We've had many memorable meals in our year away. The other day we were reflecting back together on some of our favourites, not just about the food, but the occasions too and here's what we came up with.....
La Golosa, Cabo Polonio, Uruguay
Seafood Delight pasta dish with heavenly sauce which made Louis' 9th birthday even more memorable. The owner had given up his job as a corporate Italian lawyer to do what he loves the most - preparing great food in the unique little hippy hideaway that is Cabo Polonio.
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| Very special meal celebrating Louis' 9th birthday |
Chocolate Explosion; waffles with chocolate ice-cream, pieces of chocolate, hot chocolate on top and chocolate sauce, made that much better by the 20 km trek that preceded it. At eleven hours, it still remains our longest single day's trekking of our trip, so it's fair to say we burnt enough calories to deserve this!
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| We started wolfing this down before we managed to get a photo! |
Mike's 'Parilla' for my father's 80th Birthday, Andes Lands, San Rafael, Argentina
Mike, is an expert in preparing fabulous Argentinian beef on a parilla, a kind of Argentinian BBQ. We had a broad range of cuts, all beautifully prepared, with the highlight being the 'mollejas' (sweetbreads); and washed down with a lovely bottle or two of Argentinian merlot. Then Loic and Candice had very kindly made a rich chocolate birthday cake for Dad which was delicious.
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| The many cuts of meat expertly arranged on Mike's parilla |
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| Raising a glass to celebrate Dad's 80th birthday |
On our last day before leaving San Cristobal, we decided to treat ourselves to a seafood extravaganza, a huge dish of every kind of fresh, locally caught seafood, including lobster, squid, crab, mussels and tiger prawns. There was a World Cup game on in the background, and when Ecuador scored, the whole town erupted in cheers!
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| A delicious seafood feast |
We ate at too many of these to name one, but the food was generally high quality, very tasty and very cheap! Here's one of the boys finishing off some squid, and an entry wouldn't be complete without the second photo, as we had quite a lot of chicken satay too!
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| Yum! especially love those little twirly legs! |
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| Chicken satay......again! |
We did a cookery course in Kathmandu to learn how to make 'momos' - a kind of Tibetan dumpling. Sakunthala, our chef, made sure that we added everything in the right quantity at the right times. The results were absolutely delicious, and we made three types - a ricotta cheese and spinach momo, a spicy chicken momo and (primarily for the boys!) a mars bar and snickers momo!
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| A wealth of spices to choose from |
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| Frankie getting to grips with the dough |
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| Delicious - especially the chocolaty ones! |
Picnic on Mystery Island, Fiji
Bobo took us out on his boat from our base at his farm in Rukuruku to Mystery Island and while we were there, prepared a lovely picnic for us. He was surprisingly adept at spear-fishing, given the contraption was basically a thin metal pole he'd sharpened and a large elastic band! It was one of those occasions where the food was simple - freshly BBQed trout, breadfruit, coconut and coleslaw - but somehow tasted so much better because of where you were. This complemented the delicious food that Karin, Bobo's wife prepared for us back at their farm while we were staying there too.
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| Delicious fresh fish |
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| The boys kept an eye on the fish while they cooked on our makeshift BBQ |
Skyline Restaurant at Rotorua, New Zealand.
A quality all-you-can-eat buffet up a mountain, with huge variety, for greedy budget-conscious travellers that prepared you for the luge ride back down. (It didn't exactly seem like the obvious thing to do to us, either!) We'd just met up with the Guano family too so the kids were hugely excited to be altogether. A notable dessert that Louis recalls was vanilla and chocolate ice-cream with jelly beans and marshmallows and chocolate fish!
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| Luging back down with the Guanos on a full stomach! |
Breakfast at O Veleiro B and B, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
This was the very first place we stayed at on our trip. Maybe it was the excitement of being away with a whole year ahead of us. Maybe it was the sense of adventure and togetherness that we shared in that moment. But when we climbed the narrow, dark wooden staircase of this little guesthouse and saw the breakfast that Patricia had laid out for us, we were amazed and delighted. Fresh fruit, pastries, cake, cereals, granola, fruit juices, toast, an assortment of jams including our first introduction to 'dulce de leche' - a really sweet caramel-like spread that we would come across frequently in Brazil.
Choripan in El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina
So this may seem a strange entry, but on one of our treks, Gonzalo, our host at the cabin we were staying at, told us about a gaucho called Mauricio who does the best choripan (Argentinian sausage sandwich) ever. So as a means of giving us some energy for our trek up to a particularly pretty hanging valley, we decided to have one each. He had his own special recipe for the sauce, barbequed it to perfection and it was absolutely wonderful.
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| Mauricio with the boys ahead of the trek |
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| The choripan gave us the energy to get to the top to see the hanging valley! |
And that's the Top 10. So many other meals that we really enjoyed, of course, all along the trip, so this is just to give a flavour.....
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