулинария "5 рублей".

A salmon пирог (pirog) or pie! yummy!

We also went to an Ukrainian restaurant once, which was recommended by our Russian teacher called Корчма Млин which is right off Baumana. It was my first time having Ukrainian food and being the massive dumpling fan that I am, I decided to try the Varyenky. These dumplings can either be boiled or fried (being the fatty that I am these are obviously fried), and typically have fillings such as mashed potato, cabbage or even cherries! I decided to go for the mashed potato, and I also chose to have some fried onions with it (though I thought it was going to be inside the dumpling), and there was also the option to have other toppings such as fried mushrooms. Also please note the giant dollop of evil semtana in the corner (die bitch die). These dumplings were definitely not what I had in mind (when I think fried dumpling, I think gyoza/gao zi style things with thin crispy skin) however, the skin of these dumplings were very thick and doughy, it was almost like a panzerotti (or just like a mini pirozhok). I thought that it was a very carby meal with the dough and the potatoes together and it was a little bland, but very nice and interesting nonetheless! 

Корчма Млин
Островского 39/6 (Университетская)

Dessert at the Nation-wide cafe chain Shokoladnitza (theyve got good food!)

Buterbrots with red caviar which we had at the theatre while watching the ballet as well as a Russian cheesecake thing which my friend was obsessed with.

And of course, there was vodka.A lot of vodka. My dear friend Ellie (check out her blog here!) bought me a bottle of this "Norma" vodka. (No it's not "Hopma" but the "H" is a N and the "p" is a R). It sure was good vodka!!! This bad boy is only about 240 roubles (under 5 quid.) Yeah, the amazing thing about Russia was that all the naughty, sinful vices were DIRT cheap. Pack of cigarettes? 72 roubles for the nicer ones (£1.40 - cheaper than duty free!) Half litre can of beer? about 40 roubles (80p. YES) Oh Baltika 7, I love you.

xx Vagabond Girl

A Month with Babushka

In Kazan we were all assigned host families to stay with for the month who would provide a place for us to stay as well as breakfast. Some people got families but most, including myself, got a Babushka (or a grandmother).

When we received a list with all our hosts on them, I knew I had a good one. Her name was Galina Marina, and me and my friends had already decided that she's probably magical. Anyone with a name like that would be! 

She spoke 0 English so it was all down to me to try and string together as much Russian as possible with the aid of a dictionary to communicate with her. The first day was a nightmare as I didn't know how to tell her I was full and she wouldn't stop giving me food. 

But when I found out how to "I'm full" in Russian, I realised that it was absolutely useless as she would just keep reassuring me that I was hungry. Every morning Babushka would make an absurd amount of food for me. (Which sometimes included dodgy looking fish... for breakfast!!!!)

All this food is for me. Only for me.

My first impression of Babushka was... crazy? The first day we met she just casually took her dress off in front of me while changing. OK... the next day she was topless and I just so happened to walk past her room.... OK... 2 days later... I open the front door and find her changing (again) but then 2 men walk out of her room. (They turned out to be her son and grand-son but my initial response was WTFBBQ of course) Then the 3 weeks after that she just chilled in a tshirt and underwear around the house. Oh and one day I came home to find her and her best friend just chilling in their underwear.

Did I mention that my babushka laughs at fat people? Yeah.... 

Babushka's living room/bed room. On the left you can see the gift I got her from Hong Kong 

NO!!! JUST NO!!!! Нет! Никогда!

I was really looking forward to taking a photo with her before I left as she was such an amazing host, but she freaked out and wouldn't let me as she is incredibly vain and very hung up over the fact that she is now old (therefore she doesn't let people take photos of her :/ )

We had a DMC one night. I was just asking her if she only had one son, and she merely replied saying "Yes. He doesn't love me." Talk about awkward. I just sipped my tea and looked down. But then I told her "At least you have a lot of friends" because Babushka is a crazy social butterfly. She has so many friends and her two phones never stop ringing (and she's never off the phone... unless she's out or she has friends from Nizhny Novgorod over) 

Babushka loved my clothes, and everyday she would make me parade around the house and twirl for her. (She frequently asked whether my mother made my clothes.... I don't know anyone who's mother makes their clothes for them.) Our relationship escalated, and before I knew it she would come and stroke my head and my back, when I fell asleep over the covers she'd come and put a blanket over me and when she left me notes she called me красавица (Beautiful girl). She became just like my grandmother and I became like her grand daughter.  

I'm going to miss her so much. She was so sweet, and I learnt so much Russian from staying from her. She told me I can go back to visit any time, so maybe one day I will.

xx Vagabond Girl

What to do in Paris on a Sunday

If you love shopping and ever decide go to Paris for a short while be sure to avoid being there on a Sunday as practically everything is closed! Yes! Even Lafayette, Colette, Chanel and any other big shops that you associate with Paris! (Except for the huge Louis Vuitton shop on the Champs Elysees) So what can you do? Having only one day with my mum in Paris, I was determined to find some fun activities for us to do - even if there was going to be no shopping involved!

So this is what we ended up doing ...

Have a nice long brunch 

We went to Angelina, which I talked about in my last post. Eat a few courses, slowly enjoying your warm beverage and all the pastries and other delicious things you can. Just take your time! (Look at all the food we had! Think about how long we took! Yup! Relax!)


Take a stroll in a park

I was really lucky to have been blessed with a few days of sun and warmth. (Literally the first time I'd seen the sun in over a month due to typical London weather and monsoon style rain in Hong Kong every day). I was so not used to being warm that I wore totally inappropriate winter clothing and ended up melting in my woollen dress. So we visited the Jardin de Tuileries as it was close by. It was full of tourists and Parisians wearing minimal clothing, sunbathing on the green chairs - just enjoying life! Another amazing park to visit is obviously the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Visit a museum

The Louvre is free on the first Sunday of every month. Obviously this means even longer lines. We decided not to go to the Louvre anyway for fear of queuing, even though it wasn't the first Sunday of the month (but it's the Louvre, what do you expect)

Instead we visited the Musee d'Orangerie with their massive Monet paintings and other wide range of impressionist paintings. It's small, and only has two floors (one of which is just occupied with 8 of those massive Monet paintings) so it's a refreshing little museum.

We also visited the Musee d'Orsay as there is a good deal if you buy tickets to the two museums, costing 16€. Like most museums in Paris, it is free for EU residents aged 18-24, just show your passport/ID.The Musee d'Orsay is absolutely huge and has billions of rooms filled with paintings (it has the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings in the whole world), sculptures, photography and even antique furniture from all over the world.  It has many floors and I personally thought it was a too big (after one art museum, then the next), we spent a good 4-5 hours walking around museums that day, and I was hot and uncomfortable and tired. So wear comfy shoes and check the weather forecast (and BELIEVE it!) 

Mum has had enough of all the Art and has chained herself to this weird sofa thing...

After getting kicked out of the museum as it closed at 6:30, I decided that it was time for mussels, even though I was still so full from my brunch.

Have Mussels at Leon de Bruxelles

The iconic mussel place that I always go to in France. It might be a chain, and it might be in London now too, but they just have the most delicious mussels and although the service is a bit shit most of the time, the food is just the best.
And what's even better? ALL YOU CAN EAT MUSSELS + FRIES EVERY SUNDAY NIGHT! (For only like 22€!)

Oh yes! Sadly I was a little too full from brunch to attempt that challenge.

Of course there is so much more you can do on a Sunday in Paris that I haven't included here, such as visiting a market in the morning, like the flea market or some food markets (which is something I wanted to do but didn't get around to doing it the end!) or just the standard, tourist style sightseeing (Tour Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe, Sacre Coeur etc.)

Paris : Brunch at Angelina's

Angelina is a beautiful cafe/restaurant  on Rue de Rrivoli right opposite the Jardin de Tuleries, often featured on TV and magazines with a shop selling tea time goods and a patisserie filled with with goodies.

We decided to go for the brunch set which consisted of :

Tea, coffee or their renowned hot chocolate.

I highly recommend the hot chocolate as it is what Angelina is famous. It is like no other hot chocolate I've ever drunken. It's dense, creamy and oh so chocolatey without being so sweet it gives you diabetes.

Orange, grapefruit or lemon juice. 

My mum decided to be gutsy and go for the lemon juice, and lemme tell you this, its definitely not for the faint hearted. It is literally just a squeezed lemon....

Bread and jam/honey

A selection of pastries : raisin pastry, pain au chocolat and a croissant.

Eggs, and you could choose between scrambled, boiled, fried or omelette. I got the omelette. For 3€ extra you can add ham and cheese and that's what I did (but only cheese since I don't eat meat).

An entree : Foie gras pâté with toast and fig chutney or Norwegian smoked salmon with creme fraiche and blinis (which is what I got)

Fruit salad  (which I forgot to take a picture of...but it is just some chopped fruits in a bowl....instead...here is a photo of me and my mum.)

2 macarons (which are rather mediocre as they didn't melt in your mouth Pierre Herme style...)

All for 39€! Definitely cheaper than individually ordering different things (just the hot chocolate is 7.50€, or the omelette is usually like 15€!)

We also got tried the truffle ravioli (24€) as it sounded so tempting and good but I was a little disappointed as the fillings of the ravioli were very cheesy but not very truffley :(

Overall it was a lovely Sunday brunch experience, and I think that the brunch set is really worth it as me and my mum actually shared it (as well as the ravioli) and by the end we were absolutely stuffed! There is also a very lovely ambiance and decor (so very French!) but it tends to be rather touristy (but if you're a tourist too, why the hell not!)

xx Vagabond Girl