Cut up three to four scallions and a few chicken breasts. Throw the white part of the scallions into a wok or a similar kind of pan, with a bit of oil. Heat them up on medium until they look ready (that’s usually when they look slightly translucent).

Meanwhile throw your cut up chicken breasts into a bowl with copious amounts of corn starch and mix it up until they’re well covered. That’ll make sure your chicken bits get a good crunch but keep their juice. You’ll want that! Throw em into your pan or wok (with a bit more of that oil). Let them brown for a while, the starch will make sure you can really add some heat without loosing the moistness.

When you feel your chicken bits are brown enough (the scallions will by now be pretty dark, but have added quite some flavour to your chicken already), add soy sauce and hoisin sauce to taste. Stir it up and let it all simmer some more.

Throw some noodles into boiling water and while your noodles are cooking, add the the green parts (commonly also called “leaves”) of your scallions into the mix. Stir it all up at medium heat. Once the noodles are done, throw them in too, add a bit of sesame oil and a few more squirts of the hoisin sauce. AND THAT’S IT!

Enjoy!

Tomato soup on a red table.

It was an apt environment too. During a four day trip to the splendid city of London, we ended up strolling past the Real Food market, which camps every weekend at the Southbank Centre.

Originally in the mood for fish ‘n chips, I opted for the half lobster instead, simply because it looked delicious in its red shell, cut open and ready to eat even for a novice like me.

We got our plastic plates and moved away from the market a bit and that’s when, with a plastic fork, I had my first lobster. It was good. It was really, really good. Buttery smooth meat, with a slight lemon and garlic taste. The only thing missing was the other half.

Cheesy Spaetzle. Now, you may not be familiar with this specialty from Germany, Austria and, I think, Switzerland, but it’s something you might want to try. These eggy things, sometimes in the form of miniature dumplings or strings, are not only used as a side-dish, but also, mostly in combination with mature kinds of cheese, enjoyed as a main course.

When we climbed the mountains of eastern Tyrol to have a look at the Umbalfälle (a collection of watery falls making their way down from one of the numerous glaciers there) we of course had to replace all the calories we lost in the steep climb with plenty of goodness (and by steep climb I actually mean a leisurely stroll up a gravelly road).

At a place called the Pebell Alm, we sat down, had a beer and I enjoyed Spaetzle with cheese. They came with roasted onions and chives on top. Needless to say, lost calories were replenished and then some. I would have liked to lay down for a nap, but I wanted to spare my girlfriend the embarrassment. And also, I didn’t want to be a pebell without a cause. Get it? Pebell? Ah, well, whatever.

Next time: Pizza in Bozen, the town of the Iceman.

So, here’s a Caesar Salad with some shrimps, seen and eaten at Vienna’s Einstein restaurant.

It was surpsingly pleasing.

A couple of weeks ago, just when spring started to make way for summer, the girlfriend and I went to the Heurigen Martin Sepp in Grinzing, a most picturesque part of Vienna, famous for its number of Heuriger. It’s located at the foot of one of Vienna’s hills, the Kahlenberg (translated this means Kahlen Mountain, but coming from a part of Austria where they have actual mountains, I simply can’t call it anythings else than a hill).

Zum Martin Sepp is rather popular and like many others which enjoy a certain popularity it tends to cater a bit to the touristy crowd. Nevertheless, their wine is grand and their food is very solid, especially if you like it rich and greasy (what sane person doesn’t?). What you see above is their Heurigenpfanne, which is sausages, a grilled chicken leg, pork roast, a big dumpling, lentils and sauerkraut.

So next time you feel like drinking white in copious amounts (we did), accompanied by traditional, gut busting portions of food, go there. Just make sure you order their house wine and not any of their special ones, otherwise it might get a tad expensive.

It also features a patio during summer, so it’s definitely a place to go for either full-fledged dinners or a drink after work (their wine-cellar is well-stocked too).

Marvel below at an image of Zwiebelrostbraten.

It works like this: heat half a litre of milk, then add two tsp. of sugar and four tsp. of semolina. Semolina, despite its funky name, is something you can buy at every grocery store. Sugar, not as exotically named but still one hell of a great ingredient, too.

Bring it to a boil, but don’t forget to stir while doing so. You wouldn’t want your milk to burn. Once it’s started boiling, very drastically reduce heat, until it’s on a very, very, very low boil. Stir and wait for about five to ten minutes, until it’s thick but not too thick. If I were hard-pressed I’d say: make sure it’s somewhere between thick and too thick.

Pour it into a bowl, sprinkle it with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon and you’re done. This is literally the easiest pudding ever, but it tastes like a thick slice of heaven. Pudding-heaven, that is.

Cut the onion in half, place it in a large, heated pot, face down, until it’s dark. Very dark. Then add rinsed beef, bones and copious amounts of cold water. Bring it to a boil, in the course of which you’ll want to skim the brown froth collecting at the top. When no froth is collecting anymore, add the carrots, celery and some peppercorns. Then let this thing boil at low heat for a while. And by while I mean about three to four hours. If you’re like me, you can also add a couple of soup cubes. Just to make sure, you know.

Half an hour before serving, add leek and parsley, remove the bones, cut the beef in easy pieces and throw it back in. Add whatever  you want for substance (I use Vermicelli), sprinkle with fresh chives when serving.

And that, my friends, is it.

I went there for work, but of course visited my delightful sister as well, who, with an uncanny sense for what constitutes deliciousness in the eyes of this glutton, led me to a few interesting eateries.

Let’s start with that ham sandwich at Homemade, a small café in East Dulwich, where ham is cut in exactly the kind of way I prefer (and the way most Brits do, too): big, fat chunks.

It’s a nice place, not exactly expensive, and it does actually taste quite homemade (their bread is most agreeable). If you want to read a more thorough and undoubtedly more eloquent review of the place, have a look at this article on Eats Dulwich (ha, clever!)

Next up was Ping Pong in Soho, an in my eyes rather oddly named, upscale chain of Chinese restaurants. According to some sources on the internet, their service is rather shit, but that wasn’t the impression I had. Except, maybe for the fact that they accidentally served seafood in a vegetarian Dim Sum. Ooops. Fortunately, my sister, who is of the vegetarian conviction, is not so in any religious way. But it’s a mistake which would have others scream in outrage and possibly sue Ping Pong’s pants off (my sister did neither, even though I’d have enjoyed the spectacle of the first scenario, I think). Anyway, to drink I had a Goji berry drink, which was filled to the brim with vitamins, fruit and mint. I think. It also looked pretty.

I’m still not sure what Goji berries are, and whether what swam on top actually was them or maybe just something that fell off a tray. It did however taste most exotic and delicious.

For food we had a selection of their dim sum. I am no big expert on dim sum, but I liked what I had. There was one with big leafs wrapped around it, which I tried to eat just like that, thinking they couldn’t possibly expect me to unwrap this with sticks.

Turns out they did. I kept trying to remove the stringy bits of leaf for the better part of an hour. Next time I’ll know.  The place is not exactly inexpensive, but it won’t ruin you either if you go there from time to time. Which I think you should, especially if you’re not a vegetarian.

I also had a large bowl of fruit at Le Pain Quotidien at the Southbank Centre. I opted against their ham&eggs, because I remembered from my last visit that their ham was a bit too salty. And I think I had had my fair share of ham on that trip already.

On my way out of London I dined at Giraffe, right inside Heathrow’s Terminal 1. I don’t usually like to have sit-down dinners at airports, but I was sort of coerced into it by fellow travellers. What a happy coincidence that was, because the Grilled Minute Rump Steak Sandwich I had was really quite excellent. I still don’t like sit-down dinners at airports, but I definitely like the Giraffe. Maybe they do take-aways too.

Finally, I also included in above gallery an image of a scotch egg. Because I just love this perverse but utterly succulent combination of meat, bread-crumbs and egg. No visit to the the Isle is complete without having at least one. If you ever find a place in Vienna that sells them, do tell me.