Restaurant Review: Sicilia Restaurant Pizzeria

MONTPELLIER, FRANCE

This place serves classic Italian, with great food, an energetic atmosphere, and friendly service you would expect from Italians. All the pastas, pizzas, appetizers, and salads are priced around 8-10 euro, and the chicken/meat dishes range from 12-14 euro, making the food an excellent deal for the quality. I ate here twice in two days, and both visits I walked away impressed. Almost every table was taken up the first time I went, but luckily the lunch crowd had cleared out when our group of 9 visited the next day.

Spaghetti Carbonara. Creamy and delicious, it was a little different than the previous Carbonara I ate. There possibly could have been ricotta or a soft cheese, rather than parmesan. Despite the twist, the large pieces of pancetta and generous portion made this an indulgent pasta dish.

This was the antipasto plate that I ate(all to myself). It included grilled eggplant topped with garlic, olive oil, and olives(my favorite part), sundried tomatoes, grilled artichokes with olives, an arugala salad, and a little stack of shaved parmesan. This was an ideal way to start my meal.

Spaghetti marinara with anchovy, olives, capers, and mozzeralla cheese. This dish was salty, briny, and cheesy. The anchovy and olives combined with the tomato sauce to create a very distinct yet delicious pasta. If you dont like anchovies, however, I would stay away from this.

The Tiramisu. This italian classic dessert was the perfect ending to the meal. It was creamy and had amazing flavor of coffee, chocolate, and sweet mascarpone. I would highly recommend this restaurant to anyone who loves Italian.

Restaurant Review: Restaurant Le Veradier

SETE, FRANCE

While waiting on the Tour de France to ride through the small town of Sete, we had lunch outside at a typical french restaurant featuring the local fresh seafood.

I ordered the calamari with a garlic cream sauce. This was maybe the best dish I've had on the trip. The pieces of calamari, about the size of medium scallops, were so delicately cooked and were tender and delicious. The sauce, although it was creamy, was light. The garlic was not too strong and the parsley provided a nice fresh touch. The sauce, which had large pieces of garlic, was over the calamari and the rice. My friend ordered the baked mussels, which were pretty good, but didn't match this calamari dish. To me, this is as good as it gets for cuisine in Southern France.

The Park in Montpellier

Here are some pictures from the park in Montpellier. The park is up on the hill overlooking the city.

Bastille Day Celebration

After we got back from the Tour de France in Sete, we had very little time to get ready. I quickly prepared this bruschetta for the picnic. I used probably 3 pounds of tomatoes, with red onion, garlic, basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. The produce is so good here, so it makes for great dishes that feature fresh produces as this one does.

We were sitting out in a (not-so-grassy) field from about 7:30 until the fireworks. This fireworks show was easily the most extravagant that I've seen. The show must have lasted for 30 minutes, and the grand finale was spectacular.

Tour De France

To start off our Bastille Day(France Independence Day), we made the day trip to Sete to see the Tour de France. After a quick 15 minute train ride, we arrived in Sete, a little fishing town on the water. Many of the stores and shops were closed for Bastille Day, but it seemed like an awesome town that I would spend time in.

After an awesome lunch, we walked down to the edge of the water and the caravan came through in early afternoon. Then, around 4, the bikers came through. It's amazing how fast they zoom through the streets. Although it only lasted few minutes, it was well worth it and was an awesome experience. It was a great start to Bastille Day! Here's a picture of the leader of this leg of the race.

Here's the video of the pack riding though!

Friday Festival

On Fridays, there is a town gathering by the Comedie, the town square. There a tons of food vendors,  vendors with purses, hats, etc. and other things to buy. The best part of the festival, however, is the wine tasting. For only 5 Euro, you can buy 3 tasting tickets that comes with a glass to keep, and each "taste" is around 4-5oz, so almost a regular glass of wine. There are so many choices to select from, as there were probably 75 different vineyards represented, each with at least 1 red, 1 rose, and 1 white. Sorting through the different options can be difficult, but through trial and error we found a few good ones. Below is a picture of the festival early in the evening(with Adrienne poking her head into the picture). By about 9, the whole street was packed with people. 

Here are the oysters from the seafood vendor. It was obvious that these were extremely fresh. They were taking them directly out of the refrigerated truck. I wouldn't be surprised if they came out of the sea that same day. These oysters were very salty and briny, and had a very clean taste. 

For dinner I chose to eat paella. Looking at the huge pan they made it in, it was hard not to order it.

After waiting for about 10 minutes for the rice to finish cooking, I was rewarded with a huge plate of paella, which came fromt he edge of the pan where all the mussels and shrimp were gathered. The paella had awesome depth of flavor and seasonings were perfectly balanced. This paella was as good as I've had, and the generous portion made it a steal for 8 Euro.

4 Course Dinner

Appetizer: Mussels

These are little mussels(look normal size because they are on a little plate) that are sauted in a garlic-wine sauce. I first added to the pan the EVOO/butter, mussels, several cloves of garlic, two chopped fresh tomatoes, salt and pepper.(maybe added a little onion, but I don't remember.) After a couple minute saute, I covered and steamed the mussels for a few minutes, then added the wine(meant to add it before steaming). Finally, I added lots of fresh basil and parsley, and reduced the sauce for a few minutes to finish it off.



For the main course, we had a salad, as usual, and white mac-n-cheese with ham. The salad dressing was a raspberry vinagiarette, which consisited of raspberry jam, balsamic vinegar, EVOO, salt, pepper, and a touch of dijon mustard. The white mac-n-cheese started with the basic cheese sauce, including a roux of butter, flour, and a few cloves of garlic, and milk. For the cheese, we used gruyere, parmesan, and emmental, which is a common french cheese. If I remember correctly, we used iberian ham and ham from parma, which formed a salty combination which added great flavor to the sauce. The pasta turned out creamy, cheesy, and delicous.

We finished out the meal with a spin of bananas foster, but we didnt have brown sugar or captain morgan. Despite the missing parts, it was still a nice finish to an enjoyable meal.

Roquefort Trip

As part of the course curriculum, we had an organized trip to the small town of Roquefort. As you may know, this town is famous for its "blue cheese". (they told us its not actually blue cheese, its "roquefort cheese") We first listened to a lecture about the cheese-making process and the trademark issues and protections associated with their cheese. The Roquefort name is protected by French law, and throughout Europe, so that no other cheese can use the name.

Following the lecture, we had a picnic in the park, then had a tour of the caves where they "ripen" the cheese. (let the mold grow) At the end of the tour, we had a tasting of the different cheeses they offered, and I surprisingly liked the strongest one the best. The cheeses were very salty and pungent, but had a pure taste to it, lacking that bite that some blue cheeses have. It's amazing how much better it is than a cheap blue cheese you can buy in the US. Needless to say, this was a much better day of "class" than actually being in class.

Restaurant Review: El Callejon

BARCELONA, SPAIN

I found some good reviews online about this restaraurant, so we decided to tak our chances. It was off the main road, nestled in a back alley.

Once we got inside, there was nobody in the restaurant. I was worried that was a bad sign, but it was only 10:00, which is early for dinner in Barcelona. It was nice that they were accomadating for such a large group, especially since the front desk made the reservation for 2 rather than 11 (not quite sure how that was misinterpreted).

The menu, although not large, had options with seafood, chicken, beef, and vegetarian. It consisted mainly of tapas and appetizers, with a few options for main courses. The prices were not high, ranging from 3-12 Euro for almost any item on the menu. My end of the table decided to order tapas to all share. Of the dishes we ordered, the best dishes were the spinach and ricotta canneloni, the goat cheese salad, and the beef filet tapa topped with chimmichurri. Pictured below is the salman tartare with avacado. The lime in the avacado mixture was much too strong, so I didn't care for the dish. The drink/wine menu was nice, with 7 Euro XL mojitos(bottom left of the picture above) and affordable bottles of Spanish wine, averaging around 15-18 Euro. I did not order a dessert, but tried the tiramasu, which was simply excellent.

Overall, the meal, drinks, and service were all well above average. In rating on a 5 star scale, I would probably give this restaurant 4 stars. This is because the food was a little inconsistent, with some dishes being excellent and some just OK, the drinks were very good, and the service was better than the typical service I have recieved overseas.

Market Pictures

I took several pictures at the market that I've been using for all my produce shopping. The fruits and vegetables are much better than what you get in American grocery stores, as you can tell just by looking.

Weekend in Barcelona!

I'm finally catching back up after a long weekend in Barcelona. We left montpellier at 7:30am, and arrived around 1:00pm. As we came out of the metro at the Plaza de Espana, one of the first things I noticed was all of the bikers and their motorcycles parked everywhere. As it turns out, the Barcelona Harley Davidson festival was going on. We walked through and I had a delicious grilled chorizo and onion sandwich, then we checked into our hotel nearby. We proceeded to go to the church in Barcelona and to Las Ramblas, which is the main street for shopping/restaurants/bars.

As everyone else took an afternoon nap, I diligently searched for a good restaurant to go to(since the front desk was not helpful at all). I found a place called El Callejon, which was great. We then made our way to Espit Chupitos, which is a shot bar that has a huge menu of several hundred shots(at only 2 euro each). It was extremely crowded, so after we tried a couple of shots, we decided to leave to go to the club. We arrived to Razzmatazz around 2am, which is when everyone is still arriving to the club. The place was huge, with several different rooms, each with a different style music. The picture below is the big dance room.

After a few hours we retired back to the hotel, finally going to sleep at 5:30am. On Saturday, we got up and going after noon, and made our way to the beach. Aside from vendors walking up every minute to sell beers, tattoos, souvenirs, etc., the beach was fun. It was packed, but we managed to find a large spot for our group. I also very much enjoyed lunch(with sangria) at a restaurant on the beach.

At 11:00, we arrived to a tapas bar for dinner. As a whole it was good, but there were some dishes that stood out more than others. After a walk that turned out to be longer than expected, we went to a club that was more local. It played house music, meaning it was basically a continuous stream of upbeat songs, all of which had no words and were electronic. Needless to say, the music got a little old, so we called it an early night at 3:30.


Sunday we browsed around this cool mall before we had to leave, but unfortunately nothing was open.

Here was a good view from the train ride back.

Cooking from the market

We're going to barcelona this weekend! Last night we decided to take it easy, considering the train is leaving at 7:30 in the morning. So, for a down night, I made dinner(3rd time this week) and sangria. For dinner, we had pork tenderloin with tomato-balsamic pan sauce, served with sautéed finger potatoes and green beans. The approximate recipe was:

2 pork tenderloins, seasoned with salt and pepper

Vegetables:
2 lb finger potatoes
1 lb fresh green beans
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbsp fresh parsley
S/P
EVOO

Pan Sauce:
2 cups little cherry/grape tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced and chopped
1/4 cup fennel, thinly sliced and chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar(really not sure here, could be up to a cup)
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 tbsp fresh basil
1 tsp fennel tops, chopped(also known as dill)
S/P (be generous, potatoes usually need it)
EVOO

First, I boiled some water and blanched the green beans for about 2 minutes. Don't forget to salt the water, and when you take the beans out you want to put them in cold water to stop them from cooking(and stay green). Then, I filled the pot with new water and the potatoes, and brought them to a boil for around 10 minutes. You don't want to cook the potatoes all the way through, as they will finish cooking later. After pouring out the potatoes in a colander, return the empty pot to the stove over medium-high heat.

In addition, heat up a large metal pan on medium-high. Cover the bottom of the pan with EVOO. Cook the pork tenderloins(one at a time if the pan is too small) until browned on all side. Its important, when using metal, to not move the meat too much at first. After about 5-6 minutes, the meat will be nicely seared and pull off the pan. If you move it in the first couple minutes, it will usually stick to the pan.

Normally I would finish these in the oven, but couldn't since we don't have one in the hotel. So, they did end up taking about 20-25 minutes to cook in the pan.

Meanwhile, put about a quarter cup of EVOO in the other pot and add the potatoes. Add salt and pepper. After they start to brown, add the beans. About 4-5 minutes add the garlic and parsley. A couple minutes later they will be ready to serve.

Back to the pan used to cook the pork. After removing the pork from the pan, pour at the oil, but make sure to keep all the brown bits stuck to the pan. Add a couple tbsp of EVOO and put in the onion and fennel. Sauté for about 5 minutes, scraping up the pieces stuck to the pan. Add the garlic and cook for about 2 minted, the add the tomatoes, a few minutes later, add the balsamic, herbs, and salt/pepper. Any bits stuck to the pan should easily come off with this balsamic. If you have any juices from the dish that the meat is sitting in, add that too. Allow the sauce to slightly reduce, about 5 minutes. Serve over the pork alongside the mixed vegetables.

On a side note, the sangria was great because of all the fresh fruit in the market across the street.

Shots!

We went out to a cool pirate themed bar. To get in you walk down a staircase, and you enter through the doors into a long bar. It's so cool because the whole bar is decorated like a ship, and has huge barrels for furniture. Anyways, here's a picture of the flaming shots we did!

Cooking Dinner again

This is an awesome little bakery that one of the French students led us too. It is tucked in a little alley, and is clearly a local spot. It has the standard backed breads and pastries, but also has bread pizzas and quiche. I tried the bread pizza with ham, potato, onions, and cheese, and it was very good. It tasted almost like a loaded backed potato pizza. The next day I tried the tomato quiche, which was also really good. The kicker was the dijon mustard at the bottom, which(since I love mustard) was really good.

That soda is realllly good too, it tastes like a grapefruit-citrus soda.

Heres a greek salad I made for everyone. We had tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, bell pepper and feta tossed in a fresh made greek vinagariette. The chicken was pan seared with garlic, oregano and lemon zest. Again, per Chase's request, we had dipping oil and bread. 

Later on, for the Euro final, we walked down to the Plaza de Espana, a small little Spanish food/wine shop and cafe. We sat a table outside and enjoyed a few bottles of wine and some really good little cookies and deserts. Other than school work getting in the way of doing more stuff doing the day(only kidding, kind of), I could really get used to this.

Montpellier!

Sure is A nice change of pace arriving in Montpellier. It is a casual beach town full of college students, making it more laid back and relaxing than Paris. First thing I noticed when we got to the hotel was that there was an open market across the street. The market is awesome; it has several independent vendors, including three produce stores, a bakery, a spice/nut vendor, a butchor, seafood shop, coffee shop, cheese shop, wine shop...  makes me wish that it was still like this back in the US(can't be thanks to Walmart, Publix, etc.) We walked around for awhile, went to "Le Comedie", which is the main square, for a while then headed back.

Anyways, the next day, the market just looked to good to pass up, so I went produce shopping. Here is what I decided to buy. (Pictures of the market to come later)

I made a marinara sauce (from fresh tomatoes, not canned), and added ground sausage to make a bolognese sauce.With all the fresh produce, we also made a salad, with a quick balsamic vinagarette.

We grabbed a couple 7 Euro bottles of wine from the Spanish store across the hotel. This unfamiliar "Jumilla" wine was a very pleasant surprise. It was a little dryer on the start, followed by a smooth red fruit flavor, with the slightest bit of oak/tobacco on the finish. I don't care for a strong oak flavor, but this finish rounded out the wine very nicely, showing its complexity and versatility. As it ends up, we were back for more later that night.