Munich and then to Italy

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We flew to Munich which is my husband's hometown. So I had been to Munich a few times before but Munich in summer is something magical. One of the magical things happening in Munich summer is Beergarden! 

There are so many beergardens all around Munich and everybody is enjoying beer and food in beergarden. Even on a weekday night, there are many people enjoying nice summer night. 

One thing I like about beergarden is that you can also bring your own food from home. You can not bring your own drink but you can bring your own food. Many people bring whatever they like to eat but enjoy them with cold beer. Some also bring table cloth and make it at home. I think Germans are very good at enjoying nature without spending too much money. 

Here is a beergarden before dark. 

And here is another after dark. 

I just love the atmosphere of beergarden. Everybody happy. Enjoying summer night with your friends or family. 

Of course, one of the things I like about beergarden is the food! They have a lot of different food there also. Mostly typical Bavarian food, I think. They have grilled chicken, they have grilled fish, pretzel and of course, sausages. 

If you ever go to Munich in summer, please go to beergarden. I am sure you will like it. (Some beergarden also show some soccer games on a big screen :-)

Friends invited us over for a brunch one day. You can not see it in the picture but they prepared White sausage breakfast which is very typical Bavarian. My husband love this white sausage and he always say that he has to have white sausage at least once while he is in Munich. I like it also with special sweet mustard they have. And, what do you drink with your breakfast? Of course! Beer!!!!

It is so nice to have friends who take time for you when they are also busy. They even dressed up in traditional Bavarian outfit for us! What a welcome! 

My sister flew in to Munich from Japan to go to Italy with us. Since she works in Japan, it is very difficult for her to take long vacations (long vacation mean one week in Japan..). There were some holiday in Japan so she combined with her vacation days and came to join us for a week. 

We took my sister to (guess what?) beergarden (of course!)that night and early next morning, we were off to Italy! 

I think it takes about 5 hours from Munich to Venice if you drive on a freeway but on the way to Italy, we decided to take some road in the Alps. It was a beautiful ride but very curvy. The view in the Alps always reminds me of this cartoon called "Heidi" which I used to watch when I was a little. 

We stopped many places on the way and after we passed the Italian border, we decided to have lunch at this mountain resort. 

My first meal in Italy was Spaghetti Alla Carbonara. Maybe I expected too much but it was OK. I thought pasta will be just mind-blowing in Italy so I was a bit disappointed. But maybe because this was kind of touristic place... Anyhow, we head to Venice after the lunch!

We arrived at the hotel which was near the airport. There were not too many things around the airport so we drove a little bit to find a restaurant for dinner. We found this little downtown and found a restaurant. This was not a touristic place so all the people around us seems like local people. 

One of the dish I wanted to have in Italy was "grilled scampi". I found it in the menu so I ordered them. It did not make me full but it tasted so good. I could have eaten one more plate of this but I didn't. 

My husband had a pizza with olives. 

My sister had pasta with squid ink which tasted good but it did not come out good in the picture so I will not put up the picture here. 

Next day, we went to this island called "Murano" which is famous for their glass. It was cute little island with water canal all over the island. The transportation for the people who live here were boat or walk. My sister love glass art so she was so happy to get some cute glass stuff there. 

And we had lunch in this island. I had Spaghetti Vongole. It was awesome. As you can see in the picture. 

My husband had Fried Calamari. 

My sister had pasta with shrimp and arugula. 

All of them were really good but the Fried Calamari was just perfect. 

There was a Italian family behind us having lunch also. What I realized was that they had appetizer, then pasta and some kind of meat for main dish! I couldn't believe it but Italians can eat well! I wanted to try other stuff but I couldn't eat anymore after just one bowl of pasta... 

After Murano, we took the ferry to Venice. As it get closer, I can see the beautiful city on the horizon and felt like I was in a different era. It is just breath taking view. 

Then, we arrived and we were just so surprised how many people were on that island! I mean, I did not expect this much of people. There were people everywhere. We were welcomed in Venice with so many fellow tourists. I will tell you about Venice more tomorrow. 

An island in Northern Germany

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Next stop in Germany was an island in Northern Germany where my parents in laws are having vacation. I have so many great pictures form this island and it is very difficult to pick a few. This island is a beautiful island with lots of nature. It seems like there are many people coming here for summer vacation. 

My parents in law rented a tandem for me and my husband. This was my first time riding tandem and at first, I was bit scared but soon enough, I get used to it and was able to enjoy the ride. Plus, I was rinding in the back so I didn't have to steer. 

Four of us went to a bike tour around the island, visiting a small towns near by. The weather was great and there were so much natures around. As you can see in the pictures, there are many sheep just hanging around. They were just eating grass, minding their own business. 

I love the color combination of blue sky, green grass and white sheep. It was very peaceful. I really really enjoyed my tandem ride. 

During the bike ride, we saw so many lady bugs. I didn't know what happened but it was just crazy amount of lady bugs. I like lady bugs so it was great but many of them were on the floor which sometimes you accidentally have to step on. It might be a bit difficult to see on the picture but it just lady bugs everywhere. If you look closely, you see lady bugs in the grass and this goes on for miles. I believe that this bring us so many luck for so many years! 

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I love this yellow mushroom called pfifferlinge (Chanterelle in English). Since my mother in law knows that I love this mushroom, she got two big container full of mushroom for me! They looked so beautiful and I was so happy to see this. 

She taught me how to make a special German dish using this mushroom. It is bread dumpling and chanterelle cream sauce. It was so good and I would love to make this here in the U.S. also. The only problem is that it is not easy to get chanterelle. Maybe I can use other kind of mushroom for this. 

Anyway, my mother in law is a excellent cook. She is also great with decoration and presentation of the table. I learned a lot of great dishes from her and those recipes are one of my treasures. I think I am a good cook but I am not so good at presentation yet. I would like to be better at presentation and also at table decoration. Great looking table and food makes the food taster even better! Like this coffee she made. Doesn't it makes you smile?

During the stay in this island, my parents in law took us to this restaurant called "Alt Wyk". This is my mother in law's favorite restaurant and she was happy to be able to bring us there and share her joy with us. I was so excited about this restaurant also because my mother in law told me a lot about this restaurant and since she is a great cook herself, if she likes it, it must be an excellent restaurant. 

The restaurant was like a small house. It is separated into a small rooms and very cozy and cute but the waiters were very professional and the service was excellent. The chef is an owner of this restaurant and he create different menu every month using seasonal ingredients. 

First, I had Carpaccio. I liked how it had flowers in the middle. It tasted so good also. Perfect seasoning and perfect presentation. 

Then, I had pasta with summer truffles. Look at the amount of truffle he put on top of the pasta! I was so surprised and excited about the amount of truffle because I love them! The smell of truffle was just heavenly and the sauce was creamy and it was just amazing. 

As a main, I had monk fish. Here, he had two different kind of monkish preparation. One was with pineapple sauce which was surprisingly good together. The other one was panko breaded monk fish with some sushi rice and wasabi sauce. I really liked this wasabi sauce because wasabi can be too spicy and sometimes you can not really enjoy the flavor of wasabi. This one was not spicy and you can really enjoy the taste of wasabi with the monk fish. I wonder what is in that sauce. 

The dessert was a combination of 5 different mini dessert. My favorite was raspberry sorbet. It tasted very intense and refreshing. 

I really really liked this restaurant. It is not just the taste of the food but also the presentation which was so beautiful. In Japan, we often say that you eat your food first with your eyes. So you first enjoy the food with your eyes and then you enjoy the taste. I was able to do that in this restaurant. This chef is an artist. I think he really want his food look pretty as well as the taste.

Luckily, I was able to talk to the chef for a little bit after the dinner. He was very friendly and was happy to hear that I liked his food. His food was very inspirational. After I had his food, I really wanted to make my food presentation skill better.  

Well, we really enjoyed the stay in this island. It was very relaxing and lots of great food! I appreciate everything my parents in law did for us to make this vacation fun and tasty! 

After the island, we flew to Munich and then went to Italy. Tomorrow I will write about Munich and maybe a little bit of Italy. 

Germany trip 1

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So, I am back in NY and I would like to share my Europe trip with you as I have promised. First, We visited Germany. We went to see one of our friends who lives outside Frankfurt. It was about 45mins from Frankfurt and this place was very peaceful and nice. 

This friend is one of my husband friend from college but I have met her many times already so she is also my friend. I hadn't seen her for a while so it was really nice to see her and talk about a lot of things. I don't know why but I felt that we connected more than before. We went for a coffee and then we went to dinner at Lebanese restaurant. I don't think I ever had Lebanese food but it was something little bit similar to the Azerbaijan food which I had in NY.

This Lebanese restaurant was small but modern looking and the waitress were very nice and friendly. First we had some dolma and some dips with bread. 

My main course was something spectacular which I don't remember its name.... (I should have written down , I know) It is like a hamburger patty made out of lamb and beef (I think). And it comes with eggplant (my favorite) and sauteed onion and peppers. It was Divine. I loved it. I would love to re-create this at home. I just need to find a name of this dish so I can search for the recipe. 

Also, this potato dish was great. It was like garlic fried potatoes with herbs. I would also like to re-create this at home but I don't know when I should add garlic and herbs in this dish. This is another research project. 

After the dinner, we moved to the lounge area of the restaurant and had good tea. It came with a pot which looks like something from Arabian night. I like this atmosphere. It is very relaxing and the tea was awesome. 

We had a great time and we hope to see her and her husband again sometime soon! 

After that, we went to hamburg. To my surprise, Hamburg was a beautiful city. For some reason, I did not have any good image of Hamburg but it was actually very beautiful with lots of water around the city. 

We went harbor and also a boat ride on the lake. There were so many beautiful houses around the lake. We also went to a park which had a Japanese garden in it. Hamburg somehow remind me of little bit of Stockholm. Both of them are beautiful cities with lots of water around it. 

In hamburg, we went to this nice restaurant which has a small square inside the building. I had Whitefish with mustered cream sauce. This was really good! I don't know what kind of fish it was but it was fresh and excellent. This is also something I would like to try at home.

 

After Hamburg, we head to north. Since I had never been to Denmark, we crossed border of Denmark and came back. Now, I can say that I went to Denmark, right? 

Then we had dinner at this nice town called Flensburg which is in Germany but close to the border of Denmark. Flensburg was also a nice cute little city. We had German Beer and some German food there. 

My husband ordered some sausages and I ordered baked potato with pfifferlinge which I uploaded a picture on Aug 3 . Pfifferlinge is a kind of mushroom which seems popular in Germany. I love this mushroom so every time I have a chance to eat them, I try to eat them. I don't see them often in the U.S. and even if I do, it is quite expensive so I tried to eat as much pfifferlinge as possible while I was in Germany. 

When we left Hamburg, I saw a ladybug and took this picture. I had no idea that we will be welcomed by thousand of ladybugs a few days later. (Please read tomorrow's post for details)

Well, this was a first few days of my Germany trip. After this, we went to a northern island of Germany and spent a few days with my parents in laws. I have lots of great pictures from this island. I will tell you tomorrow what I did and what I ate in this beautiful island of Germany.