Babymoon? Austin and Houston

So, Mike and I will no longer be DINKS (dual income, no kids) in a bit.  That means that we will not be taking our annual excursions to foreign countries. We're okay with that, and know that we were extremely fortunate to travel to Australia (2005), Italy (2009), France and London (2010), and Spain (2011), as well as to other countries on our own.
If you count when the baby was in my belly, the baby has already traveled to Spain, San Francisco, Hawaii, Boston, and Michigan. Pretty crazy! She'll be a world traveler!

For our last hurrah or "babymoon" as they call it, we decided to take a weekend trip to Austin and Houston.
Baby's been great and has not caused me any morning sickness, major food aversions, or disrupted my taste buds.  This means that I can enjoy most foods and it means that our Austin/Houston trip was filled with a lot of food activities.

We started the weekend off with Round Rock donuts.  We've blogged about these donuts in the past, and could not pass them up on our trip to Austin. We then headed to the heart of Austin to participate in a food tour. I had bought some Groupon coupons for an Austin food tour, so we paid $30 each for a tour that normally cost $65! (We have a lot of pictures from the food tour, so that will be a separate post).

Morning bun. This or a cross between a crossaint and cinnamon roll baked in a muffin tin.

Tamago Yoko-Hybrid okonomiyaki

We then drove to Houston. We've always heard that Houston has the best Asian food. Equipped with a list of good restaurants from friends, we ate shave ice and Chinese food.

Houston

We then ended the trip by checking out the NASA Space Center (we had to do something non-food related).

Then drove to the Blue Bell Factory in Brenham, TX.  Mike and I have always talked about going on this tour, but have never been able to time the trip.  People recommend that since Houston is hot and humid for most a huge portion of the year, it's best to visit the city between October and May.  The Blue Bell tour is not offered on the weekends and on holidays, so we could never time our trip for three-day weekends.

Boston,MA~Viva Mi Arepa

On my last stint in Boston in March, I decided to venture off into a small suburb in Massachusetts to check out a Venezuelan hole-in-the-wall restaurant. When I happen to have some spare time to venture off, I usually search for eating places on Yelp.com.  I stumbled across Viva Mi Arepa, read the reviews and decided to check it out. 

The counter staff was really friendly and helped me make my selections.  I knew that I wanted an arepa (which could be ordered grilled or fried).  I asked if the grilled or fried arepa was better and the lady responded with, "They both have a unique flavor, but fried is good."
 "Fried it is!"
While I waited for my order a couple of people stopped in and ordered beans and rice.  I contemplated purchasing a plate of beans and rice, but thought it would be wasteful to order all that food.

The arepa does not look like much, but it was made to order and was delicious! An arepa is basically a deep-fried corn cake that can be sliced in half and filled with a meat, cheese, fruit, or vegetable filling.  The outside of the arepa is like a crunchy corn bread/shell with a hint of sweetness.

See all that chicken filling? Yum! The arepa came with this garlic cilantro sauce was just the right mix of bright green notes and creaminess.  I did not finish the arepa in one sitting and even 45 minutes later-the arepa still still tasted good!
Unfortunately, I now have arepas stuck in my head and have been trying to seek out restaurants in Dallas that serve arepas, gorditas, sopes, or pupusas. (Yes, I know, those foods are all not the same even though Wikipedia classifies these fried corn/masa products in the same category).   I haven't been able to find a restaurant that comes close to what I ate in Massachusetts and I've checked out a few.  I'm afraid that Mike thinks that I have become obsessed with these arepas!

Cheese empanada-Deep-fried sweet corn dough surrounding cheese.  This was delicious too, but not as good as the arepa that I am constantly thinking about.

Viva Mi Arepa
5197 Washington St
West Roxbury, MA 02132
(617) 323-7844

Barcelona Restaurants~La Mar

One of our friends visited Spain back in June 2011, and recommended "La Mar," a seafood restaurant to us.  It was located between a bunch of restaurants and it was one of the few non-touristy places that did not have a staff member beckoning us to come in.  (FYI-The lack of someone trying to encourage us to dine at a restaurant is always a good sign that the restaurant might be good). 

Fried Calamari. Look at all those baby squid!

For those of you who have dined with me, I love fried calamari. All my co-workers who I have travelled with know that if calamari is on the list of appetizers, I'll usually order a plate.  These calamari were a bit different from the typical calamari we eat back in the States. These were tiny squid instead of squid rings. They kind of reminded me of the fried squid sold from the Rada's Piroshki on Fort Street Mall back in Hawaii. 

Seafood Paella. We figured that we should order paella at least once in Spain.  This restaurant serves a non-traditional paella without the saffron.  The two-person portion was huge and Mike and I were unable to finish all that rice!

This is my plate! The chef brought the paella pan to the table and portioned it out for us. 

Hazelnut Three Ways~

This dessert reminds me of the soy three ways dessert that I had at Morimoto's last year.  Hazelnuts were the feature of this dessert. Caramelized hazelnuts, a hazelnut cake, paste, gelato, and a mousse.  It was interesting concept, but not something I would rave about.

Barcelona, Spain~Boqueria Market Food

There was a huge crowd surrounding one of the made-to-order seafood food stands, so like lemmings, we decided to plop ourselves down on some seats and order some food.  We've found that when in doubt on restaurant choices-look for a busy restaurant. That usually means the food is good.  If the cooked food also smells delicious, that's also a plus.  When you are at said restaurant, look to see what most people are ordering-if it looks good, order that. 

So, with all our tips in mind, we settled on a plate of garlic fried razor clams.  Why? 1)A lot of people were ordering them; 2) The cooked garlic smell was calling my name. 

Yum yum yum. Mike let me eat most of it because I really like clams and we haven't seen razor clams on a lot of menus in the US.

Here's the little kitchen/food stand. It was such a tiny area, but these chefs cranked through tons of plates of food.

Pimentos de padron-Fried mini peppers

Tako (Octopus)

Mike ate this sausage kebab from another food stand. He enjoyed this while walking through the Boqueria.

Barcelona, Spain~ Boqueria Market

One of my favorite places in Barcelona was the Boqueria Market in the La Rambla area. This crowded open food market is filled with rows and rows of vendors selling all kinds of fresh food. There was a seafood section, fruit and vegetable section, meat section with various bakeries, food stands (think crepes, sit-down cook-to-order places, deli-type), and cheese vendors interspersed  between the sections.  I enjoyed looking at all the fresh food and buying unusual looking items. 

Preserved meats

Fresh figs!

Dried mushrooms and vegetables.

Beautiful heirloom tomatoes!

All different parts of animals were sold at this market.  Look brains!

I was grossed out when I saw all the goat heads staring at me, but I had to take a picture of it. 

I'm not sure what fruit this is, but I thought it looked interesting. Does anyone know what this is?

I had to take a picture of the assortment of gummy candies on display. 

Look at the assortment of fruit. I bought that tray of poha berries (ground cherries).

Freshly squeezed fruit juices! Look how colorful and pretty the juices look. I had to try one! I had a strawberry guava and Mike had a strawberry coconut.

Seville~Taberna de Alabardero

I really wanted to enjoy Taberna de Alabardero. It was supposed to be one of the fancy lunch meals in Spain that was a reasonable price of 17 Euros for a three course lunch.  Taberna de Alabardero is a fancy hotel in Seville and there are several restaurants that you can dine in.  The 3-course special is at the "cooking school" restaurant located in the hotel.  The online reviews and Rick Steves guidebook highly recommended this place, so I hyped this restaurant up in my mind.

Tripe Soup. The flavor was pretty good. We did not know it was tripe at the time, and I thought that the soup had a lot of fat globules in it.

Tripe. We were not sure what this was, so I took a picture of it and then did a google image search on soups served in Spain. 

Radish Ravioli filled with a tomato, feta, pesto filling.

Fish with cream sauce. The fish wasn't bad. It wasn't very good either and I did not finish it.  

Pork Tenderloin. It was tough and chewy. Mike thought that the meat was previously cooked and then reheated for our service.

Apple Tart. This dessert tasted like it was a couple of days old.

Chocolate Souffle with Orange Cream Sauce. The cake was a bit dry, but the flavors were good.

Boo.  We would not recommend seeking out this restaurant in Seville. We were extremely disappointed with the taste and flavor of the food.  We thought that maybe our palates were not familar with Spanish flavors, but after enjoying other restaurants, we think that maybe the restaurant was having an off day. 

Taberna de Alabardero
C/O Zaragoza
Sevilla, Spain

Seville, Spain~Cheap Bar Snacks

Mike and I found this "Bodega Santa Cruz" through Trip Advisor. We were trying to find a tapas bar to eat at prior to watching a Flamenco show and searched the area that we would be in. It was this small bustling little bar with an attentive staff and tasty home-cooked tapas.

I forgot what the name of this dish was, but it was a thick chunky vegetable stew.

"Huevos Fritas" (Fried Eggs???). Mike wanted to try a Spain speciality which included fried eggs, but was surprised when he received a plate of fried bull testicles.  Apparently "Huevos Fritas" is a slang term for testicles. Mike manned up and attempted to eat those spongy veined banana-looking things.  I tried a bite and then stopped. 

"Revuelto de verduras y Gambas." It's basically scrambled eggs with vegetables and shrimp.  It was a simple hearty dish.

"Anchoas Fritas" (Fried Anchovies).  This tapa was another dish that I wanted to try in Spain.  I expected to really enjoy this dish, but I think that the anchovies were bigger than what I had imagined, so I could not eat the bones and had to be careful when I chewed.

Paella. Mike really enjoyed this paella. I thought that this is what a authentic home-cooked paella would taste like. 

Spain Cheap Eats (This is why Mike liked Spain)

This post will attempt to provide you all an insight into how many sandwiches and cups of beer Mike ate and drank in Spain. 

Cerveceria 100 Monoditos.  I think the translation is Beer and Mini Sandwich Store.  Mike thought that this chain restaurant was probably Spain's equivalent to McDonald's. The menu includes over 100 types of small sandwiches ranging from 1-2.5 EurosThere were a couple of days that we would start our morning off at 10am and Mike would order a 1Euro (~$1.60 US) Beer and a couple of monoditos for about 1 Euro each for breakfast.  The quality was average, but I think Mike enjoyed this place even more because of the prices. 

Then Mike fell in love with Museo del Jamon, another cheap sandwich and beer place.

These stores were all over the place in Spain and all of them were always crowded. You had to slowly inch your way to the front counter so that you could order and have standing bar space. 

Free slices of chorizo sausage. 

Croissant with jamon serrano.

Chorizo on french bread.  Mike thought that the chorizo in Spain was much better than chorizo he has eaten in the US. 

And why did Mike like this place?  A mug of beer was 0.80 Euros and most of the sandwiches were 1 euro.  Did you have to ask?