Cooking & Tours, North America

NYC Urban Adventures’ Tenements Tales & Tastes Tour – Great Fun!

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During our recent trip to New York City, Urban Adventures very kindly invited us on their 3-hour Tenements, Tales, and Tastes Tour. We were joined by our friend Nils. I first met Nils more than two decades ago, when he and I were part of a team of 20 young people from Germany who were helping to renovate Manhattan’s oldest synagogue for one month. Nils and I stayed close friends ever since, even though we usually lived far apart, only overlapping for three years in Munich once. (He has also written two guest blogs here and here.)    The tour kicks off at City Hall Park in Downtown Manhattan, reasonably close to Brooklyn Bridge, then meanders through China Town and Little Italy towards East Village and Lower East Side. Our friendly, energetic, knowledgeable guide Bruce greeted everyone upon arrival and made us feel welcome. He didn’t make a fuss about […]

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England, Restaurants

Deep Fall from a Michelin Star: The Terrace, Montagu Arms, New Forest

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We usually do not write about bad experiences, but when we read a couple of weeks ago that the new head chef Matthew Whitfield had just replaced his friend and former mentor, Roux scholar Matthew Tomkinson, at The Terrace at the Montagu Arms, we decided to make an exception. When we visited last summer, we were aware that the restaurant had lost its Michelin star and that no one expected them to gain it back anytime soon. The ratings were still pretty decent and fine dining options in the New Forest are limited. Immediately upon arrival, staff advised us that because of major construction works inside the building, the work in the kitchen was slightly impaired and the menu reduced. During the first half of our stay, we were alone in the large, stuffy, ancient dining hall, during the second half three other couples joined, all well into their late […]

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Fun

Our 2018

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I guess it’s time for the Barbarians’ year end review. 2018 has treated us well. We had more wondrous and wonderful collaborations in New York, Malta, Frankfurt, London, Cambridge, Kent, and our prime weekend destination: the Cotswolds. We met up with some lovely fellow bloggers in person and made friends on social networks. Winter Wonderland Our 2018 started with a few fun days in Vienna. It was our fourth time together in Vienna in winter. In our book there’s no better place to enjoy this time of year than Austria’s glorious capital. We made a point in ordering Viennese schnitzel every time we ate out and our favourite turned out to be Cafe Englander.    Gobbling like a Gourmet We also started shopping for discount deals at Michelin-starred restaurants and on average dined at such culinary temples twice a month, sometimes for less than £20 per person, hardly ever for […]

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Europe, Food, Restaurants

An Amazing Dinner at the Lovely Il-Horza, Valletta

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During our recent visit to the beautiful Knights Templar island of Malta, Charlie Bone, the chef and owner of Il-Horza, invited us to visit his tiny but highly regarded restaurant. We asked the cab driver to drop us off some distance from the venue and enjoyed the short stroll across the pompous squares and through crooked alleyways of Valletta, Malta’s capital. We were offered to choose between the more elegant, slightly more spacious ground floor room, and the more rustic, basic, but very cosy basement, which is just a few steps down the stairs from the entrance. We chose a table in the basement, because we loved the ambience.    After short deliberation, we opted for bone marrow (€9) and the chef’s daily selection of Antipasti (€9) as our starters. As main Ms B chose local fish of the day (sea bream, €23.50), and I couldn’t resist the ribeye of […]

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England, Restaurants

Dinner at The Pig in Brockenhurst – Loved the Atmosphere!

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A few weeks ago, Ms B & I visited The Pig in Brockenhurst. We had heard good things about the venue and were staying nearby for the weekend. From the moment we arrived, the friendly staff made us feel very welcome and we were taken in by the partially rustic but at the same time elegant atmosphere of the stately country home.   After short deliberation we decided to go for hot smoked trout and garden shiso and spiced coley skewers for starters (£3.95 each), and Lymington dressed crab with fries (£19) and whole Cornish bream with spinach and smoked chilli butter (£22) for mains. The starters arrived very quickly and we loved the flavours. Especially the trout rolls were very delicious. We also enjoyed our mains. The sea bream could perhaps have been seasoned a bit stronger and both dishes could have used more side dishes, but no complaints […]

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