Latimer: I’ve said this before (a lot!!), but honestly one of the best things about going to a different country is getting to eat their food! And I’m the sort of person who takes photos of the food they eat and Instagrams them – hence this post is photo heavy!
I love Asia food but I wouldn’t have ever said I particularly liked Chinese food. As with most countries, we have Chinese takeaways in Ireland and they’re fine. But having been in China, I don’t think they are making proper Chinese food (I think it’s Westernized to suit our palettes). But, I wish they weren’t, because as it turns out, proper Chinese food is so freckin’ good!
I was asked a lot about the food when I came home – people would grimace, ‘what did you eat?!’ Well, okay, to be honest in Chinese food, they use everything and the food is always fresh (i.e. the fish is alive in the tank then cooked and put on your plate). It’s harsh to look at, but you have to respect that Chinese people know where their food is coming from; we eat the steak and the pork and we don’t think about how it got there.
Weighing the fishAnd here the fish is cooked moments later (it’s called Beer Fish a dish from Yangshuo)
And they have some amazing food markets! The Muslim Quarter in Xi’an was one pretty cool food spot…
Muslim Quarter Xi’anThe yellow stuff is rice cakeThey are making this sticky bar type stuff from peanuts and honey… beating the crap out of it with mallets!A prune, fungus drink… wasn’t nice! 😦Roasted walnutsKitchen in the Muslim QuarterA kitchen in the Muslim QuarterMaking fried wrapsYummy fried wrapsSquid on a stick!
From hotpots to noodles, to taro chips… I ate well in China!
Meet in a bun… sooo good… and spicy cauliflowerNoodles in Xi’an (they’re known for their noodles – this was the only time I had noodles actually! wow)Spicy beefYummy spicy cabbageSweet and sour fish in BeijingDumplings in Xi’anSome seriously spicy hotpot in Chengdu (they have the best hotpots apparently!)Do you see the brains? Yup… I did not try that! ah… ha… nooo…Spicy potato… Love me some spuds!
We stopped off at a local woman’s house for lunch in Yangshuo. This green stuff (a type of lettuce I think?!) was soooo tasty… I could have ate the whole plate!These were homegrown in the above woman’s garden… yummy!Taro chips…. They could give potatoes a run for their money!!I went to a cooking class and this was my end result…. not too bad?!
If you ever go to China know that you are going to eat well!
And to round things off you’ll find some nice drinks too!!
This beers quite nice… and bloody massive – I could hardly hold it for this photo!Strawberry sodacoffee art… how can you drink it now!!More coffee art… so cute!!
Latimer: If there is one thing in life that is the universal response to, well, everything – a piece of good news, bad news or a general break – it has to be tea. A good cup of tea (which must be roughly one out of three cups – I think!), a fine cup of tea, a tasty cup of tea – it must be what dreams taste like.
Dreams, they taste of good tea! At least, our dreams must (I speak for Ridley, hehe, she is like, “Err no, I’ll have you know my dreams taste of chicken! I’ve checked; took a bite out of the last one – chicken!”).
Either way, we adore tea, I mean we really do. It lately seems like we have been visiting tea houses all over the world (well, here and there, now and then!).
For example… Tea in Galway, in the lovely quaint and beautiful Cupán Tae (cup of tea in Irish!)…
And fancy tea in the Ginza district of Tokyo… (we couldn’t stop going on about how expense tea was in Tokyo – seriously to this day we still talk about it! But well, it was sooo nice here though!)
So, really how could we go to Oxford, England in general, and not have a cupan tae? Sure we couldn’t; it was top of the list, high-tea (it was something we dreamed of doing when Legend Unleashed was published – to toast it, we dreamed of high-tea in Oxford!)! We researched this a bit, and decided that The Old Parsonage seemed like the high-tea spot of Oxford.
As the name suggests it is an old parsonage from the 1660s and it’s like walking into a mini-cottage in a forest with twisted, gnarled alien trees with branches that claw at the building.
It’s fairy-tale like; quaint, English, very lovely. The fire burning in the hearth warmed our chilly bones; for whatever reason Ireland and the UK had been experiencing very cold weather and it was raining and snowing in Oxford.
It was perfect weather for a hot cup of tea and some cucumber sambos (sandwiches) (that was a first and they are very tasty!) and scones, with clotted cream (which I never really knew what that was, but it’s got the consistency of butter, but it’s yummy!) and strawberry jam. It was lovely; I had the old parsonage blend of tea and Ridley had old English breakfast tea.
Later that evening we made our way to the famous Eagle and Child pub; this was where the Inklings (a literately discussion group J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis were part of) used to have their Tuesday meetings.
As we sat and tucked into our fish, chips and mushy pea (and more tea!), supper…
…we wondered if there were untold stories, or remnants of half-dreamed characters, hidden in the walls, or in conversations waiting to be had… and as we munched away, we dreamed our own Carwick dreams!
Then we toddled off back to our quarters, wandering the dark cloisters of Hogwarts… no wait, Wonderland… ha, Christ Church College 🙂
Let me in!! Latimer screams…Fine, don’t *sniffle, sobble*..
Carwicky 