In my last post, I talked about all the things we saw and did in London for the first four days of our trip. After taking in the capital, we hopped in the car and began our UK road trip...
Recap: UK Road Trip
Recap: A Few Days in London
We recently returned from a twelve-day tour of the UK, and it sure was a whirlwind trip! Now that I’ve had some time to process my photos and get back to work, I’m eager to share all the great things we did. In order to make my recap easier to navigate, I’ve divided it up into two parts. This first part will cover all the sights we saw and food we ate during our five days in London, which we used as our starting and ending point for the trip...
Flavor and Spice at Restaurant Vinayaga
I've been spending a lot of time this summer going to Stuttgart's various festivals and enjoying picnicking in the warm weather out in the Schlosspark. As a result, I've felt that my restaurant adventures have fallen to the wayside. It was with this feeling that I decided I had to tackle something on our growing "Restaurants to Try" list and chose Restaurant Vinayaga (recommended to me by Kaffee und Kuchen)...
Dining Out at Restaurant Ganesha
After the delicious tasting plate we had at the Stuttgart Street Food Market, we decided to check out Restaurant Ganesha to see if their other dishes were just as good. Now as a disclaimer, we actually went here about a month ago, and I've been holding off on a blog post because I hadn't quite figured out what to say. I think I'm finally ready for a summary.
Restaurant Ganesha has three locations -- one in the West, the East, and in Fellbach. We tried the Stuttgart-West location on Rotebühlstraße as it was closest to the friends we were meeting for dinner. My first impression of the restaurant was that it looks stunning. They have a gorgeous entranceway and interior with warm colors, large murals, and lots of plants. Because the weather was so lovely, we chose to sit on the patio out back and were quickly seated despite not having a reservation. This didn't seem to be a problem as the restaurant wasn't very busy, even though it was a Saturday night around 7 pm...
Take Two at the Stuttgart Street Food Market
Even though the last street food market turned into a bit of a fiasco, I entered the dates for their second event in my calendar as I rarely pass up a food-focused event. The second market took place this past weekend at Turlenstraße 2 in the Mitte. Right away the location was much better. Instead of the winding path through the train tracks that I took to get to the first market, this one was located right across the street from the new Milaneo mall. The signage was also much better with large, bright green announcements along the entrance.
The venue was a bit like the bottom level of a parking garage with all of the food trucks and stands set up inside. There was a desk set up at the entrance where they required a 2€ entrance fee. When we arrived on the first night, Friday, we noticed a group of Mexican dancers by the entrance putting on a show. It was a very festive atmosphere, although much quieter than the first market. By comparison, there was hardly anyone there. The lines to most of the food stands were only three or four people long at most, and there were plenty of picnic tables set up around the venue for people to stop and eat. There were about 30 different stands set up in total, and we ended up going to the market on both Friday and Saturday night so that we could sample as much as possible...
Bringing the Restaurant Home with Laxmy
On nights when we come home and neither one of us feels like cooking, there are a few restaurants from which we can order delivery and still be sure to get a good meal. One of those places is Angelo's Pizza Taxi, but pizza can get old after a while. And so to add some variety to our idleness, we often turn to another favorite: Indian food from Laxmy.
On principle, I do not like to order food that I can make myself. However, as well as I've been able to perfect the one chicken curry dish that I make, nothing can top the hours-long preparation of authentic Indian cuisine. And so, I prefer to order my Indian food from Laxmy, which, after several disappointing visits to Indian restaurants in the area, we've found to be the best Indian in Stuttgart...
Shopping for Asian Groceries in Stuttgart
Despite my love of dining out, I often cook at home. Not only do I enjoy cooking, sometimes it's the only way to get some authentic dishes from home (like American pork lo mien, Mexican fajitas and tacos, New Orleans gumbo, and Texas chili) and some dishes that you can never find in a restaurant (like my mom's spaghetti). Lately I've been making an effort to try more Japanese dishes like the ones we ate on our trip to Japan. I've found a great Japanese-American blogger from the San Francisco bay area who writes on Just One Cookbook. So far, I've made tsukemen, soba noodles, and ochasuke, and I recently tried katsu curry (see some pictures at the end of this post).
These recipes often require ingredients that can't be found in my neighborhood grocery store. The Edeka where I shop does have a small Asian aisle, but most products are from the standard Bamboo Garden brand (although Edeka recently started stocking panko breadcrumbs and miso paste -- I was impressed!). When I need more exotic ingredients, like real ramen noodles, soba noodles, chili bean paste, dried bonito flakes, mentsuyu (a soup base), and narutomaki (a kind of fish paste), then I head to the Asian market...