fd for food.
Cause I'm really lazy and will take forever to sort other photos out.
So for now, feast (punny harhar) your eyes on the spectacular* meals that I had.
*in reality it was more mediocre. I was too cheap to eat the good stuff "orz Margherita pizza overload. There were a few highlights though.
(sit tight, long entry. Places are also not in chronological order)
Venice:
Best restaurant that I ate in. It was near the end of the trip and I was feeling sad that I haven't had a fancy meal. That resulted in me blowing 25 euros on cod. It was good though, the bed of lentils underneath it was also delicious.
The top right picture is appetizers that the chef treated us to ;D
Also really liked the green cups. They were hand blown glass made on one of the islands around 40min away. Pretty cool :]
Montecantili:
The small town that no one ever heard of.
We didn't really explore this place, just lodged here and took day trips to Assissi, Pisa, and Lucca. Anyways, the hotel was alright, major points for having a heated towel rack which made the towels and your pjs nice and toasty *u* It really helps since the weather was overall terrible e_e
The food was alright, meat was way better than Rome's. Creme caramel was not so great though...(melody: i know what you're gonna say here <_<)
Athens:
Athens hotel has hands down best food. Buffet style is also the best, less fuss for the waitstaff and more choices for us.
Middle photo is breakfast. Greek yogurt = best thing ever. It's my must have every morning without fail. Usual add-ins are canned assorted fruits, canned nectarine halves, and muesli. om nom nom <3 It's also the thing that I miss the most about Greece.
Other two photos are dinner. The orzo pasta with pork in the lower portion of the plate is awesome. Pork is so frickin tender *u* The grains are also really good.
First photo is my lunch at Colonaki Top, a restaurant/bar (well, everyplace is /bar) in a nice district of Athens. All the shops in this area is well beyond my price range :] The salad was quite bare, but tasted decent. Probably wasn't the smartest idea to order a seasonal special when nothing's growing yet.
Latter two photos are dinner in the Plaka district of Athens. Plaka is like...filled with souvenir shops and restaurants. A walk through there is constantly interrupted by shopkeepers/waiters trying to usher you into their shop.
Back on topic, the dinner was quite good. My apologies that the photos are out of order. Last photo is the appetizers. Left is Tzatziki, the Greek yogurt dip. This stuff is ridiculously good, goes with everything too. I literally ate that with EVERYTHING that dinner (except dessert, only because it got taken away before dessert was served). Right is tomato salad with feta, which was alright. Main dish was Souvlaki, which was well cooked and tasty. Dessert...dunno what that is, tasted alright, texture was really weird though e_e
Greek Islands
I believe both of these were purchased on Ageana.
First is hot chocolate, a ripoff at 4 euros, but it was reaaaaally good. Think the fact that it was cold and this was a hot drink helped too. Awkward story of how I came to obtain this drink: Janice and I wanted to sit down, so we just walked into a random cafe. We weren't sure that if anyone were gonna come take our orders if we sat down in the heated patio, so we walked into the actual building. The inside looked like a bar, so we weren't sure whether we were allowed in (in retrospect, of course we would be, alcohol is offered to anyone xD). Finally one of the waitresses saw us awkwardly standing there for a while and finally decided to help.
Second photo is pistachio gelato, the first gelato of the trip as well. The island is famous for its pistachios, so naturally it's the flavour to try. T'was okay, slightly disappointed haha. Before embarking to Gritaly, the past participants were all like "omg you're gona eat your own weight in gelato!!!1!!", reality was far from that. Perhaps it was just too cold haha.
Also remember taking a lot more photos of my gelato purchases, can't seem to find them @_@
Shame that I didn't have more on the islands, Kevin Lo's photos of his island findings make me intensely jealous "orz
Rome
I'm sorely disappointed that we did not eat out for dinner in Rome. "orz
First up is the infamous Margherita pizza. Had way too many of this. This one in particular was not very good either. Restaurants in close proximity to tourist spots (eg. Vatican City in this case) is expensive and probably doesn't taste so good ._."
Second photo is a variety of homemade spreads in a farmer's market. I accidentally discovered this place while trying to find our way to the Colosseum metro stop xD This place is like the holyland of free samples, every stand had something you could try! Ended up buying a jar of Eucalipto Honey, good stuff ;D
Last is a random lunch. The cafe was like half eatery and half convenience store, really sketchy looking haha. But it was the only place open during siesta...not much choice there @_@ We always end up having to find lunch during siesta time, really bad planning on the tour's part. Anyways, the portions were really small too, enough for me, terribly inadequate for the guys. Think I ordered 3 other items, all of them were out of stock, before settling on this. Tasted pretty good though :]
Misc Cities: Delphi and Assissi.
Truffle pasta! (forgot the name of this specific shape of pasta) Chose on the recommendation of klo (shoulda followed him to more restaurants on the trip xD). Tasted really good, a tad salty, but really really fresh. In fact, the restaurant was just opening for the first day since winter :] Great timing eh?
The cup of tea in the second photo is the best tea ever (among other best tea evers). But seriously it's so so so so so so sooooooo gooooood. Story is that I was intriguied by the "our local mountain tea" that the cafe owner was telling Kate about it. The words "local" and "mountain" with tea is usually very good, so trusting my instincts, I ordered it. I could not have been more right :] I (bad story telling, using too much "I"s, but whatever) immediately ask the owner where to buy it and ran out of the cafe, down the icy street for about a block, and into a shop. The owner had really broken English, so much trouble went into purchasing my 3 bundles. Other people also followed and brought back some of their own.
BEST TEA EVER! (it's technically not even tea though, dried flowers)
Last, and the most numerous: Florence
Last dinner of the trip! The food was alright, lots of courses though. Pictured here are the dessert (cheesecake) and appetizer (spinach and ricotta filling in some pasta shape). The cheesecake was deeelicious! Pasta was really, really cheesy; at least 3 different kinds of cheese were there. Was alright though.
Random lunches (and 1 snack) that I had.
Finally had a risotto after cafes and cafes of ran out. Only tasted okay though ._."
Middle is called Papa Pomodoro, which is a traditional Tuscan soup with bread. Really good! :] Janice had a pizza with REALLY fresh tomatoes. The restaurant's name, Gusty Leo, didn't quite match the actual place haha.
Last photo is hot chocolate, like actual hot chocolate. Looked, felt, and tasted like actual melted chocolate with cream. But it came out of a machine, so I'm a little skeptical...
First dinner in Florence with all you can eat pizza! The guys were really happy haha.
Gotta mention the dessert first, the panna cotta was really good :] Second is the appetizer of proscuitto and assorted salamis. The meat was good, except a little hard to eat alone @_@ not enough bread to accompany it. Lastly is the pizza, which was alright. By Florence, I was pretty sick of pizza XD
P.S. Alitalia food
Blood orange juice! It replaces normal oj, pretty cool eh? The bread was also better tasting, though not by a lot. The salad on the lower right corner was really good though, the saltiness of the meat perfectly balanced the sweetness of the apple :]
annnnnd phew, done. This took more than an hour to write <_< Mainly cause the new uploader's img code is so bloated, ughh.
This also probably means that the next gritaly post won't be up for a while...but hey, thats a lot of food :]
