frutti.gummi

At the underground malls beneath Kyoto JR Station,  we went pass one restaurant after another looking for something to eat for dinner. We kept looking at all the food displays and they all look so good and they made us even hungrier. And we couldn't decide! Finally, we narrowed down the choice to noodles because I wanted to have ramen.

Fake plastic food display. They look so edible!

Mouth watering desserts. And they're not even real!


In front of Okakita. No plastic food display and the 'signboard' is the lamp at the entrance.


Back of the restaurants with outdoor seating along the Kamo river

The front of the restaurants at the narrow street in Pontocho

Reading how to eat the soba!



The Hourai soba

I love gelato!!! When I was living in Italy, my place is about 15-20 minutes away from the center of town. And I would surely go and buy gelato almost every time I'm there, except when they're closed during the winter. I even developed a very nice routine. Every Tuesday and Thursday after my Italian classes in the evening, I would go and treat myself a scoop of gelato at the gelateria closest to the bus stop. This shop is in between two bus stops so I usually walk towards the next bus stop while eating gelato. At times, I managed to finish when the bus arrives and I got on the bus. Other times, I just continued to walk home.

When my Italian classes for the semester ended, I only eat it when I'm in town for a pizza or shopping. I also had a pizza-gelato routine. At first, I would get a drink together with my pizza. And when I walk past the gelateria, I'm already too full and feel sad that I couldn't have any of the nice-looking gelato. One day, I realized that I could just skip the drink and have a gelato after the pizza! Yay!!! So after pizza, I would head directly to a gelateria and ask for "una palina di [flavor]" (a scoop, although literally palina means ball. I have heard Italian friends saying "balls of ice-cream". Weird isn't it? Hahahhha).  


There are so many flavors to choose from and they are usually in two categories: fruit-based and non-fruit based. I prefer the fruit-based ones. Some of the flavors that I like are stracciatella, pistachio, strawberry, mango, kiwi, almond, chocolate, honey, raspberry, and mixed berries. I don't usually like strawberry ice-cream because they taste more like cream with a hint of strawberries. However, the strawberry gelato is without cream! So it tastes like fresh strawberries in your mouth. The best one I've had is in Sorrento, a town near the Amalfi coast. Except for mango, kiwi and honey, I think the rest of the flavors can be found in every gelateria.

The mango gelato is similar to the Haagen Dazs's mango sorbet, which was a permanent resident of my freezer in Chicago. The honey gelato is very special. I've only seen it in a shop in Rome. It was just so good! My sister and I kept returning to the gelateria every day that we were in Rome. The kiwi gelato is my favorite of all. Very few shops sell it (could be seasonal too) and from my experience, the quality varies quite a bit so it's not easy to find good ones. The one in my town is just so-so. The best kiwi gelato I've had is at Malcesine, one of the small towns along Lake Garda.


There are other common flavors like yogurt, fior di latte, coffee, and melon. I've also tasted special ones like champagne and other alcoholic flavors, and weird ones like Zuppa Inglese (literally translated as English Soup). All the flavors I mentioned earlier are available in single scoops or mixed in multiple scoops. You usually buy them and eat standing outside the shop. If they do have seats, it's usually very limited. If you want to sit down and enjoy your gelato, you can either to go restaurants that serve gelato as dessert (limited choices)  or a big gelateria. At the big gelateria, they have a colorful menu, its pages filled with a variety of different combination of gelati. These big "cups" with multiple scoops usually costs around, if not more than, the price of a pizza/pasta main course. I've tried one with amarena (dark cherry) and it came with pieces of cherries inside. I absolutely loved it! :D


I've seen a few places selling delicious looking gelato inside the shopping malls in KL. I shall try them when I'm ready. :P

Stuffed pasta: Tortellini and Ravioli. These ready-made stuffed pastas available from the yogurt, cheese, etc section in the supermarket is the closest counterpart to asian instant noodles. In a way, they are quite similar to dumplings or wantons. The stuffing include mushroom, spinach, cheese and prosciutto (uncooked dried cured ham). They take about 2-3 minutes to cook in boiling salted water. After the pasta is cook, drain the water and just coat well with olive oil and top with grated cheese. It taste a lot better when coated with the mixture of melted butter, olive oil and cheese but that means having an extra pan to wash. Hehe. Buon Appetito!

I just couldn't find seedless grapes here. It's almost like there is no such thing. So since I moved from Germany, I didn't eat any grapes at all until last week. I could no longer resist the delicious looking grapes every time I go to the supermarket. I bought a bunch and they were sweet and juicy. But it was a mess coz I had to dig the seeds out for each one. I have eaten half and I figured it's just too much of effort. I doubt I'll buy anymore grapes here after I finished the remaining ones. I wonder why they don't have seedless grapes...

I'm a person who makes lists; groceries list, packing list, travel list, etc. So when a friend asked if I have a list of food that I wanna eat when I return to Malaysia, I was surprised I didn't make one. Instead, I have a list of errands to get done. Most people I know would have cravings for certain food and would go all out to satisfy their cravings. I have tried many local food during the 3+ years working in Malaysia and I know what I'd like to eat again but I don't crave them. Makes me realised that I didn't become more Malaysian as I thought I have. During the past week, Japanese cuisine and family style chinese cuisine dominated my plate. The only hawker food I had was fishball noodles near my house. Perhaps I should make some effort to 'cari makan'. Hehe. So what am I missing?

1. Nasi Lemak
2. Char keoy teow
3. Wantan mee
4. Kari mee
5. Laksa
6. Tomyum noodle
7. Maggi/Indomee goreng
8. Satay
9.
10.

I know I shouldn't try to list the local food. It's too difficult! And too embarassing to mention how long I took to come up with the 8 items.

We ordered a pot (2 portions) of typical Bavarian dishes. It consists of sausages, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, knodel dumplings, schweinshaxe (pork meat), and deep fried super crispy something which we think is pork skin; all in rahm sauce. Although I'm not a fan of pork, the food is tasty. However, towards the end of the meal, it starts to taste saltier. I guess that's where the huge mug of beer comes along.

Besides pizza, kebab is the other fast food available here. It has shredded meat combined with your choice of vegetables like tomatoes, lettuce, onions, etc and 3 different sauces. I usually take everything except the onions. Although kebab is the more expensive one here, I find it tastier and more filling compared to pizza. And definately a lot more meat too. As we were walking to the kebab store, I suddenly thought of hamburger. Haven't have a burger for a long time. Maybe it's just been 2 months but it does feels like a long time for someone who used to eat McD/BK once a week on average. There isn't any of these fast food restaurants here. Well, we know there is a McD coz we've seen signboards but we aren't sure where exactly it is. I have a rough idea but haven't had the time to actually be looking for it. Maybe I'll go look for it when I get bored from all the studying for the finals.

Austrian food is delicious! With Germany and Italy as neighbours, culinary influences from both countries are clearly evident. The food that we ordered have more resemblance to German food and luckily it doesn't taste like it. I think maybe they're cooked in the Italian way which makes it taste good.

Gelato is just so irresistible! Almost everytime I go to town, I'd end up buying a cone with one big scoop. It costs between €1-2. The other day I found a Gelateria that sells 2 scoops for €1.50. Well it's not as good as the more expensive shops but you get 2 flavors! And I just realised this morning that I shouldn't be having ice cream when I have a cough :(

Had a Spanish night last weekend. I never thought cooking can be quite a social event. It actually takes about 5 hours to cook paella. I guess it wouldn't take so long if it's seafood because instead of the usual seafood, we had chicken and rabbit meat. After preparing all the ingredients, chopped and washed, and waiting for the meat to cook, we started to make Sangria. Earlier during shopping, we came across wines in big 1.5L bottles, so we bought a couple of those for the Sangria. Jose also brought Jamon (Spanish ham) from his hometown. I've never seen ham like that before and it tastes really good! They say huge blocks of meat are hung on top of tapas bars in Spain; very interesting. And so we chat, drink and eat tapas while we wait for the food to cook. As the sun set, more and more friends came and more Sangria and tapas were served. Finally at 9pm, the main course was served and the wait was very worthwhile :D

A small corner shop japanese restaurant serves noodles and rice dishes. It's a very popular place as there just isn't much authentic japanese restaurants around here. There were 3 groups already in queue when we got there so we had to wait for about 30 minutes outside in the cold to get seated. The place smelled nice as it's a open kitchen concept. I had the Tokusei Shio ramen which is the recommendation of the day. I quite like the soup but there's just too much noodle and little meat. Usually Tokusei would have extra meat not less! My friends also had ramen, one had curry and the other had the spicy one. The spicy ramen tastes quite similar to Korean spicy soup though. When we were dining there, I noticed quite a number of japanese patrons. Well, if it's edible by Japanese, it's good enough for us. Hehe. Oh but it's expensive!

I miss Japanese food so much!

Went for lunch after german class and it turned out to be the four of us again. This time the Spanish guy's Indian colleague also joined us. We decided to have Italian and since the name of the dishes are in Italian, we have no problem with the menu. Hehe. After lunch, Eileen had to do shopping so the rest of us decided to catch a movie in Cologne coz it'll be easier for me to get back to Bonn. We drove there and for the passengers in the car, it was our first time on the autobahn in a car. And yes, some parts of the highway has no limit. When we got into Cologne, the directions to the cinema was quite complicated so we decided to park the car and take a cab. Was lucky we found street parking and only had about 30 minutes left before parking is free (after 6pm) so parking only costs us 1€. Next, we had to look for taxi stand coz you can only take taxi from there. Found one nearby and it was my first time in a german cab. The back just barely fits the three of us with our coats on. I didn't remember Merz having such small space. Well, perhaps our coats really took up space. We paid almost 8€ for 2+ km distance. Taking a train or bus would end up about the same price. Bought tickets for The Prestige and went walking around the area.

We ended up choosing a local bar and the atmosphere was quite lively. We had a funny time ordering food too. Laurent asked if there's chicken with french fries in German, and the waitress said schnitzel (deep fried breaded pork) with french fries. So, he said he'll only have french fries. Then, Jose ordered "Weiner Art" from the menu on the wall and asked if that's chicken in English and the waitress said yes chicken, very good. After the waitress left, Laurent and I were puzzled coz the waitress said earlier there was no chicken. Then Jose said maybe there's no chicken with french fries. Then we started laughing. That's very German indeed! Hahaha. Earlier in the week, Laurent used the wrong color plate at his cafeteria for pasta and he couldn't pay. He had to go back and use the plate with the correct color for pasta. When Jose's food finally came, it turned out to be schnitzel! He was quite mad but he still finished the food.

We went back to the cinema after food and found it packed with people. It's a small cinema with 3 theatres. I've already heard some friends complaining about cinemas in Germany and our German friend told us that's the typical cinema here. We don't have a choice anyway if we want to watch movies in original language. Well, we could also go to Netherlands. Perhaps they have better cinema there.

Some of my classmates in german class have the idea of sharing alcoholic drinks from their home country. Two Saturdays ago, one of the Japanese gal brought sake and some riceballs to class. We all had some after class. Then, this past Saturday, a few others brought theirs to share. This time we had it during the class break since some had to leave immediately after class. The turkish couple brought Raki, a traditional alcoholic drink with whopping 40% alcohol and feta cheese and chic peas to go with it. You add a bit of water to the clear liquid to make it a bit milky. It smells very nice and I like it though you can feel your throat burning after you swallow it. Then, the French guy from the champagne region who went home a week earlier, arrived with 2 bottles of champagnes and chocolates :D Of course everyone was waiting for the champagne so we opened a bottle. Oooh, it's so good! Later, the Russian arrived with a bottle of spicy vodka. You can actually see pepper inside the bottle. We decided it was too much alcohol in the morning and we still have another half session of class so we kept the vodka for later. We offered some to the teacher too and she seems cool about it.