Last day in Istanbul

Then, before we knew it, the last day in Istanbul came along.

Hannah and I ventured out to a Turkish bath the morning of my last day in Istanbul and even though Hannah has previously had a bad experience with it, we had a fantastic time. We just felt a bit "dazed" after the thorough cleansing process. I would definitely recommend it to people even if you feel uncomfortable with it when you hear about it. I am not going to lie, I was a little bit shy about it at first, but once I got there, I had a fantastic time and did not want to leave.

Of course after the thorough cleansing comes the craving to do your body harm. So, I ordered myself a beer at Khorasani, to which we returned to after our delicious lunch a couple of days ago. 

For apps, we went for the divine hummus and we also ordered a red pepper dip. Both were delicious although I have to say that the hummus was just out of this world. As was to be expected.

For my main dish, I got a lamb stew with tomatoes and some bread. (surprise surprise). It was quite delicious although I think the pistachio kebabs were even better. 

With this meal still fresh on my palate, I had to say goodbye to this city that I absolutely fell in love with. It was unlike any other city that I have been to, I am not sure when I will come back to visit it, but I had a great time. Great food and great company. What else could you ask for?

Day 3 in Istanbul

If you have been checking my blog periodically, thank you. I am sorry that I have been so terrible at updating it. I would like to thank summer Organic Chemistry for giving me a proper excuse for not having updated my blog for the past... forever.

Anyway, to pick up where I have left off, here is Day 3 in Istanbul.

We thought it would be silly to skip on the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar so we decided to dedicate an entire day to it. Oh, and of course an afternoon cooking class! So, in between our bazaar explorations, we stopped by a random restaurant for lunch and it turned out to be better than expected! I ordered this eggplant dish with lamb in between and some roasted tomatoes and peppers as you can see in the picture below, and it was actually quite delicious! It also didn't hurt that the restaurant was air conditioned!

Then, we headed over to our cooking class at Cooking Alaturka. It was absolutely an amazing experience and I think we had our best meal in Istanbul there.

Us just prepping some tomaters.

Delicious eggplants roasting away.

And here are our final results:

Red Lentil Bulgur Soup

Type of green beans stewed and zucchini pancakes on the side

Lamb stew with roasted eggplant on the bottom

Dried figs stuffed with walnuts! 

And of course some turkish coffee and fig flavored liquor to wrap up our epic meal!

Not only was the food fantastic, but we also had a great meal and we got to meet some awesome people as well!

Day 2 in Istanbul

And then, I went over to Istanbul. I have been dying to go to Istanbul since... I was in 6th grade. When my parents went to Istanbul with a bunch of their friends, they thought that the city was quite interesting and the food divine. So, since I am much closer to Istanbul from Bologna than from Seoul or worse, Boston, I thought I would take the chance to head over to Istanbul with a couple of buds from Brown!

On the first day that we arrived (we all arrived from different parts of Europe, which I thought was fun on its one-- Alex from Oxford, and Hannah from Barcelona). Then, we went to a restaurant recommended by Fodor's guide for dinner but it was pretty uneventful in terms of the food, so I am just going to go jump into the lunch on the second day.

We went over to Khorasani for lunch, and we had a great selection of food!

For shared appetizers, we had hummus:

And lentil balls!

The hummus had quite an intense chickpea flavor and it wasn't too strongly seasoned, but just enough which accentuated the delicate taste of the hummus. It was more pasty than smooth, but it wasn't too granular for it to be uncomfortable. Basically, really good hummus. The lentil balls were a lot more zestier than expected and it was basically eating a ball-form of lentil patty. It was also delicious. A lot more flavorful than expected as well.


We are not sure what the bread pictured underneath is called but we called it the WHALE BREAD. Cuz it looks like a whale. 

For my main dish, I had pistachio-lamb kebabs. It was extremely greasy (and by that, I mean delicious) and the chunks of pistachios in them were also unbelievably good. The light salad on the side definitely helped as well.

My fellow vegetarian friends went for the vegetable cous cous. It was more like risotto than cous cous in that it was creamier and the cous cous was a lot more full-bodied than the cous cous that we were expecting but the flavor was so spot on! I may or may not have stolen quite a few scoops of this dish from them.

The typical touristy picture!!!

For dinner, we went over to the Asian side of Istanbul because: a. There was a great restaurant recommendation on that coast and b. Alex has never set food in Asia so we thought that this would be a very appropriate adventure for us to take on!


The restaurant is called "Çiya" and we went and got an appetizer buffet, where they weigh the food on your plate for you to get a price tag. I got babaganoush, hummus, stuffed grapeleaves, etc etc. They were all quite flavorful. The hummus had a stronger sesame taste than the hummus that we had in Khorasani. Personally, I preferred the one in Khorasani, but this one wasn't bad at all.

We also got a plate of falafel for us to share. They were quite moist on the inside and delicious. The yogurt sauce (If I remember correctly..) was also quite good!

Then for the main dish, I got this stew pictured below with lamb in it. I think the stew sauce was incredible.

The yogurt, green veggie lamb concoction pictured below was also quite good although I could not eat a lot of it in a row because of its tart nature.

Overall, the trip over to the Asian side of Istanbul was quite interesting. It was definitely less touristy, the food a little different, and definitely different scenery.

Caseificio in Modena!

We visited a "caseificio" in Modena, where they make Parmegiano Reggiano, before the series of earthquakes took place. Apparently the pargegiano industry got hit pretty hard by the earthquakes and I hope that they will be able to recover from this natural disaster soon..

It was not only a beautiful place, but we also learned so much about their dedication to the cows and also to the process of making parmegiano.

After the tour of the caseificio, a few of us headed over to il Fantino, a restaurant that we wanted to go to last time when we were in Modena for a wine tasting, but couldn't because the kitchen was closed for lunch before we arrived..


Here are a few pictures of what we had:

The pasta dish below is made up of prosciuto and porcini mushrooms!

Allie and I also shared roasted potatoes and chicken with balsamic vinegar!

...and of course the limoncello to help us with our digestion. Just our digestion..

Excuse my absence..

Hello friends! 


It is quite incredible how fast the time has passed by and tomorrow is my last full day here in Bologna.. So, I am going to say that I will not be working on my blog tomorrow nor would I have time to update it during my short vacation to Palermo, Sicily and Roma. I will try to update my blog as often as possible to show you the rest of my semester of study abroad when I go back home on June 10th.


A presto!
Cathy

Day 7: Capri!

Then, from Napoli we were finally able to take a ferry to Capri on our second to last day in the South!

Here are a couple of pictures of the scenery!

After lying about on the beach reading "Heat," we headed over to "Barbarossa" to grab a quick lunch.


Of course, I had to order Caprese salad on Capri island!

For my primo, I ordered a combo--I chose the fresh pasta with seafood on the right of the plate and also a lemon creamed based risotto with shrimp in them. The risotto was a bit too creamy for my taste, but it was still quite good.

Then after a full day in Capri, we went back to Napoli for one last night. The morning of the day we were leaving, we went back to Da Michele and had pizza once again! I also got a margherita to go and ate a part of it on the train ride back to Bologna.

What a great trip!

Day 6: Sorrento/Amalfi

We tried to go to Capri again but the waves were too strong once again.. Since we were awake super early to try to take the ferry, we decided to just take a bus to Sorrento. We decides that we didn't like Sorrento quite as much as the other places that we visited on our trip.. It might have to do with the fact that a. we were exhausted b. there were sooo many people c. we just wanted to lie on the beach all day but there wasn't really a beach.. We walked all the way to one in the neighboring town but then the beach was closed... 

Anyhoodles, we dined at "La Basilica," which was recommended on the website of Fodors.

The food was quite delicious! 

I had a seafood salad platter with those delicious intense lemon dressing like drops. Pictured below.

And since I was in Sorrento, I only thought it would be appropriate for me to order Gnocchi!

We also had to go to Gelateria Primavera, which is apparently a very famous gelato place. It was CRAZY packed in there. To be honest, I don't remember the flavors too well, which probably means that I didn't think it was unbelievable? But I could be completely wrong...

Just a view of Sorrento!

Then for our last meal in Amalfi, we went back to Il Tari'! We didn't take any chances this time. We made a reservation the night before to assure us a table.


Because this was our first weekday, I was able to order their dinner menu for an incredible price. It was unbelievable.


Mussel with linguini pictured below as my primo.

Fried seafood platter pictured below. MMMMM!

A side dish of a simple salad.

The waiter recognized us by the second night, so we were able to grab a picture with him on our last night!

Day 5: Positano/Praiano/Amalfi!

... And then the tour of the Amalfi coast truly began!

We were planning on going to Capri this day but then the waves were too rough, so we just took the bus to head over to Positano instead.

Even though it started as a cloudy day, the weather got much better throughout, which made the water look even more beautiful! 

For lunch, we just walked into a restaurant that looked quite good from the outside and also had a reasonable price. I went for a seafood risotto that was not only huge in serving size, but there was absolutely no fishy taste. I was also quite impressed with the wide selection of seafood represented in this risotto.

As we were walking around in search for a bathroom, we came upon "La Zagara," a very famous bakery in Positano. At first, we had no idea that this place was so good. The first time we went in, we got a little savory snack. Then, we went back in for dessert after lunch. The Delizia al Limone pictured below was absolutely divine. It was creamy, subtly sweet, true to its lemon nature. Also, the small wild strawberry on top just pushed it over the edge. We may or may not have ventured in one more time before we headed out from Positano..

Since the weather cleared up, we got out our towel and sat on the beach for a bit while the sun lasted.

Then, we headed over to Praiano, a nearby town to meet up with Samantha's relatives. They haven't kept in touch throughout but it was quite touching how they were able to just reminisce together. The family was also extremely nice to me and Allie. We got to taste homemade pastiera!

...Then, we went back to Il Tari'! I ordered the same appetizer because I was so in love with it the first time I got there. The fried seaweed ball was not my favorite so I asked them if they could switch it with something and the waiter was kind enough to substitute those with calamari!! I definitely appreciated that!

For the main dish, I went for a pasta dish once again and it was their house specialty seafood pasta with, of course, their fresh pasta. The pasta doesn't look like anything special, but the sauce was so delicious that despite the fact that I was stuffed, I wiped all the sauce off the plate with bread.

Day 4 Part 2: Il Tari' in Amalfi

(Before we even begin, I gulped as soon as I saw the pictures..)

Then, we found our favorite restaurant on this trip. Thanks to Fodor's guide online, I found Il Tari', which has the great "cent mark" next to it in terms of affordability and after our tasting, has a flavor that is THE BEST. (I probably could have worded that more eloquently but I really am getting too hungry just looking at the photos so I am not even going to bother).

This was the first time where I had fried whole anchovies. They would have been great on their own but to make it even better, it was stuffed with provolone cheese... The other fried things were absolutely fantastic as well, but I could not get over how delicious and juicy the anchovies were!

I also read that the freshly made pasta here is unbelievable so I got the vongole with it. This vongole in particular was served with zucchini and bits of pecorino. I thought it was quite interesting that it was served with pecorino because usually seafood dishes aren't served with cheese.. Hrmmm... (Actually, I have received a couple of horrified looks from Italians when I asked if I can add it to my seafood risotto...)

You will soon realize.. that we made it back to Il Tari' as much as possible during our stay in Atrani.. Thank god our base camp was so close to Amalfi!