Best of Barcelona Eats: Tapas

Of course one of the must-dos in Spain is trying out tapas. Over the last 10 years, tapas have moved from trendy to mainstream outside of Spain, so much so that I've heard "dim sum" referred to as "Chinese tapas." Hmm...

In our short 2.5 days in Barcelona, we were able to try a few different tapas restaurants. Here are my favorite dishes.

My most striking memory of all is eating the tomato bread at Piscolabis, at Rambla Catalunya 27. This was the first time I had tomato bread, which I learned is basically tomato rubbed on bread, then drizzled with olive oil. And Piscolabis's was the best. The tomato was like essence of tomato, and because the bread was so porous lots of big tomato chunks could get stuck in the crevices.














We were hanging out at Piscolabis because the wait at Ciudad Condal (across the street at Rambla Catalunya 18) was an hour long. The value here was excellent, as we paid the same as we did at Piscolabis but for double the food. Among the highlights was the fried anchovies. Completely lacking in fishy flavor, very tender and juicy, they were also not greasy at all.














Every restaurant had patatas bravas, fried potatoes with hot sauce and mayonnaise. My favorite were the ones from Bar Celta Puperia, at Calle de la Merce 16. This hole-in-the-wall with the most basic decor and limited menu, must also be in Lonely Planet because I saw quite a few tourists and at least one LP book on a table. Nonetheless, this is a worthy stop on your tapas tour as the patatas bravas were the most golden brown (I like the extra crunch), and the hot sauce was the most tangy and savory. (One of our group was quasi-vegan, so we always ordered at least one patatas bravas sin mayonesa, hence this picture.)

Taller de Tapas was the fanciest tapas restaurant we went to, and now that I'm researching where it is, it looks like it's a small chain, so click here for locations. All of the food here was pretty good, with a highlight being the tortilla patatas with chorizo. Instead of being firm and solid, this was actually a bit runny inside. The liquidy yolks and sharp chorizo were pleasantly unctuous (but probably too much if you're not sharing with 5 others).

One of my favorite tapas at every restaurant were the roasted little peppers. Pictured here is our serving from Ciudad Condal, but they are truly ubiquitous. Each one is bite-sized, yet bursting with flavor with just a little oil and coarse salt. They were also one of the few green vegetables that were available, so quite welcome just to have a change of pace.

Trip Report: AMS-ZRH-BCN

With most of my appliance-buying and settling into Dutch life complete, I took a short trip to Spain to join up with some friends.

The trip started out frantically when I learned that buses on a very main route in Eindhoven do not run before 7:30am or so. So I ran for about 20 minutes to the train station with my luggage, only to find out that the ticket office didn't open until 7:00am. I was trying to make a 7:03am train. Thankfully, loitering at the door of the ticket office meant I was the first person in, and the first person to get a ticket. I ran to the platform and just made it on time.

There's a nonstop flight from Eindhoven to a couple cities around Barcelona on Ryanair, but I calculated what the fare would cost with all of the fees added in, and it was actually about the same as flying full-service airlines. Plus I needed the miles to reach Premier status on United. So from Amsterdam I flew Swiss via Zurich. In AMS, Star Gold customers have access to a Menzies shared lounge. It was basic, but had some cold cuts and cake in the morning, which was nice. Soon enough, it was time to board.

I was surprised to get fed on my flight to ZRH. The flight attendant handed out unwrapped croissants, and we got our choice of drink. Earlier in the flight they had handed out Swiss chocolates. I took a couple; they actually were nice inside of the cold croissant for a make-your-own pain au chocolat.














In ZRH, you had to go through security again. I guess they just don't trust other European countries' screening? Then I had a chance to visit the Swiss Senator Lounge. It was an interesting tri-level affair, with seating and snacks on the first floor, hot food, more seating, and computers on the second, and a smoking lounge on the third.













For lunch, I had a way-too-salty vegetable soup with pasta rings (looks like it came out of a can), carrot salad, curry chicken sandwich, and to gear up for Spain, paella with shrimp, mussels, and scallops.













On ZRH to BCN, we were fed once more, with a nice cheese and mustard on pretzel-ish roll sandwich. Plus more Swiss chocolates.

The Dutch Definition of "Semi-Furnished"

Apparently student housing can be hard to find in Eindhoven, and rooms with individual kitchen and bath are particularly hard to find. Someone told me recently that "you're lucky if you share a bathroom with fewer than five others." After 1.5 years of having my own 1 bedroom apartment, and then 2.5 years of having my own 2 bedroom apartment, I definitely wasn't ready to go to dorm living. Especially since the dorm living in the Netherlands would be a step backwards from my college's dorm, with its dining halls that cook and feed you and do your dishes, and housekeeping for shared bathrooms and common areas.

So I was really lucky to get allocated a studio apartment with its own kitchen and bathroom. At the leasing office, I was told that the apartment would be "semi-furnished," which the staff explained meant "something on the floor and curtains." Okay, that was an improvement vs. "unfurnished," which I learned in the Netherlands means lacking even curtains. I got the keys to the apartment, and took note of the "somthing on the floor" (short pile carpet) and the striped curtains.


















Notice something missing in the galley kitchen? A refrigerator! Apparently it isn't standard to have a fridge come with the semi-furnished apartment. There aren't any closets either, and the building also lacks either a laundry room or in-room washing machine. I was lucky in that the previous tenant left behind the bare lightbulbs in three of the five ceiling lights. Otherwise, I'd have to buy all of my own ceiling lights myself as well.

So for others moving to the Netherlands, here's where I learned were the best places to buy the missing items:
- Furniture: Ikea. I looked at some other furniture stores, but they were frankly quite Middle America in taste. Keep that in mind next time you're buying something that touts "European design."
- Appliances and computer equipment: Media Markt and BCC. These both offer delivery and installation service for a flat rate per shipment (not per item or per weight).
- Small household items like trash cans and stationery: HEMA. These are everywhere, and 99% of their stuff are HEMA-label products.

I used the delivery service from Ikea and BCC, and they were both quite convenient, but you should block out the entire day just in case. On the same day or the day before your delivery, you check up online to find out your 2 hour delivery window. The Ikea delivery came within the window, and the BCC delivery came early with the delivery people calling me in advance to check that I'd be home.

Oh yeah, and no one hung around waiting for a tip. As soon as they were done they were out the door.

Mini Intro to Dutch Breakfast + Lodging Review: Holiday Inn Eindhoven

For the first couple of nights in Eindhoven, we stayed at the Holiday Inn that is currently undergoing major renovation. Apparently before, it was grim and stuck in the 1970s. I can report that it is now nice and up to date, with all of the white on white bedding and contrasting bed scarves that you expect from hotels today. There's only wireless for pay in the room, but there are two computer terminals in the lobby with free internet.














Our room rate included breakfast, which had limited hot items but a bounty of excellent pastries, breads, cold cuts and cheeses. Since I read that the typical Dutch breakfast is mainly bread and cheese, these were quite fun to try out. I especially liked the crusty mini French loaves, and the cheese with the little flecks of grain in it (will need to check what that is later).














Another Dutch food item is the chocolate sprinkles on toast. I can't say I've warmed to this yet, both taste-wise, as well as handling-wise. Maybe I didn't put enough butter on it, but the sprinkles kept falling off.

Stealth Taxi

We made it all the way from the California to Schipol airport to Eindhoven train station with out nine pieces of luggage without getting into a single taxi. We could see our destination, the Holiday Inn, across the street from the train station, but it didn't look like there was a way to cross the multi-lane streets. So we got into our first taxi for the 5 minute ride to the hotel.

I was at first skeptical that we were getting into a taxi, since there were no markings at all that this was a taxi. It just looked like a regular car, driven by a businessman in a suit. The situation reminded me of geting into unmarked cars in mainland China, where private drivers want to make a quick buck off of unsuspecting tourists by driving them around. But our driver reassured us that as long as the car has the blue license plate, it's a taxi. And you know, if I bought a brand new Audi A6 to use as a taxi, I also wouldn't want to put any rooftop signs or stickers or meters to mar its beauty.














So where's the taxi meter? Click on the picture to enlarge, and you can see the red LED lights coming through the one-way mirror. When it's off, it looks like a regular rearview mirror. On, it's in a very apparent place for driver and passenger alike (no leaning forward and peering to see how much you're about to pay). Stealthy indeed.

Trip Report: SAN-IAD-AMS

This is my flight, moving from California to the Netherlands for school. Flying United was a big enabler for the big move, since the carry on policy is quite generous and as Star Gold I could check in 3 pieces of luggage up to 70 lbs each for free.

The SAN Red Carpet Club had nice, big bagels (not the packaged Lender's-type mini bagels they had before). They also had the afternoon snacks in the fridge, so it was nice to have a toasted bagel and cheese for breakfast.














Breakfast to IAD was pretty good - omelette, black forest ham, sausage, and seasoned potatoes (of course my favorite part).














At IAD, I had heard from a thread on flyertalk.com that there was a new Lufthansa Lounge that accepted Star Gold card holders. Having already been to the different Red Carpet Clubs at IAD (with the usual selection of crudite, and packaged cheese and crackers), I was keen to try out the Lufthansa Lounge. Unfortunately to get there, you have to take the dreaded moon-buggies, I mean, mobile lounges, from the C/D concourses to B. And when we arrived, there were no direct mobile lounges (have to wait until 3:15pm for that luxury) so we had to take it to A, then walk the opposite direction back to B. That took about half an hour total since the moon-buggy schedule was so infrequent.

We were allowed into the Senator Lounge (I think nicer than the Business Lounge), and it was an instant blast of cold, air-conditioned teutonic chilliness of grey, silver, and white. There were quite nice food options including salmon, fajita chicken, salad, sandwiches, soup, and cheesecake.


















Soon enough it was time to board the moon-buggy again back to the United gates. When the agent scanned my boarding pass, a hopeful "beep beep" came out of the machine. My boarding pass was rejected... because "they needed your seat so they put you in business class." Yay!

This was on one of the 767s with the new United business class flat bed which I wrote about earlier. But since I didn't have the seat-side storage like last time on the 747 upper deck, I did experience the inconvenience of having to get up and get things out of the overhead whenever I needed my toiletries, etc. Still, you can't beat horizontal flat beds, and the TV monitor is huge which made watching X-Men a pleasure.

There was a full dinner service, and I chose the Charlie Trotter-designed beef with braised cabbage and rosemary potato. The beef was tender, but very very fatty. The braised cabbage had a sour taste, reminding me of something I had on Lufthansa once, but the potatoes were quite nice with whole sprigs of rosemary perfuming the little cubes.














Breakfast was a continental affair of croissant and fruit. We landed early, and it was off to Eindhoven, with 5 check-in bags and 4 carryons between us!

Pickle Deli Square will be on temporary hiatus

As I am currently in the process of moving and settling in the Netherlands, I won't be able to post as frequently. My goal is to post at least once a week. I hope you stay tuned!

LA Food Hype

LA's food scene has been getting a lot of attention recently. I've read all over the news about two phenomena in particular: the gourmet food trucks led by the Korean taco truck Kogi, and Maria Batali and Nancy Silverton's place, Pizzeria Mozza. So I was lucky enough to hit both in the same day!

The first was Kogi (link to their site), and my luck extended to the truck being accompanied by another truck that I had wanted to try, Coolhaus (link to their site). There were four food trucks in total at this parking plaza in Venice (you find out about their whereabouts on Twitter), as well as a tricycle stocked with free lemonade promoting a new restaurant opening in Venice called...Lemonade. I got to the parking lot around 12:30pm, and the line was already ~40 minutes long for Kogi (no lines for the other trucks).














I sampled one each of the Spicy Pork, Short Ribs, and Spicy BBQ Chicken tacos. Can't tell the difference among them in the picture below? Taste-wise, I couldn't taste the difference either. Each had cubes of brown meat with indistinguishable flavor, topped with that Korean-esque slaw that was sopping wet. Each taco ended up being really soggy and bloat-inducing, and each tasted exactly the same. Within each taco as well, there wasn't any variation of flavor, since the liquid from the slaw totally overwhelmed every particle of food.


















I was hoping for better luck at Coolhaus. This is an ice cream sandwich truck started by two architecture students, and each of the ice cream flavors has a punny architect-related name like "Mies Vanilla Rohe." I tried the "Le Corbusteaer" which is Earl Grey, and paired it with sugar cookies. This was a disappointment as well. The ice cream was so, so sweet, far too sweet for my taste. But even worse, the cookies had entirely the wrong texture. They were quite hard, meaning that biting down on both cookies with the ice cream in the middle sent the ice cream shooting out to the side. Give me an M&M's brand ice cream sandwich over this any day (I'm not joking - the M&M's sandwich is a tough one to beat).

The most interesting part of this eating experience was the edible wrapper. It tastes like nothing.














Oh yeah, and you can skip the lemonade from Lemonade. It was so sweet I felt like I was drinking Jolly Ranchers.

After these culinary disappointments, I was even more excited by the reservations I got for dinner at Pizzeria Mozza (link to their site). When I told some people that I got reservations, they asked me incredulously, "Who do you know there??" I didn't have the heart to tell them that I just went on OpenTable three days earlier and just clicked a few times.

Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, but I left my camera's card at home and took this with my cell phone. We ordered three pizzas: 1) fennel sausage, panna, red onion and scallions, 2) funghi misti, fontina, taleggio and thyme, 3) bacon, egg, and potato. So how did Mozza fare? I'd say I enjoyed the pizzas, with the funghi misti (mixed mushrooms) being my favorite for depth of flavor, and the bacon, egg, and potato next being very wholesome and comforting. The fennel sausage was so greasy that the crust underneath turned soggy and limp. They met expectations for nice pizza.














But they fell well short of expectations for all of the hype. "A master class in the art of making pizza," wrote the LA Times. Frank Bruni said the crusts had "extraordinary character" in the NY Times. Really? Times like this I long for Dewey's Pizza in Cincinnati - excellent pizzas with crusts I could eat on their own, and no hype or reservations needed.

Three strikes, LA, three strikes.

Technology on the Road: pictures, talking, music

People say the best time to pack is after you get home from a trip. That's when you know what was most useful, what you didn't use much, and what you wish you had. This is the sixth in a series of RTW Tips about what to pack.

Camera - Canon SD880 IS
Loved this camera: bright, big screen (3"), wide-angle lens to take all of those food shots, and the Digic 4 processor makes pictures come out (scarily enough) sometimes prettier than reality! I thought I'd miss the optical viewfinder like my last Canon, but not once did I think, "hm, I wish I could be looking through a small hole vs. this big screen." Too bad Canon doesn't make this model anymore.

Phone - Motorola Pebl using T-Mobile US service with international roaming
I've had this phone for a while, and carried it around for emergency use. I had it unlocked before leaving the US (T-Mobile is really good about letting you do that), but I didn't end up buying a local SIM card anywhere. I just used the phone for an occasional call, roaming on other carriers and billed back to T-Mobile. I think T-Mobile has the best international roaming plan, because the per-minute fee is among the lowest, and you don't need to pay a subscription fee on top of your monthly charges like AT&T.

Music - iPod mini
Yes, I still have the first generation iPod mini! I'm not a big music listener, but I did use mine to listen to Spanish lessons on my way to Argentina, and in the middle of very long bus rides it also came in handy. It's a nice to have.

Online backup - Mozy Home
Before I went on the trip, I was considering buying a netbook with a small hard drive and just move old files to an online backup service along the way to free up space. I can safely say this would be a really bad idea. Internet service is spotty, and you can sometimes go weeks without affordable internet (ahem, New Zealand), or internet service at all. Plus, uploading tons of data (I ended up with 50GB on my hard drive) takes a loooong time: one day's worth of pictures took the entire night to back up, when I had fast internet access. When it was slow, I sometimes couldn't upload a single picture. Mozy worked okay even with spotty internet, but I haven't needed to restore any files (knock on wood) so can't say well it works there.

Technology on the Road: bringing along a computer

People say the best time to pack is after you get home from a trip. That's when you know what was most useful, what you didn't use much, and what you wish you had. This is the fifth in a series of RTW Tips about what to pack.

Before I embarked on my US roadtrip and my RTW trip, I knew I wanted to have some sort of device that would let me access the internet. I wanted to be able access the internet and not have to rely on public computers, since being on the road for 5 months meant buying plane tickets, planning itineraries, and banking online. I also wanted to store my pictures somewhere (I ended up with almost 50 GB of pictures at the end of 5 months), and blog.

I considered everything from an iPhone, a Blackberry, to "mobile internet devices" from companies I'd never heard of, all the way to a MacBook Air. I bought and returned an HP mini (sticky keyboard), and bought and returned a Sony Vaio P (all of the salespeople kept telling me how fragile it was, and the screen had the tiniest text, and it was really expensive).


















I ended up with an Acer Aspire One, with an 8.9" screen running Windows XP. I have to say, I had zero affinity with the Acer brand before I bought it, and I still would be open to other brands (especially Apple) on future purchases. But here's why I love my particular model:

- Very small. It could fit into every single hotel safe, even if it were designed to fit only passports and tickets. (The safe didn't need to be laptop-sized, which is what a MacBook Air, and any netbook with a screen larger than my 8.9" Aspire One, would have needed).

- Very light. When I felt more secure carrying it with me, it was so light I forgot about it.

- Nice sized keyboard. I type very naturally on it. (I think blogging on iPhone or Blackberry would have been painful.)

- Nice sized screen, with appropriate resolution. (The Sony Vaio P packed too much resolution into its tiny screen, making reading a giant chore.)

- In addition to wifi, it also has wired Ethernet. Despite projections of a wireless future, the reality is that many places, in both the US and overseas, only have wired internet. And at places that gave me an option between wired and wireless, the wired connection was almost always faster and more reliable. (A lot of computers like the HP mini and MacBook Air forgo this, and none of the smartphones have it.)

- Built-in SD card reader - very handy to transfer files.

- Built-in speaker and microphone - necessary for Skype, a must-use for calling anyone anywhere overseas.

- Has a "regular" operating system like Windows XP. I haven't yet seen a smartphone or "mobile internet device" that lets you transfer pictures from your camera, backup online, edit/crop pictures, and blog with pictures attached.

- Only $300 at Costco. Not only did this let me see more, do more on my trip, but I also felt less "precious" and paranoid about carrying around a $300 computer, vs. a $1000+ Sony Vaio P or $2000+ MacBook Air.

I couldn't have survived without my netbook. The security of using your own computer to pay bills online and buy tickets was invaluable, and you never have to wait in line to use a computer in a hotel lobby or go outside searching for an open internet cafe.

RTW Tips: laundy on the road

People say the best time to pack is after you get home from a trip. That's when you know what was most useful, what you didn't use much, and what you wish you had. This is the fourth in a series of RTW Tips about what to pack.

Laundry
Doing laundry on the road only requires three things: a sink with a drain plug, detergent, and somewhere to dry your clothes.

Usually you'll have a sink where you're staying the night, but the sinks don't always have drain plugs. Just pick up a "universal drain plug" from the hardward store.

Detergent wise, I left home with tiny travel packets of Tide (from Target) , and little cubes of castille soap (that I cut up from a bar of soap, from Trader Joe's). I've used Tide (and Gain) all of my life, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed with using Tide in the sink. I just don't think it's made for hand washing...at least the formulation you get in the US. Castille soap on the other hand really got stains out, since you can rub it in and use that mechanical action to remove stains. Plus it's super fast drying.

If you're traveling in developing countries, you're in luck. Most likely, there will be detergent specially formulated for handwashing. The brand I came across most often was Omo (equivalent brand-wise to Wisk or Persil). Omo represented my first time using a Unilever brand detergent, but they worked very well and smelled nice and laundry-like.














The third thing you need to do laundry on the road is someplace to dry your clothes. Closet space can be a luxury, and besides the ventilation is poor inside of a closet. I loved my braided elastic clothesline from a travel store, pictured above. Just sitting by itself, it looks like it could be a medical torture device.

But as you can see below, you can improvise a clothesline basically by finding a chair, a doorknob, a lamp, a table, anything to loop the ends around. And you just stick your clothes through the braids, negating the need for clothespins. Plus, since your clothesline will likely be at an angle due to the chair being at a different height as the doorknob for example, the braided design prevents your clothes from sliding down to one end. Definitely look for this tool.

RTW Tips: shoes

People say the best time to pack is after you get home from a trip. That's when you know what was most useful, what you didn't use much, and what you wish you had. This is the third in a series of RTW Tips about what to pack.

Shoes

To boot or not to boot? Many a Round-the-World trip planning guidebook and website have weighed in. And invariably, they all say, Don't Bring the Boots! So I left the boots off my packing list...until I found out from Transfrontiers Safaris that I would be hiking around in knee-high brush and would need the extra protection and ankle support. So I reluctantly fit in my trusty Ecco Track boots (I've had at least one pair of these continuously for more than a decade), along with a pair of Teva sandals, Ecco leather shoes, and slippers to wear indoors (complimentary amenity from a Conrad hotel).














Did I pack too much? In retrospect, no.

- Boots came in handy not just on the safari, but also trekking around Northern Laos through rolling mountains and farm paths, walking the cobblestone streets of Istanbul in cold weather, and walking around wintry Australia and New Zealand in even colder weather (including snow).
- Tevas are un-substitutable, and are a must in steamy Southeast Asia.
- The regular leather shoes were also a must to wear on the street in most places since boots and Tevas give you away as a tourist.
- And I am just most comfortable wearing slippers around hotel rooms, so I always have to carry these around where ever I go.

The one pair of footwear I left out at the beginning of the trip, flip flops, I ended up buying later in Rio. These were handy to wear on the street in Rio only (since I got blisters from them), but they came in useful for use in sketchy showers later on. Tevas might have worked for the latter situation, but they dry very slowly whereas Havaiana flip flops are quick drying.

So, five pairs of shoes. 180 degrees opposite from what everyone had told me, which was to carry around one at most two pairs of shoes. But given the diversity of climates (hot and humid in South America, hot and rainy in Southeast Asia, cold and rainy in Turkey, cold and snowy in New Zealand), and the diversity of landscapes (fashionable Sao Paulo, African bush), carrying every pair around was worth it. When you pack, think for yourself; I've learned that there can't be one-size-fits-all advice for packing.

RTW Tips: clothes

People say the best time to pack is after you get home from a trip. That's when you know what was most useful, what you didn't use much, and what you wish you had. This is the second in a series of RTW Tips about what to pack.

Clothes

I took the advice I'd read online and in RTW travel books to heart, and took basically half the clothes I thought I would need, emphasizing versatility in everything I brought. My pants were casual, but could also be worn to a nice restaurant. My shorts could also be used as swim trunks, and my long-sleeve shirt didn't "look" like one so I could wear it on the street and not feel self-conscious. I also read that I shouldn't bring jeans, since they're far too heavy, dry slowly, and too hot. So I didn't. Here's what I started out with.

- 6 pairs of socks (3 black, 3 grey/brown hiking)

- 5 pairs of underwear (2 cotton, 3 quick drying)

- 1 pair of dark blue pinstripe cotton pants

- 1 pair of light linen pants

- 1 pair cargo shorts (quick dry)

- 1 XL T-shirt (for sleeping only)

- 1 short sleeve button down shirt

- 1 polo shirt

- 1 long sleeve shirt (quick dry)

For the most part, I put all of my clothes to good use, and if I were to go on another 4 month trip with just a small-ish backpack and messenger bag, this is what I would take. The only article of clothing I craved was... jeans. I think what travel guidebooks don't take into account is that most of the world wears jeans, and you sort of stick out if you're also not in jeans. I didn't buy jeans until my very last month in Melbourne, but I did buy some more stylish pants in Sao Paulo, along with a regular T-shirt and pair of board shorts in Rio to fit in (read more about that here). And in the end, I'm glad I was able to pick up clothes along the way, since you're more likely to buy things that are fashionable according to local standards vs. looking like a foreigner.

The key to fitting all of this in a 40L backpack is to use a drybag. I love these. As their name implies, they do keep things dry; I took a small one for my camera and other electronics, which came in handy when I went under the waterfall at Iguazu Falls. But they also help you squeeze out as much air as you can to compress your clothes. In Cape Town, I picked up a third Sea to Summit dry bag, but this one was a special "e-vac" model which lets you squeeze out air even after you close the bag, through a membrane on the bottom. A drybag is great; this feature makes it even better.