Conflict Kitchen: A Different Kind of Socially Conscious Eatery

I usually reserve the "eating out," and "flashback friday"-like posts to busy school times and family vacation times. However Conflict Kitchen, a little take-out eatery I visited in Pittsburgh, PA was just too cool for me to not write a post about it. Located along literally some of the most pristine outdoor open-space grass I have ever seen, Conflict Kitchen is a food stand that changes its menu every 6 months. Each half year, the eatery picks a nation that the US is currently in political conflict with and serves food from only that nation. Not only does the menu change up, but the entire stand goes through a makeover, with its decor and colors to match the nation, and a new name. Currently, its Venezuela. 

Now, there are plenty of socially conscious, politically active food eateries, restaurants, and general dining choices around the world. The ones I've visited, though, tend to circle around concepts like, sustainability, or locally sourced, organic, grass-fed, ect ect. You know, the things you think about when you think of a Californian hipster. Sometimes there's an occasional coffee shop that'll donate x percentage of profits to a local charity. They might even make a contest out of it if they're super into it! All of that rambling is to basically emphasize that none of these restaurants literally remake themselves twice a year to achieve their social activism ~twist~.

My Pabellon Criolos

Of course, as a food blog, I should probably comment on the food. I tried to get a picture of the menu (below), but the glare from the picture perfect park really makes it a bit hard to read. The menu for Venezuela was largely small eateries, like plantains, empanadas, arepas, and then two "large plates." I was super hungry, so I ordered the pabellon criolos, which basically consisted of really delicious shredded beef, beans, rice, and some perfectly sweet and not too soft, not too firm plantains. There were so many other things I wanted to try though too-like the arepas! If only I wasn't traveling alone that day. But kudos to an excellent combination of good food, good design, and really creative concept. Not that they needed or wanted my approval.

I will be the first to admit, sadly, that I don't think I actually learned a whole lot about Venezuela by visiting Conflict Kitchen. The eatery does do exhibitions and presentations with the public, but they seem to be few and far in between. There's a lot of small, cutesy, interesting stories about Venezuela on the website. However, I get the impression some basic background on the on-going conflict would be important, which I sadly lack. Then again, as a food eatery that serves ethnic cuisine, perhaps the point isn't to educate the eaters on the political puzzle, but rather to share the social and cultural experiences of each of the nations it features in a rather literal way.

Anyways, I'll end this post with a quote from an  NPR article that I think nicely summarizes Conflict Kitchen (written back in 2012 when the nation was Iran and I guess they were serving wraps):

"The eatery is an experimental public art project — and the medium is the sandwich wrap."

New York Food Trip: Festivals and Doctors

I'm not one for restaurant or location posts, but sometimes its good to experiment. And given that it is 4th of July and that I have nothing red, white, and blue to show for it, I figure I'd go for the next closest America-related post I have--the great American city of New York. A few weeks ago I went on a day trip to NYC with one of my friends here for essentially the purpose of eating as much delicious food as possible. Thank goodness that New York involves so much walking or we would have been much too stuffed to get through the entire day.

Around lunch time, we went to a food festival that is going on near Broadway by Macy's during the entire summer. It's called Broadway Bites, and as the pictures I've taken suggest, it's everything you want a cutesy pop-up food festival to be. There were foods ranging from meatball sandwiches to bimimbap to beer ice cream to several stands selling exotic lemonade flavors.

We ended up all sharing a Margherita pizza from a stand that was baked the pizzas a wood-fire oven as seen below. The pizza while fun to watch cook was probably average at best. Then again, I'm the type of person who loves an abundance of oozing cheese and overflowing toppings on my pizza.

Afterwards, we headed up towards Central Park to go to the plaza and try some of Lady M's mille crepes cakes. Lets just say that after trying an ~authentic~ crepe cake, that I am whole-heartedly embarrassed to have even posted my biscoff crepe cake, let alone think that my crepes were good or that my cake was photo-worthy. Maybe my crepes could have passed an unsuspecting taster when served alone and stuffed with whipped cream, but in a cake, my crepes were so much fatter and rubbery than Lady M's. My crepes were like an oversized bumbling hippo in a swamp of ganache while Lady M's were like a water strider skipping across a delicate glass of champagne. That being said, I clearly have a lot of work cut out for me in the future even if I never attain Lady M's levels of perfection. Though I will say that towards the last 5 bites, the sugar was really starting to get to me.

We then took a walking break to meander some shops and walk off our sugar highs before taking the subway down to Brooklyn. Our main goal was to visit a Doctor Who bar, which I'll mention below, but we also stopped by a korean taco shop afterwards called Kimchi Grill for dinner. My picture is a bit blurry, but I got a Korean BBQ Beef Short Rib, Korean Fried Chicken, and Pomegranate and Roasted Veggie taco. All were excellent and out of this world in flavor, crunch, and spice (in a good way). I'm already trying to figure out a way for me to have these tacos again.

Finally, some pictures of the Waystation, the Doctor Who themed bar we visited. Yes, we went to Brooklyn just to visit a Doctor Who theme bar. But when a bar has a bathroom shaped like a phone booth slash time and space machine, how can you say no? Heck, I couldn't even say no to posting this awesome but blurry picture of the bathroom from the exterior.

Also, this is and airports with novelty toilets are probably the only instances I would ever take pictures inside a bathroom. You can ask me about that one time I took a picture of a toilet in Chicago O'Hare if you want. Or actually, I'll just tell you so your mind doesn't wander. It was the first time I saw the toilets that have that ring of plastic around the seat that automatically rotates so you have a "clean" seat everytime. Even though the amount of bacteria on a toilet seat is relatively minimal compared to like the door handle of a bathroom and even your kitchen counter. Gross right?

Extra cool points if you understand any of the above Doctor Who references. If not, Happy 4th of July everyone! May your day be filled with lots of red, white, and blue themed foods.

Ba Chi Canteen: Pork Belly Canteen Indeed

side note: all store fronts in NOLA are the cutest

As its namesake suggests, Ba Chi Canteen is a Vietnamese restaurant in New Orleans, LA that specializes in pork belly. Well, that and a whole host of generally delicious asian, fusion-y food. Can you tell that I don't actually know anything about food writing? Self deprecation aside, this was the very first place we went to eat after landing in New Orleans during "Dead Week," aka post-finals, pre-senior week, pre-pre-commencement (cue tears). While others may have sought warm beaches and cheap booze, we flew out in search of good eats, jazz, and swamps for our post-college relaxation break. It would be amusing if I counted the number of times the phrases "hashtag NOLA hashtag notmyrtle" were repeated every time we ate or saw something spectacular.

apologies for the slight blur. sometimes I get too excited about actually consuming food for nonsense like focusing

One of our friends who came with us was in New Orleans the previous summer and is planning on moving back there post-graduation, so she made sure to give us all the deets on the best food places, bars, second-hand stores, and all the other things that revolve around a 20-year-old's life. I'm so glad we had her around or else we probably would have never made it to Ba Chi Canteen, let alone started our trip there with a dish of kimchi fries. To be honest, I still am mildly confused about exactly what kimchi is, though a quick google search would easily remedy that. Regardless, asides from animal style-fries a la In-N-Out, I'm not really a huge fries person (years of conditioning to hate potatoes from the mother). But if you lather then with gooey cheese and savory meats and pickled things, even I'm a convert.

And honestly, just look at these pork belly spring rolls. My NOLA friend really hyped these up for us, and while normally hype just leads to disappointment, these definitely lived up to the hype. Not only are they just really gorgeous and wrapped SO well (in general, translucent things are fascinating), but the rich, warm fat of the pork belly mixed with peanut sauce and crunchy vegetables inside made each bite a perfect mix of flavors and textures.

For our entree at this meal, we all essentially ordered the same thing--a pork/pork belly banh mi. In retrospect, these sandwiches were really too huge and could have easily been shared. I mean just look at that terrible bread:filling ratio. However, French bread rolls are classic it seems when it comes to banh mi slash po boys down South, so maybe I need to expand my tolerance level of different bread:filling ratios (you've already heard me rant about the egg cheese sandwich ratio anyways, so I'll spare the details). Regardless, even with the abnormal bread:filling ratio, the banh mi was really quite divine. When I was young, I was certain that I hated pickled vegetables, but as this sandwich reinforced, pickled vegetables are a great way to reinforce or add flavor it seems. I only managed to get through half of a sandwich, and proceeded to pick out the fillings of the second half, which may have been slightly blasphemous. But if you don't deconstruct your food, or play with it even just a little, are you really eating for yourself? Or just the convention of how your should be eating things?

NOLA: Beignets x 3

Since my last post three weeks ago, I have survived finals, received surprisingly good grades from said finals, and have someone ended up in New Orleans for a "vacation" that continues to be trumped by the difficulty of trying to do things on an iPhone. Such as write this post. Granted the fact I can even do things like write this post is a testament to the versatility that is the modern iPhone. But just because you can, doesn't mean it's comfortable. I mean my poor PhD electrical engineer big wig dad took a year to transition to a iPhone and still hates it.

Anyways, New Orleans. The land of loose vacation morals surrounded by streets lined with churches and anti-abortion buses. It's a very confusing and very sad at the same time. Clearly life moves on as it must, but driving by the Superdome today just made me think about all the death and general lack of humanity that occurred in that building and the neighboring streets and hospital a mere 6ish years ago (I had to edit in that link later because the iPhone app doesn't do text urls, but it's a great article that will make you wrestle with ethical questions that, if you are lucky, will never have to answer in reality).

It was strange to see a place that was filled with so much death rebuilt as a place defining of rowdy sports and aggressive Americanism, and yet what else could better signal the strength of a surviving city? Heck, San Francisco had it's worst earthquake decades ago with plenty of deaths, but it's not like we set aside locations of tragedy as permanent memorials out of both a physical and emotional necessity to move forward and away.

But back to food. This is actually about the world famous Cafe du Monde beignets. Yes those fluffy fried pieces of dough worth more than one trip per vacation, let alone day. There's something to be said about tearing your fingers through a piping hot piece of fried dough and inducing mild burns caked with a thick layer of powdered sugar to boot. Sure it's just another piece of fried dough, but it's a damn delicious piece of dough that does what all fried dough does in all countries--bring people together.

*the fun point of this entire 3x series of beignet photos is that they were all taken on separate trips to Cafe Du Monde.

An Egg Sandwich Tale

This is again that part of the year where I don't really bake or cook because I'm occupied with eating in the dining halls and thinking about how happy I am to have gotten a 40/75 on an exam (only 2 points below average! hell yes!). 

So instead, we have another long rambling food ode. This time, on the more savory side. This story is rather a star-crossed tale if you believe in the mildly endearing, alumni donation campaign better known as the Harvard-Yale rivalry. While my family is currently solidly in the dark blue camp of things (I mean, come on, dark blue is just such a swoon worthy color), there was once a period of time a few years back where we may have become a split H-Y household. My sister stood balanced between these two schools. One with a strong undergraduate community filled with student organizations and passions teetering at the edge of overpopulation and catastrophe, the other with the best damn egg sandwiches ever. Ok, so technically Crema Cafe, the location of said best egg sandwiches is not actually at Harvard, but Harvard square is approximately the same thing. Just with more tourists.

Egg sandwiches are a classic at any point in your life, but even more so during your college years. Late night snack, morning hangover "cure" (the eggs may help a little but thats about it), and you've basically covered the two most important meals for a college student. Unfortunately, the go-to place for egg and cheese sandwiches over here is no longer a place I can visit due to a they-don't-pay-their-workers kerfluffle. Nevertheless, even if those egg sandwiches were made by paid workers, they still wouldn't be as good.
The perfect egg sandwich must not only consist of bread, eggs, and cheese at a minimum, but also must combine said pieces in the appropriate ratio. Each component must also stand alone as an edible individual food. This means, perfectly toasted english muffin, fluffy eggs so light and perfectly shaped you'd think a special mold was needed to make then (which is true), sharp white cheddar cheese that cuts through your sandwich like a long, lost friend. And in this particular case, a perfect slice of tomato that doesn't get awkwardly pulled out in its entirety on your first bite.

There are few things quite as lovely as a perfect english muffin. No, those thomas english muffins are not the perfect english muffins. I don't have much experience with english muffins to be quite frank, but I want all my future english muffins to be like the ones from Crema. So flipping light and soft, with such a deliciously crispy outer layer. The perfect exterior for the perfect toasting--not too mushy, not too crumbly. Combined with my endless love for quality cheese and my immense appreciation for fluffy eggs, well, lets just say I would gladly accept warm egg sandwiches as payment in lieu of cash.
I may be a bulldog/yalie/whatever half endearing, half pretentious name you'd like to use today, but when it comes to egg sandwich loyalties, you'll see me up north in a square surrounded by crimson.

Dining in Kauai: Family Vacation

I think I told myself too many times that I need to indulge in food while on vacation this year. Sorry, did I say too many? I meant just enough times for the perfect vacation balance of just a hint too much ice cream everyday and glorious seafood (or should I say presidential?).

First up, some amazing pit...baked?...roasted?...cooked? yes, cooked, pig from a luau we went to. For half a second I considered, hm, maybe I shouldn't put this picture up first, or put a warning on it. But then I remembered my philosophy on food. If you can't handle knowing where it came from, then you shouldn't eat it. Things have to die and they sometimes die in unhappy ways to feed you. That aside, its a local pig (d'awww), so you can feel good about that wrt to your carbon footprint.

check out that pig. and those banana leaves soaking in pig juices. yum.

 For Christmas dinner, we went to Hukikau Lanai, restaurant on the eastern side of the island, literally less than 0.5 miles from one of the hotels we stayed at. It was definitely the best restaurant we ate at while in Kauai, for a very reasonable price given that everything is more expensive in Hawaii. They had a special Christmas menu going on, but I think most of the stuff we ordered probably shows up on their normal menu as well, like the nachos and delicious free bread!

Ahi Poke Nachos with fried wonton "chips"

Look at that bread. Just spend a good minute staring at it.

Mixed Grill Entree. Just a lot of delicious local seafood in a thai chili coconut sauce.

Macademia Nut Tart with Cinnamon Ice Cream for dessert!

Obviously, I did not just eat ice cream on Christmas. One of our favorite ice cream destinations on the island was a place called Lappert's, a Hawaiian ice cream chain. They had a huge variety of different "Hawaiian flavors" like Mauna Kea's Secret, Kauai Pie, Kona Coffee, Big Island Inspiration, Heavenly Hana ect ect. My favorite was Tutu's Anniversary, which was coconut ice cream mixed with raspberry and passion fruit sorbet. It was so delicious that on our last (5th!) trip to the place on our way to the airport, my siblings and I ALL got it (see image on the left below). Of course, the other classic tropical vacationing cold treat is shaved ice, seen in the image on the right below. It's surprising how delicious plain old ice and sugar syrups can be.

   

Maybe I'll look into a slideshow format for long picture posts like this in the future. But if you made it this far, here's some pictures of Kauai itself, not just its food. Bwahaha.

What the Elle: An excuse for swanky bars

This year, a few friends and I decided to start a Young Adult book club, aptly named What the Elle because we live in entryway L this year, so Elle = L get it? Plus, we're all girls, so Elle is the appropriate pronoun. Last year, we spent a dinner time reminiscing about all the great young adult books we read and decided to start a club to read them together as a way to re-live our childhood and to relax. As John Green aptly said on tumblr, adults are just so...boring.
Although we were supposed to read Young Adult books, we ended up starting with The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowling. While going out to a nice bar like Ordinary was not part of the original plan, we also at some point decided we wanted to become regulars, so we moved meetings to Ordinary which was one of the best ideas we've had thus far (and its only been like, a month!).
We planned to meet each time we finished a "part" of the book, which had 4 total. The first time, we ordered this fantastic cheesy bread sticks platter with marinara sauce. Of course, it came with the classic pickles all Caseus grilled cheese come with. Caseus being a cheese shop/restaurant knows have to make some pretty quality cheese bread. If this isn't incentive to make Ordinary your favorite bar, wait till you see the interior (I swear I don't get paid to swoon about them).

Sorry for a- instagram filter and b- bad lighting

 After this first time, we ended up not meeting till we all finished the book thanks to some speed demon reading skillz one of us had who finished the book about 3 days after our first meeting. We made a promise to return to Ordinary after we finished the book to order yards (beer in those tall glasses if you're clueless about drinks like I am). We all must have been really motivated by those yards because we actually all finished in about 3-4 weeks, which is pretty impressive for a "fun read" given the fact that I stopped fun reading when I got into college for a combination of sad reasons. For my celebratory yard, I ordered a pumpkin beer named a pretty cliched name like "pumpkin bumpkin" or "pumpin bumpin" or something to that effect.

I would first like to just note that yards aren't actually a yard long. Unless yards are much shorter than meters, these glasses were really not a yard long. Although to be quite honest, I don't think I could have finished one that was actually a yard-long. The one "faux-yard" took some quality time and discussion about Rowling's new crime novel and some reflection on if Robin from The Cuckoo's Calling was more like Hermoine or Ginny (I still stand by my assertion that she's more like Ginny). The beer itself was pretty good, though not in that omg, pumpkin makes it 20x better than all other beers. I'm not really sure what aspect of pumpkin I was supposed to taste--the squash part? Then again, I'm not really a beer connoisseur either, though I feel like the Belgian might hardcore judge a pumpkin beer.

New York Musical Trip: Surprise Street Fair

Over the third weekend in September, a friend and I went on a day trip to New York to see the musical Once, which was currently starring one of our favorite Doctor Who stars Arthur Darvill. On Doctor Who, he plays a pretty adorable character named Rory whose undying devotion and dry, self-deprecating humor gives me unrealistic expectation about the real world. You know, because the whole space and time traveling thing doesn't already. He essentially played the exact same character in the musical--minus the space, time traveling, plus some singing.

I know this is a food blog, but the musical was really really quite beautiful. It's based off of the movie, which I have never seen but if its anything like the musical it'll be great. One of my favorite things about the musical was that they used a fixed set which was this gorgeous old fashioned looking bar (they actually sold drinks from it!). For each setting/scene they would move around chairs and change the lighting to make a bedroom, a recording studio, ect ect. It was a story about love and how love pushes our lives forward (and a little backwards), so the use of a static set as a sort of reference and grounding point really resonated (I think). We all want that great adventure, that great love in our lives, and yet there is always something static we can return to. Seriously, go see it if you have a chance.

Musical aside, we had some time to kill before the musical started so given my obsession with food, I was given the job of finding us a restaurant near Times Square to get lunch. I almost resorted to Yelp before I remembered that Serious Eats is located in NY and surely they must have a best-of NY guide, which, yup, they did. After picking out Piccolo Cafe, we--this being New York--ran into a street fair along I think 8th Avenue and decided to stop and browse for a while. Along with the repeating pattern of stalls that were selling 5 for $20 scarves, pocket watches, ect ect, there was a number of repeating stalls selling some really tantalizing street food such as corn, arepas, smoothies, even fried oreos. We stopped for some corn which was so delicious I failed to stop to snap a picture.

When we finally arrived to Piccolo Cafe, we ordered and sat in the cafe to eat. It was pretty small, but we found some seats by the window and chilled for a while. I got the turkey signature sandwich, which I didn't think would be particularly special, but it was really quite delicious, filling and for a very reasonable price considering it was New York. Something about the slices of real turkey breast, the slightly toasted yet pillow-soft bread smeared with aioli gave it the perfect combination of flavors. The cafe is apparently known for its egg sandwiches (according to Serious Eats), so I'll have to come back again for those! (yea, for being a food blog, I'm pretty terrible about writing about actual food)

The plain plate made it even more rustic and charming.

We ended up chilling in the cafe for a while people watching. It was super hipster-style decorated with really worn down wood (in that cute way) and faux-newspaper tiled walls. Their music playlist was also pretty great as well, though clearly not hipster enough since Adele was on it.

Also! For those interested in music, here's a video of Arthur Darvill singing Falling Slowly. He's not the best singer in the world, but given that he essentially played Rory in the musical and and sang, I'd have to say, I'd wait a 1000 years for a guy like that.

Food Update: Yes I've Been Eating

In case anyone was wondering, yes I have been eating. Albeit, its been a scattered mix of being lazy and eating out at various places around New Haven. 

Anyways, without further ado, some pictures and rambling comments!

Chicken Arepas from Ay Arepas. My favorite food cart around these parts of town. I forgot HOW much I loved these until I too my first bite into that sweet, cheesy, corn goodness.

Peach Pancakes from The Pantry! I really really wish I could just still live in the fad that is The Pantry, but while these pancakes were good, they weren't trekking-1-mile-worthy-good. The peaches weren't ripe enough, and the batter was a little salty. All in all, tasted very homemade, which is good, but also, I could have done better homemade. Oh well, I'll just stick to Benedict's and cinnamon roll pancakes next time.


A dinner of homemade cheese sticks and a roasted sweet potato. Cheese is a weird thing when melted. It looks so alarmingly sweaty and wrinkly when heated into a gob. Well, a delicious gob.
Mozzarella sticks recipe from Skinny Taste.

Anddddd a mug cake that could actually pass as a mug cake!

Yellow Mug Cake recipe from the book Mug Cakes: 100 Speedy Microwave Treats to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth. This was in one of the first preview pages. Needless to say, I will be buying this book at some point in my life. If I was cool and a pro-blogger, this would be an excellent giveaway. But I swear, I will never ever ever ever force you to like a page on Facebook for me. Hell, I won't even make a Facebook page since thats my own personal peeve about the giveaways I never win. That doesn't mean you're off the hook for things like twitter or tumblr though. Bwahahahahaha.

Belgian Beer Collage Round Up

While in Belgium, one is obligated to drink beer. Prior to Belgium, I was really not a huge fan of beer. I could enjoy it in certain contexts, such as while out with my parents. But cheap college beer? Horrifying. While I still don't know what a trappist beer is exactly or the main difference between dark/amber/blond/pale or wheat or whatever (yea, so much for learning from those brewery tours), I do appreciate beer and enjoy it much more now. That being said, maybe I've become spoiled by Belgian beer and will hate any beer I try here.
Below is a sampling of the many beers I had over the course of my 9 weeks in Belgium.

This really makes me look like an alcoholic at first glance, but this was over the span of 9 weeks. There were a number of other beers that I had (probably another 5-10 kinds) that were not photographed since I was a bit haphazard about when I felt like being silly and taking my phone out to photograph at a bar. Also, Kilkenny is technically an irish beer, and Douglas is actually a cider, both of which I had at an irish pub while watching futbol in Belgium. There was some Swedish Cider I had while in London too, but I'm going for the just things I drank in Belgium theme here. Oh I'm going to miss the beer.

Brewery Tours

Like a good Belgium tourist, I did brewery tours last weekend.
Saturday we went to Cantillon Brewery in Brussels. Its one of the last traditional breweries left in the world. They're very proud of their natural fermentation cycle and how they must respect nature and deal with natural fluctuations in yeast/fermentation. As a result, no two batches of beer they brew taste completely the same. Since they also don't use industrial fermenters to speed up the process, it takes at least 18 months, and usually 36 months for the whole fermentation process to happen. The most interesting thing about their brewing process I found was the fact that they ferment their beers in wooden casks, recycled from wineries. Obviously the gas from the fermentation can escape, so this fermentation is only the first stage. They then ferment the beer again in glass bottles to get those bubblies we're all so used to in beers.

Anyways, they're famous for their lambic beer which I'm not sure how it differs from other beers wrt to its brewing (clearly I paid attention to my handout), but its a very sour beer, almost wine-like, and like nothing in the US. The 3 beers I tried there were Lambic, Geuze, and Frambois. The Lambic is, as mentioned, what they're known for, and is a flat beer. Basically, what comes out of the wooden casks I think. Afterwards, the Geuze and Frambois are made with some additional steps. Geuze is a mix of three different beers and is considered the "campagne of beers" or something. And Frambois, is basically the raspberry version of Kriek beers aka cherry beer aka fruit beers. The fruit beer here was SO much better than stuff I've had at bars. The way they make their fruit beers is by literally putting fruit into the beer and by the end of the fermentation process the flavors been imbibed into the beer and the fruit dissolved. Its very clear that its not just some terrible fruit flavoring.

Sunday, we went to basically the polar opposite of Cantillon and went to the Stella Artois brewery in Leuven for a big tour. Minus getting mildly lost on the way there and biking in a flat, the trip was fun, and definitely worth the 8 euros in just free beer alone. Unlike the self-guided Cantillon brewery, the Stella one was led by a tour guide, and we were made to wear bright yellow vests, and told to not walk outside the white lines. We weren't even allowed to take pictures of the control room, where men who have received Master's in brewing worked to oversee the brewing process. Quite different from the traditional brewery where if you screwed up your beer, you wouldn't know till after fermentation.

the crushing of the grains into sugar water 

the industrial fermentation process 

THE BOTTLING LINES 

The best part of the industrial tour was seeing the bottling assembly lines. They package beer in cans, bottles, and kegs, but only the can line was fully visible and in operation. AND IT WAS FASCINATING. It was great fun watching the lines speed up, slow down, look for the cans that had tipped over, or were screwed up and spilled beer all over the place when the machine tried to flip them ect. I wish the other packaging lines were open, but alas.

The tour ended with a tasting of course. We were all served Stella Artois first (the Stella part of their name came in the early 1900s after a Christmas beer they brewed became so wildly popular they decided to brew more). Stella is really not that great compared to the other Belgium beers I've had here, such as Leffe. Leffe is I guess another similarly pils beer (whatever that means....), but tastes better in my opinion. At the end we were also given gift bags with more Stella and Leffe. All in all, definitely worth the 8 euros, and maybeeee worth the pain of biking on a flat.

Food Recap of London

Went to London this weekend to visit a dear college (!) friend and to see the xx perform in a specially curated event call Night + Day that they put on. It was essentially a 1-day music event/festival with fantastic food and cider as well. It was basically what I would like heaven to be. Amazing music in idyllic green British countryside surrounded by amazing food. Ok, I would also like a little more sunshine and maybe some CA dry mountains as well.

At the festival, food consisted of a pork sandwich with apple sauce and rockets. By rockets, they mean arugula. It was delicious of course. The food stand had hogs throughout the day roasting on spits from which they would cut off the pork from. I don't usually eat pork, but when I do, its awesome. Most people were drinking cider at the festival. The cider was delicious and came in several flavors. I had pear as seen above, elderflower and lime, and cloudberry. Elderflower and lime was my favorite I think. They all tasted like fruit juice though and were much lighter than those 8% Belgian beers I've been drinking these past few weeks.

The next day, we walked around and did some tourism things in London. We took a boat ride down the Thames from Westminister to Greenwich so that I could see the adorable town and satisfy the inner astronerd in me and see the prime meridian and stand in UTC time! In the town itself, there is a market (called the Greenwich Market of course) that sold all sorts of artsy, handmade crafts and vintage fare in addition to some fantastic food. For lunch, we got Haloumi and Lamb wraps from the stand that had the longest line, and it was SO worth those 6 pounds. There were obviously dessert stands as well, so I got a Trekking Cookie that won some sort of award (though you could have anything win an award). I love trail mix cookies, or kitchen sink cookies as they're sometimes known. This one didn't have raisins in it either, which made me extra happy. My friend got an ice cream sandwich from them which looked amazing as well!

I had dinner with an elementary school friend who happened to be studying abroad in London. Her parents were also visiting that weekend so we all walked around a bit and had dinner together at this vegan/gluten free friendly casual dining place. I ended up getting a sweet potato falafel box with brown rice and slaw. It reminded me of fresh CA fare and was probably one of the most health-minded meals I've had in a while, which was awesome. I failed to take pictures of this though. Above, are cookies I bought at St. Pancras while waiting for my train back to Brussels when I got hungry for something sweet. These were surprisingly accurate in emulating the "neapolitan" taste. And scent actually.