Eat Like Ushi

Brunch on Cozumel meant a short walk to the local market. We arrived later in the day and so a lot of the stalls had closed already. We didn't realise there were more counter-type dining places inside the market and instead opted for the outdoor (undercover luckily from the sun) area. I had read Cuzamil was a decent place to try. Strangely their menu is Filipino also. Odd.

- Huevos Motuleños (fried eggs served on a tortilla with red sauce, ham & cheese on top) 70pesos - soft tortilla on top and a really good fried/crisp one on bottom, with some beans, sauce and a few token plantain pieces;
- Quesadillas Vegetarianas (flour tortilla filled with vegetables) 60pesos - as described. A little plain although the shredded crisp green vegetable slices (a kind of cactus I think?) was very good.

Had my first horchata of the trip and it was huge! And delicious. Hot sauce is as they described - hot.

A few other places in the square seemed to have decent looking Mexican only menus. Nonetheless I'm sure the food at all of them is alright. I'd probably try a different place next time for some more traditional local dishes.

During the (now quite long ago) trip to India, the best Indian restaurant in New Delhi was noted to be likely either Indian Accent or Varq (for modern), Dum Pukht or Bukhara (for traditional). All sounded great and in the end I chose Varq (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/varq-delhi-01-2015) and Bukhara (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/bukhara-delhi-01-2015). Indian Accent is actually #60 in The World's Top 50 restaurants for 2019 and #17 in the Asia list.

Fate would have it that several years later Indian Accent would open a London branch in the expensive curry area of Mayfair alongside Gymkhana and others I haven't been able afford yet.

Indian Accent is certainly no cheap one either, but a special occasion meant that the price would have to come second to me getting one long term place off my eating list. Interestingly enough the clientele was unexpectedly Indian for the most part. However there were also some rich obnoxious loud Greek men with their much younger females. The waiter apologised but it's not his fault some people have too much money.

The cocktail Green chilli sour (hari mirch infused tequila, lemon oleo saccharum, mezcal) £13 was perfect. A drink with decent alcohol, smoke, chilli and a bit of tart/tang for balance. Really excellent.

Amuse bouche of a cheese stuffed naan and a delicious shot of spiced pumpkin soup started proceedings.

- Tofu masala, shishito pepper, quinoa puffs £9 - for a first choice I expected a few small expensive bites, but this was a a decent size starter of tofu fried with crisp puff texture for contrast;
- Tadka hamachi, avocado, calcutta chutney £17 - hamachi (he said it was a type of tuna, but it isn't quite) served raw with pieces of pomegranate, avocado (that was too hard and underripe) and some roe. It was actually very delicious;
- Baked sea bass, amritsari masala butter, sweet corn kadhi £25 - a nicely cooked fillet spiced with masala and served on top of kind of textured mash;
- Ghee roast lamb, roomali roti pancakes, chutneys £28 - I expected a roasted joint and ended up with a DIY set of condiments for wraps. There was coriander sauce, a spicy tamarind sauce (that actually tasted more sweet like hoisin), a strong garlic one and a moderately hot green chilli. It was fun compiling it all together and the flavours were good. A hot green chilli was available for the daring;
- Black dairy dal £7.5 - unusually sweet version for what I'm used to and less creamy. Still nice;
- Wild mushroom kulcha, truffle oil drizzle £6.5 - a bread stuffed with mushrooms and with some truffle flavour. Nice but I don't think it went well with the other dishes we ordered;
- 'Aamras', mangoes, cardamom cheese cake, summer berries £11.5 - a beautiful dessert. The cheesecake wasn't as strong in cardamom as I hoped (others could taste it more) and the mango sauce was very nice;
- complimentary Doda barfi treacle tart, vanilla bean ice-cream - a moist sweet warm cake with dotted icecream on top. For our special occasion.

The food is definitely nice, well executed and presented. For the price I do think I would prefer Farzi. Nonetheless I'm happy to have been here.

Wandering around Antwerp at 3pm looking for lunch proved to be a mistake. Croquettenbar was closed on a Monday and Nelly coffee was also having a hiatus, so then went for De Zeven Schaken for some Belgian food. Unfortunately as was the case with many bar/cafes around, they were serving drinks/beer but not food. Between 3-6pm most of the kitchens close all over Belgium the waitress told us. Hmm. That's no good.

After wandering around for 30mins more, we eventually found de Bomma which happened to have tourists and a few Belgian's sitting outside enjoying food. Wonderful.

I haven't previously been much of a fan of Belgian food. Generally it seemed like not as tasty French but with high price tags. Certainly at Grandma's the prices aren't cheap either - mussels vary from €22-24 for example. The stews are a little more reasonable although not cheap. However I am pleased to say they are remarkably good. I haven't had Belgian food this good.

- Grandma's rabbit stew with Steenbrugge beer €17.9 - a thick stew with two rabbit legs cooked beautifully such that the usually prone rabbit wasn't dry. The added mushrooms and onions brought some contrast. The flavours were hearty and deep;
- Beef stew with LeFort beer €17.9 - even deeper was the hops caramelised beef (shin I think) which was remarkably tender also and had a rich slightly burnt (in a good way) flavour. There was lot of meat in there;
- Potato croquettes €3.5 - fried to a perfect crisp thin coating. Really excellent.

I was sad none of the stews came with any vegetables in there, just loads of meat. It was delicious and one could easily feed 2 people with some vegetables or salad on the side. Luckily they do takeaway and the meats served as tomorrow's lunch.

This is the best Belgian food I've had. I doubt I'll ever be back in Antwerp but would happily eat here again armed with knowledge.

Eating at Antwerp after 10pm even on a Saturday is not recommended. So many things are closed. In fact I also learnt a few days later that between 3-6pm is also generally a closed time.

On this rainy evening after arriving, the area surrounding the Antwerp Central station seems to be largely Asian with a huge number of Chinese and Thai places. The ones that weren't closed are called cafes or restaurants, but really they look like bars and probably don't serve much food.

After strolling through what I assume is Chinatown, we came across Zomsa who had a menu and were serving. We discovered the cuisine is Tibetan, and certainly everyone in there was probably of that ethnicity to the point they looked bemused/amused that anyone else happened to be in there. Football was playing in the background and what was probably the family running the place eating their own dinner too.

The menu helpfully had pictures and ordered the Special zomsa thali €6.5 and mokthuk €5.5. You can probably tell from the menu photos and the dish photos that they really look NOTHING alike. The thali didn't have any bread (the waitress said they didn't have any) and instead a huge amount of rice. Also the various little trays of curries (like a thali should) was replaced by one generic meat dish, some vegetables and some pickles with a mildly hot chilli. The lentil soup was good though. The mokthuk was supposed to be momos with soup. The picture had the soup red and spiced but this one was decent broth but without any spice. There was a spicy hot sauce (not sure what chilli but it was really decently hot) although I'm sure it wasn't what made the menu soup colour red.

Overall the food was fine. It did seem a little deceiving from the pictures. But the staff were nice at least. And they were open...

Tulum is apparently now a gourmet capital particularly within the growing region of Cancun and the Yucatan. Reportedly the queues are long for this interesting place which is a 3-wall open kitchen with night security to ensure nothing untoward happens. We braced ourself for a potential wait outside in the July humidity and heat, armed with mosquito repellant. After a 120 peso trip there, we were pleasantly surprised to walk straight in to a table for 2 right in the middle of the action.

It's a beautiful atmosphere eating outside and eventually under the stars. The daily menus are written on boards that are carried around to tables. As the evening settles in, the staff periodically wave around hot coals with incense (I presume) to smoke away the mosquitoes (I also presume) and add some atmosphere and scent. The kitchen is open (obviously) and large flames can be seen from afar.

They are also known for cocktails (240p each) with a few mezcal offers, although I have to admit I was disappointed by these relatively expensive offerings. Mine was Ixchel (mezcal, pineapple, xtabentin - aniseed liquor, lime) but had barely had a smoke. A tequila cocktail Lechuguilla de Jackfruit (tequila blanco, jackfruit, lime) had no jackfruit flavour. Oh well. At least the food is good.

- Gambas Mayas 370p - prawns were outstanding with 4 whole and 1 little headless one underneath. They were grilled perfectly and rich in flavour with crisp edible shells. The sauce was delicious and supposedly made from peanut, pineapple and olive oil sauce (tasted like hoisin). Really spicy chilli salsa underneath;
- Ceviche Yucatan 325p - grouper with a perfect ingredient balance of salty, sweet, tangy lime and a bit of chilli;
- Filete de Pargo - Fish cooked skilfully. Soft and char. Salad quite Thai with basil
- Costillas de Agave 480p - I was tempted by fish or octopus, but ended up with a stack of pork ribs deboned. There was a lot of meat with a sweet agave coating.
- Betabel 140p - flamed beetroots were hot and soft. Skin salted and thinly crisp.

It was easily the most expensive meal we had in Mexico but also delicious, atmospheric and creative. If I had my way, there would just be less American accents around with some piercing the air...

A series of conveniently located bakeries with delicious looking sweets (I didn't get to try much), excellent and cheap bread, and a salmon baguette I really really enjoyed.

We had to celebrate one night out in St. Petersburg and enjoy the White Nights. Even though the cloudy sky made it much darker than it should be in twilight, the little bit of rain didn't dampen out spirits. The English menu (and the Russian one too I imagine) had lots of famous poets with their inspired drinks and shots on each page. There were some ingredients we'd never heard of (a lot of them actually) and in some odd combinations too.

Watching the all Russian crowd around us, they seem to like the shot with khrenovukha (tastes like wasabi) and topped a salted pickle, and wash it down with the black drink (vodka, orange liqueur, red vermouth, honey syrup, squid ink, bear's garlic sauce and rimmed black salt from Kostroma). 

Strange tastes but at least we felt local for a minute. Some random Russians even cheers-ed us.

On the first day wandering through 32C Moscow, Teremok was a cheap easy meal enroute to the Kremlin. Easy turned out to be not so easy as we discovered the underground tunnels and shopping areas to find it. But time wasn't of the essence, so it was ok.

Seredipidity that Teremok was my last Moscow meal in 2013 (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/teremok-moscow-06-2013) and first (well ok, second) this time around.

The gelatinous crepe was thick with good texture, but the filling is nothing like the pictures. They display it as a roll full of meat. It's actually flat full of sour cream or sauce. Overall alright.

Beef pelmeni were better than vegie ones, which were just potato mash.

I think I'm done with Teremok too (unless extreme circumstances...)

For the final meal in St. Petersburg it was a toss up. I really enjoyed the previous Georgian and Uzbek food, but I really wanted samsas again. I searched for another Uzbek restaurant and came across this local place with samsa mentioned within the 65 Russian (100% of them) Google reviews. It is also open 24h making it perfect for after drinks. I didn't have the stomach space to visit after Orthodox, so this required a dedicated trek there - in the form of Yondex (Uber takeover app in Russia).

This was as local as we ate during the trip. Even the local places before had more decor whereas this was bare tables, an Uzbek family in the corner, and minimal English spoken with none in the menu. There wasn't the luxury of previous places having a photo of each dish with the name. No matter, I had been enjoying these types of experiences recently. And the prices... my goodness. A full meal for 4 for 1260rub.

- Bread 35rub was huge, quite dense and heavy. Smelled sweet but tasted slightly salty. Nice but need to eat with something. We asked for one but they brought us 2. Way too much in the end;
- Samsa lamb 200g 70rub - unforunately this was a more dry baked type than the deliciously rich one I hoped for. Nonetheless it was ok and the filling decent. Still can't compare though;
- Lagman 400g 180rub - noodles handmade were a bit too soft. But the broth was thicker than Uchkuduk with a tomato/beef flavour and soft meat. Good overall and better than previous ones;
- Pilaf 300g 180rub - moist, a bit oily but not too much. Good flavour but not too strong. Nice balance from vegetables, chickpeas. Chunk of tender beef on top. A bit stringly but overall good;
- Mutton kebab 400g 330rub turned out to not be a kebab. It was braised and very soft and tender. Raw ingredients added balance.

I would happily go back, not so much for the samsas, but definitely for the lagman or pilaf.

On the hunt to try Armenian food, I had come across two options. One was Erivan, a nicer looking place near the Alexandrinsky Theatre with more expensive prices and an English menu online. The other was Kilikia with a Russian only website and dishes than spanned a bit further. In the end we went for the cheaper (maybe slightly more local) Kilikia after the good experience at Uchkuduk.

It was nowhere near as local as Uchkuduk, with a local couple of Americans across the room, staff that spoke English, and a menu presented in English. No matter, there were plenty of Russians around and a private function also. 

- Pyurek (Armenian pie homemade style with beef, walnuts & cottage cheese) 300g 280rub - the pie was full of air, with a thin pastry, cheese and mince all of which was nice. It looked huge but due to the air, it wasn't in the end;
- Beans were good and slightly spicy;
- Aveluk (homemade Armenian soup cooked with mountain grass called aveluk or curled dock, with potatoes, onion, garlic & fragrant greengrocery) 250g 260rub - tasty with interesting grass coil (almost like a seaweed);
- Mutton soup with very soft meat, well seasoned soup, and a peppery/jalapeno flavour;
- Pilaf reasonable but slightly mild. Meaty flavour. Wet rather than oily/fatty. Chickpeas. Not bad. Hot chilli on top.
- Tava Kilikia (beef cuts oven-baked with vegetables & spices in tomato sauce) 500g 590rub - they told us in advance that it would take 1h to cook, which is fine. But the slowcooked beef was a bit average with some pieces soft, some not. Nice tomato flavour and peppers, like shakshuka. The acidity from the tomato had been cooked off nicely.

Service had 10% included which was fine. Overall the food was ok. I wouldn't seek out Armenian specifically, but I'd be happy to try it again.