Author: kymdt

Foodie Report #2

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Copenhagen, originally uploaded by Helen K.

Foodie Report #2

Wow, time has flown. It is our last day of our vacation and I haven’t written a foodie report since early July. It could be because we’ve only been eating at McDonalds, Quick and Mos Burger. But that isn’t true. Rather it is because we have been rather occupied by eating good food.

He are the 2011 Vacation Foodie Awards – Part 1.

The “Oh my god do you expect me to cycle up that steep hill” award goes to the Burnside Brace Guesthouse for cooking a great FULL english breakfast. What followed was a hill that at points had a 17% gradient. Also very good breakfasts came from Lowbyer Manor Country House and Norcroft Guest House.

The “Wow, can this really be that good” award goes to the Danish Grilled Medister. Yes it is a sausage with mustard, tomato sauce, onion chips and a soft bread roll sold from vans from the side of the road. But, it is bloody good and we should bring it to Australia.

The “Home sick and two Michelin stars” award goes to The Ledbury amazing food and amazing wine everything you’d expect from two Michelin stars. It started of a little frosty at the front door but warmed up wonderfully with Luke the very engaging Aussie sommelier. He provided a wonderful wine education from around the world. I just hope to remember some of it. The Chef Brett Graham is also from Australia. (Note for David if you find your future wife in London this is the place to go to pop the question!!)

The “Sweetest town on Earth” award is jointly awarded to Paris and Tokyo. The most amazing sweet and cake shops on the planet are in these two towns. My only question is how come people in Paris and especially Tokyo are so skinny?

The “That’s not Pudding” award goes to the Brew Pub in Copenhagen. After a great meal of beer braised pork cheeks I had a pudding of summer berries. The only thing missing was the “pudding”. It was like a summer berries soup with cream. Yumm! A special mention goes to the on-venue brewed beers and the tasting flight option!

The “Most Showy Dish” award goes to Restaurant Herman for its dish of Scandinavian Shellfish and Bisque of Dried Chamomile. It was presented in amazing two level bowl. The first level emitted chamomile infused steam adding smell to the taste sensation!

… more awards to come.

Are we on a train?

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At about 4:00am yesterday morning Helen and I woke up to a gentle rocking. In our half awake state it felt like we were on an overnight train. But we weren’t! It was an earthquake. The map from the Japanese Meteorological Agency shows the extent.

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If you check out their site you can see many earthquakes each day in the North East.

We checked out the instructions from the hotel. They said wait for instructions over the p.a. There were none so we went back to sleep. Hotel Niwa is very new and has state of the art foundations. Check them out at http://www.hotelniwa.jp/english/info/seismically_isolated.html . The result was a gentle side to side rocking motion.

Sheep and rain the story of our holiday.

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Mont Ventoux – A week after the TDF, originally uploaded by kdt.

When we planned our holiday we thought our theme would be cycling and food. We were wrong. The theme has turned out to be sheep and rain. In every country we have got wet. We are proud owners of new yellow ponchos and our umbrellas and wet weather gear have been well used. Helen went so far as to buy a new cycling jacket.

Golly, there are a lot of sheep in the north of England. But even in Provence there are a lot of sheep. You can see Helen’s magnetic personality as a flock of Provencal sheep surround Helen on Mont Ventoux. This is a famous TDF climb. In reality it’s not that bad 24km with a bracket of between 6% and 12% going upto 1912m. Nothing really, compared with 17% and 500m in the Pennines. I reckon I can do it :)

Coffee Collective et al

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Copenhagen, originally uploaded by Helen K.

We have just finished visiting Copenhagen and Amsterdam. I have to say we didn’t look for any good “coffee shops” in Amsterdam. There are many however around the red-light district near our hotel. They must be selling good coffee because many of the clients seemed very happy when they walked out. They just didn’t have the same inviting smell as some coffee shops back home.

We did notice one happy English lad who had too much coffee having a chat with a friendly lady in a shop window. When he finished shopping he promptly fell down a set of stairs! He may have been better off purchasing.

Anyway, on to more important matters we did check out the coffee shops in Copenhagen. All-in-all these threes were very good. They were micro-roasters with only a very limited range of food, but extensive coffee menus.

If in Copenhagen I would recommend Estate Coffee and Risterit.

These two are both on the edge of the main shopping district. If you want a longer a bike ride and a more edgy suburb then I would recommend Coffee Collective.

Unseasonal Weather

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Coast to Coast – Day 3, originally uploaded by kdt.

Unseasonal weather, said the kind gentleman. That had to be the understatement of the holiday. We cycled from Whithaven in the west to Tynemouth in the east over 4 days. The first day only threatened wet weather. But the following three days had drenching rain. Unseasonably we’re told. Apparently it was dry in April and May (almost a drought I understand). All I can say is that reinforced our prejudices that it rains all the time in England.

Highlights:

1) The Greystoke Cycle Cafe (mentioned earlier) has at the ready towels for cyclists to dry themselves.

2) Lowbyer Country House. Very friendly and the welcomed us with a room with a big bath and took all of our wet clothes and dried them out for us! Lovely place to stay.

2) The lightning as we reached the top of Hartside (and the Hartside cafe at the summit)

3) The downhills… they are the best we’ve ever done. They went for ever had wonderful easy turns.

4) The scenery, the Lakes District and across the Pennines are beautiful.

5) The beer and cider.

6) Friendly people.

It was great fun, even though we were officially drenched rats. All I can say is that those altitude charts can be misleading. Helen distinctly recalls me saying that hey, we can do this it is not even as high as Mount Lofty.

Well that is true, but there were a lot of ups. There were so many ups that it justified 45 kilometres of down in the last day!!

Also, the profile doesn’t really show the fact that the English have no respect for the contours of the land. The back roads go up and down and if it is 22% gradient that is what the road will do! I recall riding past a 15% gradient sign thinking it was easy compared to some minor roads. That is how steep some of the minor roads are!

All in all, I would encourage any keen cyclists to try this trip!

KDT’s Top 5 Coffee

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London, originally uploaded by Helen K.

1) Greystoke Cycle Cafe, a barn out the back of house with toasties, cakes, and coffee. What makes it great? It’s welcoming approach and plenty of towels to dry wet cyclists. Coffee is pretty good.

2) Monmouth Coffee – Monmouth Street London. Great coffee focus with extensive coffee menu. It appears that special coffees are only available as filter coffee. Very busy with local workers getting takeaway.

3) Nude Espresso – Eastend somewhere, good coffee with schmick interior a great relaxing spot. They roast their own coffee.

4) Java – Keswick does a great mocha with Belgian chocolate. Also muffins made on site are extremely yummy.

5) Brick Lane Coffee – great coffee vibe only problem is paper cups only.

We also had some chain coffee. That was horrible. Also, you’d expect good restaurants to do good coffee. This is not true.