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My Favorite Travel Breakfasts…

23 Jul

You already know I love to travel.  You can certainly be aware of this by reading my previous posts on my recent visits to New York, Mexico, Paris, India, Miami…

And when I travel I get extra hungry, particularly for breakfast.  I can skip lunch; I can skip dinner… but I would never ever skip breakfast.  I am a sucker for big breakfasts and this is what I usually try to do:

 

Start with a fruit salad – Any fruit you like will do.  I try to stick to acid fruits together, like pineapple, grapes, strawberries.  And when I go for melons – watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew – I try not to mix them with any other fruit.  I also like the papaya and mango combination, if available.  While in India recently, I enjoyed a lot papaya and pomegranate seeds… YUM!!

At home it’s difficult for me to make me a fruit salad,  that’s why I make myself smoothies from fresh fruits or fruits that I froze myself.  When I travel is simple to just serve yourself fruits that someone else cut for you…

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Follow with something more hearty – I like oatmeals, pancakes, breakfast potatoes, toasts,  etc.  A few of my favorite things to eat while I travel are:

 

 

And when I am traveling outside the US, I like to also try a few local things, even if they’re far removed from what I am used to having.  Like Chole Bhature or Dosas when I was traveling in India, “tacos al vapor” while in Guadalajara or croissants and tartines when in Paris… 

Include some kind of freshly squeezed Juice – Orange Juice is usually my favorite, but I can go for watermelon, grapefruit, apple or even vegetable juice… whatever is freshest and prettiest.

      

 

Hope that if you’re not an avid breakfast eater, this gives you a few ideas on what to try the next time you have the buffet in front of you… or inspire you to get adventurous to try interesting breakfasts when you are traveling…

Incredible India all over again – Sweets

29 Jun

In my trips to India I have learned Indians love their sweets…  they have great sweet treats for special occasions and for the everyday.  I was only familiar with carrot burfi, something my friend Rosani taught me how to make.  But sweets and desserts in India are very regional, and in my three trips to India, I have yet to encounter a carrot burfi.

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Let’s go from the mundane to the special…  but then again, mundane vs. special is all a matter of taste and perspective.

Something I learned to eat in my first trip to India was rasgulla.  I ate a LOT of these…  These are small balls made from milk and served with sweet syrup.  They’re spongy, chewy and sweet but not overwhelmingly sweet.  We saw many versions of ragulla during our trip – some are pale but some are browned, as if they were fried before they were immersed in the sweet syrup.  Some people loved them to top vanilla ice cream.   I preferred them on their own…    I was also told these can be bought in a tin at any regular supermarket to be brought home – a nice memento from your Indian trip. 

Something we saw quite frequently on our buffets was Halvas – this particular one was Suji Ka Halwa, made with semolina flour.  I loved these because they’re like a dry-out cream of wheat with sugar and spices.  We had several versions that included lentils and other legumes… but they tasted really good and not savory at all.  I searched some recipes on the internet and I am sure my friend Tania and I will be making a few versions of these soon at the Yoga center.

 

Mangoes are abundant in India… when you want a nice boxed juice to cool off, mango is the flavor of choice in India.  Writing this I realized you don’t see them fresh in the streets to be sold.  Hum… something to explore if I ever visit some other time.  And with as much mango juice you see in the streets, this was the first time we ran across a mango sweet treat – aamras.  We had this in Indore – a puree of mango to be eaten alone or, like I did, on top of vanilla ice cream.   This is something we can certainly replicate in any western kitchen… no?

 

We were fortunate enough to celebrate a few special occasions while in India – Annie Mariel’s birthday and the engagement of a young couple in Varanasi our tour guide was friends with the bride’s side.   The staff at our hotel treated Annie Mariel with Gajar Ka Halva, apparently the India version of a birthday cake.  This is made with carrots and nuts  and it was delicious…  I had it with chai masala tea on the side and the piece given to us was so big, some of it made it home to Puerto Rico. 

For the engagement, we were given as a memento Soan Papdi – a flaky dessert with almonds and pistachios.  It looks flaky and when you put a bite in your mouth it just dissolves.  Really good…

 

Hope this gives you a nice glimpse into the vast world of Indian sweets… and when you visit India or just go to a Indian neighborhood you will be adventurous enough to try some of their sweet treats.  Namaste!!

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Incredible India all over again – Street Food and Markets

11 Jun

Whenever I travel, I love going to street markets and supermarkets… I guess it’s a way to learn more about a country and culture.  Learning what and how they eat teaches you a lot about the country you’re visiting. 

 You can see how I have visited markets in Guadalajara, in Paris, even in NYC… but in India, surprisingly I have not visited any markets per se.  Why?  I think because in India, the markets come to you.  Street vendors are EVERYWHERE in India.  No matter the city, even in busy bustling Delhi, you see a food street vendor of some sort.   

In Old Delhi, you have the Chadni Chowk, and all over you see these carts selling lemon water.  They look super refreshing, especially in the April heat, but for us tourists from the Western world these are off-limits.  In India, it’s safer for us to stick to bottled water, even making sure it’s sealed from the manufacturer.  Something that I identify with a lot is the lemons available in India are criollo lemons – the same small ones we have here in Puerto Rico. 

        

 Actually, the produce available all around the streets is very, very similar to what you find here in Puerto Rico… I guess we’re close to the same latitude – you can see coconuts sold for coconut water, sugar cane to get sugar cane water or what we call here in PR, guarapo.  You can also see a lot of regular produce, like oranges, eggplants, melons, green beans, spices… 

   

                                   

 But something you see quite a lot, I mean they’re everywhere, are CUCUMBERS.  They sell them sometimes already peeled so you can eat them right there.  I wouldn’t eat them off the street peeled because the environment in India is filled with dust and dirt from the streets, but apparently people buy them because otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people selling them.  They’re a different variety than what we see here in the Americas.  They’re long and squiggly…

 

 Not food related per se, but once we even bought neem sticks off the streets of Varanasi .  Indians use neem sticks as a natural toothbrush.

 

 

Next time to travel abroad, or even to a different city from yours, make it a point to explore the markets and the street food typical of the place.  I am sure you’ll be able to appreciate a bit more the locals in your travels…

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Incredible India All Over Again – Old and New Favorites

26 May

This is really incredible… I traveled to India once again.  Hey, a palm reader actually told me when we were there about 6 months ago that I would return to India many, many, many times in the future.  One down, God knows how many more to go…

This time I went to India with my yoga center group to attend Kumba Mela 2010 in Haridwar – a spiritual celebration held every 12 years where spiritual masters come down from the Himalayas and all over the world to bathe in the River Ganges at specific very auspicious days.  I feel extremely blessed to have been able to be present for such a special spiritual event.

 In the 3 weeks we were traveling through India we visited a few places we’ve been before – Delhi, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Varanasi… but I also visited a few new places such as Mumbai, Ujjain, Maheshwar, Omkareshwar and Indore.  In doing this, I certainly got the chance to savor some of my favorite Indian delicacies and also discovered some new treasures.

Among the tried and true…

American Airlines does not “disappoint” with their Indian Vegetarian Meals in Coach…  White Rice, paneer in a spicy sauce and stewed chickpeas.  I always eat mainly the rice and paneer, but I have sworn I will never travel to India on Coach.  Business-class is definitely in my future and hopefully better food and better movie choices.

    

Breakfasts are my favorites…  I got to try again chole, without the bhature, and dosas.  My favorite dosa filling is the curry potato filling.  They usually give me the sambar and the chutneys, but I eat the dosa and filling alone like that.

 

 

I also got to drink again my favorite tea, chai masala.  I drank it out of regular cups, and in Varanasi, where I learned to enjoy this delicious tea, I drank it out of the traditional clay disposable cup.  And watching the Varanasi sunrise, this was a real treat.

   

Among the new favorites…

In Maheshwar we got to taste a delicious yet very spicy breakfast – Parathas and Cutlets.  Parathas are a sort of flatbread that can be plain or filled with various vegetables.  The first ones were filled with potatoes and scallions.  Here you can see how parathas are made so flat yet filled with so much deliciousness.  Cutlets are a potato/vegetable fritter…  I explained it to locals as vegetable “alcapurria”.  These cutlets were extremely spicy for my taste, but they were very delicious still.  Don’t they look appetizing and where the heck was the plain yogurt??

     

 Last time I visited India I had a watermelon juice every morning.  Well, this time around the popular flavor was Sweet Lime.  A taste smilar to mixing lemon and orange juice, it was available everywhere and very refreshing.  Maybe this fruit was in season in April…

 

In Haridwar we got to try a few new things…  I learned about uttapam, vegetables cordon blue and pohe.  Uttapam is a rice flour pancake with vegetables.  Definitely a savory pancake, but really, really good. 

      

As you can tell, Indians like their fried foods; very much like us Latins, so probably that’s why I was drawn to these vegetable cordon blues – a vegetable fritter with a creamy, cheesy interior.  

Pohe is a flattened rice dish, often served for breakfast.  Mine looked more like polenta or cooked corn flour than rice, but let’s trust the locals that told me I was eating pohe.  My version had petit pois and I had it with some spicy curried potatoes.  Very spicy indeed.  As you can see, I have to supplement my Indian breakfast with some Western corn flakes and banana…  It was ripe even though it looks green.  Believe me…

 

I am super excited of my recent trip to India… we definitely found much more variety of delicious foods than during my first trip 5 years ago.  Stick around so you can learn more about the delicious and interesting food things I encountered.

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Sublime Vegan Restaurant Review

18 May

I have a thing with vegetarian and vegan restaurants…  the fact that their food usually is filled with so many substitutes or tries to use so many “exotic” ingredients that the flavor is not there.  That’s why I sometimes prefer to just go to traditional restaurants and navigate through their menus to find something delicious yet still suitable for me to eat.  Funny… but sometimes I’ve found a great meal in a steakhouse…  the best baked potatoes and salad you’ve ever tasted!!!  But that’s another subject…

Last month I was in Miami with my mom visiting my sister and coincided with my mom’s 67th birthday.  My sister decided we should celebrate her by going to dinner at a vegan restaurant in Ft Lauderdale called Sublime.  I have heard of this restaurant before, but hadn’t had a chance to go up there.  And from my feelings above, I was a bit wary of what we would find there…

The ambiance at Sublime is really nice… low lights, nice décor, small tables for 2 or 4…  like any fine dining restaurant should be.  The music was nice and the bar area looked really nice.  Sorry I do not have pictures because the low lighting does not allow for nice pictures with or without flash.  Sublime is a vegan restaurant… so even though they do not serve any animal products or any eggs or dairy, they do serve alcohol and chocolate, which are not included in the line of vegetarianism I usually follow.  Just wanted to clarify…

It’s so refreshing to go to a fine dining restaurant that you know that you can eat EVERYTHING on the menu… it’s now a matter of what you like and what you’re in the mood for… not a matter of what can I have, what questions should I ask the waitress, will it have bacon?  But still, I was careful to check out if the food will taste good…

The menu is large… but not unmanageable.  They had appetizers, a “sushi” menu, salads, pizzas and main entrees.  I ordered a “Sublim-ade” which was their featured non-alcoholic drink – really delicious limeade.  I can’t remember if I had one or two.  We were in the sharing mood, which was wonderful for this article – I had a chance to taste what Vanessa (my sister), Wichi (my bro in law), my mom and I ordered… and this is what we had:

 For appetizers:

Crispy Eggplant Rollatini

We ordered this to share for all 4.  This was really good even though the cheeses in the filling were not made from milk.  The eggplant seemed it was fried in panko breadcrumbs.  It was not hot in temperature, but it was really delicious.  I would have ordered another one just for myself had I known what you’ll learn later on…

 

Soup of the Day – lentil vegetable soup with chickpeas

This is the only thing I did not taste. Wichi liked it a lot; so did Vanessa.  The taste was very authentic according to them.

 

Florasian Sushi Roll – made from rice, tempura avocado, vegenaise, mango and toasted coconut.

My sister ordered this for herself because she’s “eating for two”. She wasn’t planning to share, but she was in for a surprise. 

I do eat often regular vegetable/vegetarian sushi made at traditional Japanese sushi restaurants, so I have a good comparison point…  this tasted interesting, to say the least.  My sister tasted the coconut, I did not.  Nor did I taste the mango.  The avocado was good, but I never knew if it was tempura or not.  What difference could it make???  To me these sushi pieces were too chewy for my taste…  I would not order them again.  Sorry…

For main entrees, we had:

Pizza Margherita Classico

My brother-in-law ordered this… I was also considering it too.  The taste was good – the tomato sauce was a bit sweet, the basil super fresh and the “mozzarella cheese” did not taste plasticky.  Now, the crust left a lot to be desired… and to me, the best torture test of a great pizza is the crust.  It was kind of soggy and burned.  So it was OK, but we’ve had better.

 

Portobello Stack – a Portobello mushroom cap filled with sautéed spinach and topped with slices of red potato.  It was served with gravy and a side of “smashed” cauliflower.

My mom ordered this…  and this was very delicious.  I really enjoyed the few bites I had.  I am not a fan of gravies, so I found the taste a bit bland.  The spinach and mushroom had enough moisture that the dish didn’t feel it needed a sauce.  Now, the cauliflower did need a bit of help.  It was dry and bland.  It felt as it was raw cauliflower shredded and put on the plate.  It did not taste as if it was cooked, mixed with something liquid to soften – like “milk”, “butter”, “sour cream”, or stock at least.  Maybe that’s the purpose of the gravy on that plate.

 

Sublime Loaf –a mock “meatloaf” made of lentils, brown rice, water chestnut, accompanied by Israeli couscous and grilled asparagus

My sister ordered this…  I was never a fan of meatloaf when I ate meat, so I have no real point of original comparison here.  To me it was no show-stopper…  it tasted OK with the not-so-interesting gravy mentioned before, definitely not something I would order the next time around.  The Israeli couscous tasted just like plain boiled pasta without any seasonings or flavorings – a missed opportunity in my opinion. And the grilled asparagus, to me, were the best thing on the plate.

By process of elimination, what did I order???  You might be asking yourselves…  Well, I originally ordered the Ravioli – house-made pasta, spinach “ricotta”, slow-roasted tomatoes, garlic confit, herbs…  doesn’t it sound good???  I was soooooo looking forward to the roasted tomatoes and garlic confit…  Well, something happened in the kitchen that they could not bring me the ravioli.   They had me order anything else I wanted from the menu, compliments of the chef.  When I was perusing the menu, two things jumped at me…  the side dishes, so I ordered the mac and “cheese” with the olive oil mashed potatoes.  I figured if I ordered side dishes, the plates of the other people would not get too delayed.

     

NOT!!!  I have a master’s degree in whipped potatoes with olive oil…  I make these for myself all the time.  These mashed potatoes tasted NOTHING like the ones I make.  They looked old, mushy, and were bland.  I had to sprinkle salt from the salt shaker and I never do that in a restaurant.  But these were REALLY bland.  And at some points it seemed as if these were left to dry for a while in a kitchen corner, because they tasted dry, dry, dry.  Apparently the olive oil they use there is neither Spanish nor Italian… because I could not taste it at all.

And the macaroni was a complete mistake… it was bland and you could taste the “cheese” was not real cheese at all.  And I have made vegan pastas before, I know they’re a challenge, but you can achieve success if the right ingredients are used.  Not here… we all tried it and no one liked it at all. 

 

Now for the desserts… this was a celebratory birthday after all, so we needed some sweets to finish off the night.

Strawberry Cheesecake  

My mom ordered this one because she is a strawberry fan.  It tasted really delicious and we enjoyed the strawberries were mixed in with the cheesecake and not just something on top.  The almond crust was also delicious.

 

Chocolate Nirvana Cake

Like I said, the restaurant and some of my dinner companions are chocolate lovers.  And me, being a choco-holic in a “12-step separation program”, we ordered this chocolate cake.  It had a coffee-flavored Kahlua “butter creme” and dark chocolate ganache…  I only had a few bites because it is not often I can taste cakes without eggs in any restaurant… so a little chocolate was not going to stop me.  This cake was awesome…  one of the best things we had all night. 

Our compliments to the pastry chef… certainly.

So, after all this review, what’s the VEREDICT:

Sublime is OK, just not awesome.  I will go back again and try some of the other dishes on the menu… but now knowing what to stay away from.  I would like to try those ravioli the next time, certainly… and maybe some of the other appetizers.  The frito mixto certainly was calling me a bit. 

But if you’re in the Ft Lauderdale area or just visiting like we were, give Sublime a try.  Just stay away from the mac and mashed potatoes, OK??  Deal…

 

1431 N. Federal Hwy., Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33304
954-615-1431

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