A few pics from our Italy Trip

The title of this post is not that accurate, as we didn’t cover the entire gastronomic landscape of Italy in this trip, especially the country side. Yes, it was in the original plan, but a last minute illness caused us to cut down a few precious days from our much awaited trip to the culinary capital of the world. So this post is really about our culinary experiences in Rome and Venice; thankfully these are two cities with some rich and diverse cuisines to offer, more than enough to fill …

Whenever I see photos of beautiful green vegetable gardens on someone’s blog, I start dreaming. I picture a beautiful garden filled with rows and rows of  colorful veggies, lined with fruit trees. There we are, sitting in the middle of the garden sipping our morning coffee, looking at the crops to decide the day’s menu. Then another vision, we are throwing a barbecue party.  Our guests are sitting in the shade of the mango trees, sipping fresh mojitos made of course with mint and lime from our garden. I am …

I am so behind on blogging that I never finished my Las Vegas restaurant trilogy from the first week of June!  I left the best for last; now after almost two months my memory is a little dicey! Same is the case with so many Seattle restaurants in my drafts, but those I can go back and refresh my memory any time I want.   With so many more Vegas restaurants remaining in our must-try list, a Las Vegas repeat is going to take a while. So I am just going …

Leavenworth – a charming town in WA where we spent a relaxing July 4th weekend. A beautiful house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by Pear orchards and the stunning Wenatchee river in the backyard; lots and lots of food, drinks and games… it was truly the perfect weekend! Inspired by the resemblance of its countryside to Bavarian Germany, Leavenworth was remodeled as a Bavarian village in the 1960s. The town center is beautiful with its quaint Bavarian architecture, but sorry, I didn’t take any pictures of the buildings on …

Siv and I are major Iron Chef fans – one of the very few TV programs we watch together.  One of the Iron chefs we really love to watch is Bobby Flay, the main reason being his love towards using bold flavors. He is not afraid to experiment with a little heat, his favorite cooking ingredients being different varieties of chili peppers! So we were looking forward to trying out Mesa Grill, the Las Vegas version of Bobby Flay’s flagship restaurant in NYC. We only got to have lunch there, …

Since this was our anniversary trip to Vegas, we were all ready to check off as many restaurants as we can from our Las Vegas wish list. Michael Mina was right up there on top of the list, as we missed the opportunity in San Francisco last year.  Michael Mina’s SF restaurant has got two Michelin stars and the Vegas restaurant has one star in addition to the countless awards and accolades his different restaurants have received. With so much fanfare, needless to say the expectation was sky high, but …

Kerala is known as God’s own country, for good reason. The luscious stretches of green paddy fields and plantations, serene beaches, beautiful hill stations, pristine waterfalls, tranquil backwaters and exotic wildlife all within just a couple of hours of driving distance from the other makes this beautiful state one of the most sought after tourist destinations of the world! Add the Ayurvedic spas, exotic cuisine and the equable climate, Kerala is truly a tourist’s paradise.   
No trip to Kerala will be complete without a cruise through the stretches of …

Here it is, the post I have been promising to write for about two weeks now. I finally got around to sorting through all the pictures, a lot of them unusable, especially the ones that were taken after a few glasses of Sangria. But I do have quite a lot, to give you some idea about the diverse cuisine that we didn’t know much about before this trip, except for everyone’s favorite Spanish food -Tapas.

This is the last part of my travel posts. Yes, I know I still have to write about the food. But wanted to get this series over with before I get into the food post. Barcelona was the last and best part of our vacation. We spent five nights in this charming, lively city- a place where I could actually imagine settling down at.
Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia province, which has its own language. They sell T-shirts here that declares- “You’re not in Spain, You’re in Catalunya!” The city …

Toledo is a medieval city in central Spain, an hour South of Madrid. This used to be the capital of Spain before Madrid, and there is so much history to this beautiful city, it is definitely worth a visit. We did a day trip from Madrid, but if you want to do this right, you might want to stay overnight and see the city by the night.
Toledo’s history is an interesting mix of Christian, Moorish and Jewish heritages and is lined with renaissance churches, synagogues and mosques.  The entire city …

No, I am not back home yet. We are still in Spain, but I wanted to start documenting our trip when it is all still fresh in my mind. We are not out and about sightseeing all the time, there is a lot of relaxation time built into the itinerary, and what is more relaxing than blogging, right? There is nothing but Spanish channels on TV.. also you didn’t think I could ignore my blog for long, did you? 
We have been having the greatest time in Spain. I don’t …

As I mentioned in my previous SF post, the highlight of our San Francisco trip was the dinner at Gary Danko, a Michelin rated restaurant, which just happened to be a block away from our hotel. Our reservation was at a different place, Michael Mina, which was a small drive away. When I called up Gary Danko for reservation (they were completely booked on both nights we were there), they had told me about the walk-in bar, so we decided to just give it a try, before driving to Michael …

This was my first ever trip to San Francisco, but it definitely won’t be the last. You know how after a vacation you feel like taking another vacation to get over the exhaustion? Well, this one was not like that at all, if I can call a barely three day trip a vacation! This trip was totally relaxing for the mind! I felt so refreshed after the trip, totally rejuvenating – retail therapy really works.
We literally spent almost all the time at Union Square, a shopper’s paradise!  Zara is my favorite shop, and …

Finally, I have sorted through tons and tons of photos, uploaded to smugmug, and am ready to write about the trip. As I mentioned before, the trip was my birthday surprise, but since Siv knows me too well, he knows that I need to do my shopping and do my own packing before any trip, he didn’t want to keep it a surprise till the day we left. So he told me two weeks in advance, plenty of time for me to buy stuff . Thanks baby!
The flight
Our flight …

I was just sorting through the Puerto Vallarta pictures today and came across the pictures from my birthday dinner at Cafe de Artistes, I had to write about this place and the special night I had before I get around to writing a trip report.
For dinner on my birthday, Siv had made reservations at the Cocina de Autor, the fine dining area at the world famous restaurant Cafe des Artistes owned by the award winning chef Thierry Blouet. Truly, the best restaurant I have ever been to! I think this …