Surfing the web, I stumbled across this. Which immediately brought back memories from two years ago. With that said…
Obtaining this life altering device wasn’t as easy as the title may suggest, I have to say. Of course we could have walked in a store and bought one. But our approach was more fun, at times stressful and foremost unexpected. I don’t necessarily like long-winded stories myself, so I’ll try to stick to the facts and the highlights of our first (and perhaps last) cooking contest.
Regensburg is a wonderful, quaint city about an hour drive north of Munich, known for its many bars and restaurants. Waaaay back when we lived there, one of the Italian places (Dolce Vita) we went to on a pretty regular basis inspired us to make these little, so very yummy, appetizers. Which back then I couldn’t quit eating and thus sometimes had to skip the main dish. They called them “Panini Speciale”, but would not for the life of them share with us how they did them…of course not. We girls used all our charm to smooth talk the cook, however the only hint he gave us was: the dough would be quite similar to a good pizza dough.
So really, we’re uncertain about their actual name and whether or not they are indeed made the way we found works best.
It is also a great snack just with wine, San Daniele prosciutto, manchego cheese and olives.
Just recently at the Asian food store I had to stop in front of all the different, enticingly designed juice cans. This time I convinced myself to have a try at them, a minimum of 3 had to be chosen. Out of the vast variety of colorful cans, covering the entire rainbow spectrum, I decided to go with Mango, Coconut and Tamarind juice.
The nominees: Mango – tasted great, not too sweet and very close to how you would expect a freshly “squeezed”, ripe mango should taste. Coconut – came with pieces that floated within the juice, which sort of reminded me of a lava lamp. The taste, hmm, well, after the first sip I was hectically looking for the instructions to see if it said something like: for every part of juice add 2 parts of water. Very sweet. Tamarind – interesting, very tart and rich in flavor. I’d probably be happy with a diluted version of it…(drum roll)…The winner, however, clearly is the Mango juice. Natural in taste, visually and texture-wise close to an A.
Along with the juice experiment I prepared roasted garlic paste for the teriyaki chicken I was about to cook. Not a difficult dish at all, the two things I’d point out though is timing (making sure the different vegetables aren’t mushy) and home made garlic paste. The teriyaki sauce I bought at the store. It’s pretty easy to make it yourself, but wanted to see how this one would compare (pretty good I’d say).
The recipe is a slight variation of the wagamama teriyaki chicken.
Oliver
One of our typical Saturday mornings look like this: It is a combination of breakfast & reading, shopping, food shopping and topping it off with one of the best pizzas in town for lunch. Here is our itinerary, buckle up: Sleep in until 8:3o (being early birds, this would be late for us), get up and rush out to catch the tram 19 (said to take the most beautiful scenic route, along Maximilianeum, Isar, Max-Monument, Maximilianstrasse,…). Have a short stop at Bar Centrale (Ledererstr. 10) for a quick espresso. It is a cozy, small Italian cappuccino-bar between Marienplatz and Isartor. Dark wood combined with metallic espresso machines enhance the Italian flair. The smoke, too. Fortunately, during the warm days of the year all windows/doors are usually wide open and breathing is possible ;) Service is attentive and fast, however, this is linearly dependent on traffic. Despite the high Louis Vuitton bag ratio it is really a great place to enjoy an espresso or cappuccino – if you are in the center of the city this place is one of the best options.
Only a few minutes away is Hugendubel, a bookstore directly located at the Marienplatz. Anywhere between 5 and 10 (cook-) books would be a good selection to skim through and see if they’re worth the buck, while either having a coke and carrot cake (N.) or caffe latte and panini (O.) in the upstairs located coffee shop. While the concept of combining coffee and books seems obvious and can be found quite often outside of Germany, we don’t see it too often here. It is a coffee chain, so don’t expect miracles. The early days we clearly preferred, when the Bar Centrale team ran this place, too.
