In Web: Beforethey.com (pass away)

Takes pictures of tribes that are sure not to be around if you believe in history believing itself. Currently, you can see galleries of tribe members in Ethiopia, Indonesia + Papua New Guinea, Kenya + Tanzania, New Zealand, Mongolia, Siberia - Yamal, Nepal, China, Vanuatu, Argentina + Ecuador, Namibia, India, and Siberia - Chukotka.

Click on the title or the link to see the site.

In Food: Sfäär Restaurant in Tallinn, Estonia

Don't miss this one (http://www.sfaar.ee/) if you're there! I think it's actually in some ways a better restaurant than Chef & Sommelier in Helsinki (my review: http://favourits.blogspot.com/2013/10/in-food-chef-sommelier-in-helsinki.html?m=0), but also a fitting complement to it.  Yesterday, we ate white fish & paste made out of Jerusalem artichoke, and another paste made out of carrots and (perhaps) honey, which was amazing and very similar to a course served at C & S, as well as another dish consisting of pork, gratin, and baked apple in a delicious plum sauce. All noted for inspired future home cooking! 

Truth be told, C & S served all excellent courses, and his just happened to be a competing one, but if you, like us, go to both Helsinki & Tallinn on your trip, don't miss visiting both restaurants. 

In Places: Fabian Hotel in Helsinki, Finland

I'm going to expand my reviews to hotels as well, as they play an important role in my appreciation of places. This is the latest one, but I'll also try to add past nice ones in Paris, Brussels, and Lisbon, Portugal, that I stayed at. Today, Hotel Fabian (http://m.hotelfabian.fi/en/index.html).

Location: the hotel is a little off centre, but everything in Helsinki is walking distance. Cab ride to the bus station the next morning was about 15 euro. 

Service: very friendly, they helped us with navigating the airco in the room, booked our restaurant, and were all smiles. 

Room: roomy, comfortable matras, quiet (On the 4th floor and ignoring the stormy weather), good bathroom facilities, free wifi. 

Breakfast: according my French girlfriend, the breakfast was the best of all hotels so far. I wouldn't go that far, but it was all organic, ranged from lots of cheeses, charcuterie, and salmon to choose from, to plenty of sweet options, from croissants and cakes to fruit salads and different types of cereal. The smoothies and coffees to go were a nice surprise. 

Clearly, my passion lies with food, which I don't choose at every hotel as an option, but in terms of overal comfort I would give this hotel an 8/10. 

In Food: Chef & Sommelier Restaurant in Helsinki, Finland

I like restaurants where the menu consists solely of individual ingredients and you don't quite know the outcome. Typically someone (skilled) comes up to you and says: "I got these two ingredients and I will use them to make something special for you." That's what C & S (http://chefetsommelier.fi/en/) was like. 

The four-course menu, which can also be three- to nine-course was selected from a handwritten menu and was presented in a two-ingredient format. I won't bother recounting the exact ingredients, except that it was predominantly root-based, fitting the autum season. They change the menu every 8 weeks, but it wouldn't surprise me that if I came back tomorrow, my two-ingredient dish would look and taste different. It's the mystery that I love, along with the unique combinations, and the excellent service, without it feeling to rigid or posh. 

I will mention one dish though that was entirely special, because it was a traditional dish assembled from entirely different ingredients. It resembled pasta with parmeggiano, but it was arctic turnip rasped into a thick pasta shape, cooked, and sprinkled with sage. Rich in flavours and very, very good (I wish I could reproduce it at home, but like my lobster cappuccino in Iceland (review: http://favourits.blogspot.com/2013/09/in-food-lobster-cappuccino-at-fririk-v.html?m=0) I probably never will...).

Great place to visit in Finland!

In Food: Leek - Sesame Soup at Gartine, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Ok, Gartine is probably my favourite place in the Netherlands right now, let alone Amsterdam. Amazing, delicate brunch, amazing, delicious high-tea, best jam that you can buy all around. Today, I had a Leek - Sesame soup for high tea, which was … too die for. It had a creamy texture with very subtle green flavours. 

So, I tried to replicate it. It wasn't a success, in the sense of it being the same, but for an experiment, it was still pretty good. Here's my recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 leeks, the white and light green parts washed & chopped
• about 4 large potatoes
• a thumb of ginger (you can omit this, it's too strong a flavour)
• 4 cloves of garlic
• slightly more than a teaspoon of dill
• (lemon) salt & pepper
• vegetable bouillon about 2 cups
• ca. 1/5 cup (2 table spoons) of sesame seeds
• half a cup of cream - semi-skimmed
• a table spoon of mustard

Steps:

1. I started with frying the leeks in the pan, for about 2 min, or until they turned very slightly brown
2. I then added the potatoes, (skip the) ginger, garlic, dill, salt, pepper, and bouillon.
3. Let the whole thing simmer for ca. 20 min or until the potato is tender enough
4. After 20 min, add the sesame seeds and cream (I actually fried the sesame seeds just prior to this, without oil, in a pan)
5. I added the mustard for flavour
6. Food process the whole thing, but not too strong, make it rough in texture.

Voila. It was delicious, would've been better without the ginger, but I'm happy with the attempt. PS, did I mention that you should visit Gartine? :)

In Food: Flan di Zucca (Pumpkin Flan) at La Zucca Restaurant in Venice,Italy

This is an incredibly hard dish to make. The most difficult is the texture--this is my perhaps 7th attempt at making it and I got it wrong two times.

Tip 1: Don't use the food processor before cooking it. You can ruin the texture and taste by doing that. Tonight's version looked like scrambled eggs. At other times, because the pieces of pumpkin I chop are too large, before I mash it with a fork, the outcome is more of a post-bombardment-like flattened mess, though it does taste a LOT better!

Tip 2: Spicing. So far, I think you can make it with either nutmeg & mint, or with anise. Either however has drastically different flavouring outcomes. 

The biggest deal is the uncertainty, caused by the many Italian interpretations of this recipe out there, and the many possible Google translate errors causing you to mistake butter of cream or nutmeg for youdontwanttoknow...

So, why is this one of my favourites? It's simply an amazing texture and taste (when you get it right). I would recommend using this recipe, which uses nutmeg & mint, but perhaps switching it up with anise if you want a different flavour (though I wouldn't recommend food processing it before).

It's never going to look as good as what I had in Venice, I would definitely recommend visiting the La Zucca Restaurant for the authentic taste, not to mention all the other vegetarian food they make.

In Places: Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

It's hard to describe places in the short amount of words that I allow myself to write for this blog. I had 1 day in LA last Saturday and since I don't have a car or drive one, I started my journey on foot at Union Station heading towards Los Feliz, which I heard was interesting. It takes ca. 15 minutes of walking to get to Sunset Boulevard, passing through El Pueblo, an interesting, but highly touristic Mexican hotspot.

The nice if not magical thing about this street and perhaps LA is the random places you encounter on your journey. Everything is spread apart and I understand why people think it's a car city, though in fact I see LA best travelled by foot, bike, and/or metro (a subway or bus, which goes everywhere and frequently). 

Along this journey under roughly 33 degrees Celcius (ca. 91.5 Fahrenheit), I encountered many little "villages", featuring a flea market with a live reggae band, a farmers' market with the biggest strawberries I've ever seen, vegan places such as the one serving the aforementioned smoothie, bookstores, vintage/secondhand stores, and I even got to see the Hollywood sign as Los Feliz lies at the foot of the Hollywood hills.

My activity tracker told me that I walked 20km that day (ca. 15 miles), it was exhausting but pretty much an amazing experience. I'm so happy to have done it on foot, because I would've missed many of the small touches in a car, metro, or even by bike.

In Food: Lobster Cappuccino at the FRIÐRIK V restaurant in Reykjavik, Iceland

This one is a bit of a back flash to June of this year, but is still worth a note. I had tears welling up during a 3 course / beer tasting meal at FRIDRIK V, and this "Lobster Cappuccino" was the absolute top, along with some very good local Ales. I can't tell you the recipe, it had lobster, cream, quite some salt, all in a tiny cup. Worth a visit on your next visit to Reykjavik!

Oh, and I just saw that the restaurant lists a number of recipes on their site. The food was brilliant, cook it at home! 

In Food: Greena Colada Smoothie at Sage Organic Vegan Bistro in Los Angeles, CA

Ingredients from the website: Coconut milk, banana, pineapple, spinach, kale. That was a $9 shake but totally, and utterly worth it. On a 33 degree Celsius day (that's 91.5 Fahrenheit), it kept me fed for well over 4 hours.

In the absence of being in LA right now (very cool city), I'm going to try making this at home ASAP.

Oh, and it looked something like this:

In Food: BEAR FLAG BURRITO at Bear Flag Fish Company in Newport Beach, CA

How do I best describe this in one word: "Mmmmmmmmmh".

I should just leave it at that, right? Let's talk a little more about what made this work. I think it was the simple combination of having a white fish (yellow tail?) with cajun spicing, and avocado. I've never tasted anything quite as delicious in a while.

Ingredients mentioned on the restaurant menu: Grilled Fish of the Day, served with rice, black beans, avocado, chop lettuce, Pico De Gallo & Tommy Sauce. In the absence of being on Newport Beach, California, surfing the sunshine, try this at home! :)

Newport Beach, California, September 2013