Salmon – Page 20 – Beauperi Investments

Posted on April 29, 2016April 29, 2016 by beauperi · 3 Comments

To Europe 2016

27 April, 2016 – MEL, SIN, FRA

Wèll,here we are at Melbourne airport to take off to Europe for a five week tour going to all new places.

As I am about to go through security, I realise I have made a colossal blunder, I disconnected the laptop from its attachments and then forgot to put it in the travel bag. What a goose! So I am trying to use Julie^s Pad to do the Blog work and am suffering. It has taken me 20 minutes just to do these two paragraphs with the Backspace key the most commonly used. Arghh! I may have to give up on the Blog until I can get better facilities i.e. a real PC.

This realisation came after the check in Girl told us there may be a baggage strike in Germany which could mean being stranded in Singapore. Naturally I was feeling a bit down waiting in the lounge.

Anyway, we take off. The first leg is with Singapore Airlines. It’s a modern plane, clean and great staff. Just what you would expect from Singapore Airlines. They have a new feature for first, business and premium economy flyers called Book the Còok whereby passengers can select a meal in advance from an extensive menu devised by famous chefs, Australia^s representative is Matt Moran.

BTW the green curry was incredibly pungent, I would rate it as one of the best I have ever had.

(Guys, I just went through a convoluted process to get those two photos in the Blog. The only two on this post, not sure if I will give up or not ).

Anyway, the flight to Singapore was good. I saw the latest Star Wars which was OK albeit second billing Mark Hammill as Luke Skywalker was on the screen for about two minutes only at the end and did not speak.

Arrival in Singapore was smooth. We got to Terminal 2 easily and to a lounge which had lots of food variety, not that we needed more. The great thing was there no mention of a strike and hence no forced layover. We board our next flight which is with Lufthansa. It’s an older plane not as nice as the previous flight. The food menu is not as exciting. There is smoked salmon and smoked duck for starters we exchange although hangover from the previous flight, I have trouble eating it all. I had a steak while Julie had cod.

In the night, I fall asleep sitting up and it appeared like my glasses fell off into the aisle where someone stepped on them, smashing them with one lens broken. Oh well, there is a spare in the suitcase.

For breakfast I have some Asian noodles, on a German flight, and Julie has salmon, etc. I forgot to mention but our stewardess Barbara was really nice. The pilot had told us that it was a toasty 1 degree outside, and we can feel that on the air bridge as we get off the plane. Passage through FRA is smooth enough if you forget about the 5 mile walk from gate to immigration. We pass through that with only a slight hiccup. Onto baggage and our cases are among the first off. Replacement glasses for me, extra clothes layers for Julie. We are ready for the next stage of the journey – train to Heidelberg!

Posted on October 25, 2015October 25, 2015 by beauperi · 1 Comment

The Final Countdown

Thursday, 8 October, 2015

Today is the last day of the tour and it promises to be absolutely huge. It turns out almost nothing like the trip Itinerary but that is OK as it was very special. We start out by going to the local market Mecardo de Atarazanas.

The guy on the right with Frank is a famous local Chef, Jose Carlos Garcia. The girl and the guy at the left are our local guides for all of today. And the guy with the dark blue shirt is our Chef for the dinner tonight.

It is a typical market with lots of interesting foodstuffs.

Seafood - Malaga is right on the Mediterranean — Seafood – Malaga is right on the Mediterranean

Feed the man Meat - not much of that today — Feed the man Meat – not much of that today

Diego leaves us to go back to his restaurant and we all jump into taxis to go down to the beach. There are several restaurants on the beach with various cooking set-ups on the sand.

Threading sardines on the skewers. Note salt is the only flavouring added

The Guys watching the skewers in front of the fire

Jose Carlos showed us how to eat the sardines

More sardines - lemon can be used although it is not traditional — More sardines – lemon can be used although it is not traditional

Sue and Virginia had a go threading the sardines on a skewer. Sue’s came out perfect but Virginia’s lost one while cooking. Any way, we depart our nice hosts for a “short walk” down the beach to our next destination.

Why wasn't this our final destination — Why wasn’t this our final destination

Finally, after a long walk. Linda and I kept up the rear

It turns out we are at a nice restaurant which also doubles as a cooking school which is our first activity.

First course - cold almond soup — First course – cold almond soup

I stayed away from the “school” and had to put up with a cold snagria, wine with every course etc. Note: they provided a small cookbook for the courses that were being made. There was the first page.

The cooking class ended and we head into the restaurant for lunch, we really haven’t had enough to eat already?? Alan and Kerry depart by taxi to go to the Picasso museum while Julie decides she will walk back to town, skipping the lunch.

Plato de Los Montes - a bit of meat at last — Plato de Los Montes – a bit of meat at last

*****************************************************We take taxis back to the Hotel. We say goodbye to Carlos, our guide for the last two weeks who has to go back to Madrid to start another job tomorrow. Later on we are to go out to dinner. A new bus picks us up around the corner, street construction is still going one. A couple of the group have dropped out because they were not feeling well and during the night two more took a taxi back for the same reason. More about hit is tomorrow’s Post. We travel a while into the hills outside Malaga and end up at our destination which is a Double Tree Hotel complex.

When we get inside, Diego, El Chef Del Caviar, takes us outside to the patio where he explains that they use the only organic caviar in the world.

Diego speaking about and showing his caviar

Julie was told that they don’t make much money from the restaurant but use it to promote sales of the Caviar from the company. We are then lead back into the restaurant and settle into two tables. This is the multi-course pairing menu we were given.

Impressive presentation of Trout tartare. sturgeon cream and fake Tilapia water lily

Sturgeon sobrasada and sturgeon black pudding macarrons

Dessert - ginger bread and tangerine ice cream — Dessert – ginger bread and tangerine ice cream

As each course was served Diego would give a verbal short summary of the dish(es)

Julie took a brief tour of the modern kitchen

Diego with Di and John and a little bit of Virginia

Our young tour guides for the day. Note we were able to get some Vino Tinto, Suze moved it up the order

A very impressive meal. There are rumours of Michelin stars but I have not been able to prove that one way or the other. The following site is good in explaining about the restaurant and what Diego is doing.

Link to Spanish Spoon description of Sollo

It is after midnight. We get on the bus for the ride back to the Hotel. Once there it is good night and goodbye as we are all spreading in different directions in the morning. It is the end of what one would have to say was a great tour. Well done Suze and Josh.

Link to MPT world wide journeys

Posted on September 27, 2015September 27, 2015 by beauperi · 1 Comment

Back in Spain Again

September / October, 2015

Yes, we are back on the road again to head to another tour of Spain with Frank Camorra of Movida fame. This time we are with another tour company, MPT Tours.

http://www.mptworldwidejourneys.com.au

The following is our itinerary for the tour, looks great doesn’t it:

MPT-FullItinerary-2015

We start out from MEL with a late Friday evening flight on Air Qatar. The flight leaves over an hour late, which is a concern as we have a tightish connection in Doha, but at least I got to watch my team make it to the Grand Final. A minor brickbat at the QF lounge – after a huge positive I wrote about the Singapore QF lounge, the catering here at MEL was nowhere near the same standard.

The Pilot makes up a bit of time once we get away but it is still over 13 hours before we arrive in Doha. The airport is completely different from when we transited through here a couple of years ago, a sleek and modern airport albeit long walks from anywhere to anywhere. After going through security screening we have time to go to the Business Class lounge. It is huge with just about every seat in use. We find a spot and get ourselves some drinks – there was waiter service and we could have got some food but had enough of a relatively stodgy breakfast so did not want any.

Onto another plane, after a decent walk again. It is a “short flight” nearly 7 hours to Madrid, pleasant enough. At MAD, there is a bit of walking to do but nothing like Doha. We have a quick pass through Immigration and then down to baggage. There is some delay before the bags start coming off but when they do ours are among the first to arrive. Outside to a taxi rank, there are squillions of taxis there and a nil queue so off we go into central Madrid. We do so well in time terms that when we get to our Airbnb apartment the owner was not there yet, expecting us to be quite a bit longer. Not an issue, after calling him he shows up soon after and lets us in. It is a small studio but clean with new fittings and serves our purpose well for a one night stand. Carmello was a really nice guy and made recommendations of places to eat and had an array of maps.

I have a nap while JV prances around as per usual. After her return, we head out around 7:30 initially to a restaurant recommended by Carmello. People in the elevator as we went up said we had made a great choice but when we entered they were in clean-up mode. Service did not start until 9:00 PM which I suppose is typical of much of Europe but not really in our timeframes. We wander around the streets for a while, eventually selecting this casual place that had one redeeming feature – see below – as well as being open. The menu had some Tapas dishes but was probably more international in flavour as were the two dishes we ordered.

The food was good albeit the restaurant had a couple of annoyances – (1) a “sealed” butter container was half full, clearly had been used before and resealed; (2) There was a young Mother and her son at a nearby table who had one of the shrillest and loudest voices of all time who virtually never shut up. Things improved when they left.

We walked back to the flat noticing that all the outdoor bars were filled with people. We wanted to stop for a drink but none were available. So we went back to the flat. There was a fair bit of people noise, I guess it was still early by local standards, but I was tired enough to crash out.

Posted on July 26, 2015 by beauperi · 2 Comments

The End of the Line

Monday-Wednesday, 13-15 July, 2015

Well, it is time to go home. No photos today so just a series of dot points.

* We are flying out tonight late (10:45) so I mostly hang around for the day while Julie prances around. It is a Monday so everything is open.

* The leftovers from last night are a great meal start to the day.

* The fantastic Zina has allowed us to stay in the flat until 4:00 PM which means I am able to do a lot of Blog work.

* Eventually, Julie returns. We pack the bags and exit the apartment, leaving behind a nice half bottle of wine for Zina. Today we walk to the train station with our bags behind us.

* The train ride to the airport is straightforward other than we cannot work out how to get in the ideal carriage. Apparently a young kid showed Julie how to do so and we moved into it. Not a long trip any way.

* Zurich airport is another one of those big, big ones with lots of people everywhere. It is so much easier in Business Class.

* After checking in, we have a choice to go to the near Lounge or a far one nearer the exit gate. We picked the near one, which was probably a good choice as it allowed Julie to go around to the airport shops while we waited.

* And waited we did. We were in that lounge for over 6 hours before the flight took off. Whereas the Internet worked well, the food selection was not special with one hot dish only of macaroni and beef. The drinks were OK albeit I had trouble finding Water of all things. I would make a comment about Swiss and its Business Class. It was OK, but there were little things missing on all three of our legs. Apparently it used to be a great airline but had fallen on hard times before being bought out.

* After another long, long wait, we go down to the departure gate. We were told it was a 30 minute journey so we head off appropriately early. We were just about the last persons to leave the lounge.

* We do have to go through an exit immigration but it was not anywhere near as bad as CDG.

* The flight was a long one to Singapore 12+ hours. The meal was OK, I had Geschnitzeles, Veal and Mushrooms. The seats were the same as the way over with the Port column set up with alternating 1 and 2 seats so that the fully extended beds did not clash although I found it a bit funny as you had to twist a bit to get into the bed. Of the layout Business Class beds I have used, this was close to the least comfortable. I did get 4-5 hours sleep which ain’t bad.

* When we land in Singapore at Terminal 2, it is a long, long walk to the shuttle to Terminal 1 which we need to go to since we are flying Qantas on our last leg.

* At Terminal 1, it is another long, long walk to the Qantas Lounge. It turns out to be in an area of the airport, upstairs, where it has generally been since I first went to Singapore in 1986. However, it is so much better bright and airy whereas in the past it was kind of dingy.

* The food and catering was first class compared to the last lounge we were in. Qantas on these over night flights has worked out that you can order a meal at a bar in the lounge so that you can go straight to sleep on the plane. I did not do that but Julie managed to get a wok cooked Salmon, naturally. She eventually came back with an Irish Coffee too. I had some nice hot snacks and good wine too.

* The staff were incredibly friendly and very helpful.

* Boarding the plane, the Business Class seat is one of the best I have seen and many times better than the one on the previous flight.

* The food menu is a list of “snacks”. I order a Pho while Julie orders a Chicken Curry. When the food is delivered, we both get a Chicken Curry. This was a bit of serendipity for me as this was one of the better meals on the entire trip – I obviously was missing some spicy food which we really did not have over the 6+ weeks.

* I would say that of the airlines on this trip, Qantas was easily the best. I have flown the Big Q a lot over times and frankly had become less than excited about it. However, they had really lifted their game. Gudonya Qantas. Having said that, the breakfast choice did not meet my likes.

* MEL seemed to have gone well. Early off the plane, get to the kiosks for the Immigration card, pick up the duty free, to the baggage carousel. Then things start to deteriorate. My suitcase, with its priority tag, comes out about half way through the non-priority bags. Even worse, Julie’s suitcase does not come out at all. Just as the last bags are coming down the carousel, Julie is paged. Turns out her suitcase had gone a trip to Timbuktu or somewhere like that. I am afraid that this is just one of the wonderful (NOT) things about flying. So we went from the very first person off the plane, me in my favourite seat 1E, to the last one to exit the airport. Hey, if you are going to have your suitcase lost or delayed, it is so much better at the end of the trip than the start – which happened to me the time we flew into Barcelona. Post mortem: the suitcase was delivered to Edgevale a day later, no harm – no foul.

* We go straight through immigration and customs and outside to the Taxi rank. My god, it is 2 degrees! We had left Zurich at a lovely 28 degrees. Why did we come back?

* We are dropped off at Edgevale and it is as cold as a Morgue inside. We have 4 heaters and they are all on for the next several days. Damn it is cold.

So folks, that is the end of the trip and this part of the Blog. I hope that you loyal readers enjoyed some of the recordings and musings in it. There will be no more on the Blog part of this website for another couple of months until our trip to Southern Spain come September. There will probably be some postings under the 2015 Page of this site.

Cheers Mates!!!

Posted on July 25, 2015July 26, 2015 by beauperi · 2 Comments

Bloody Tourists

Sunday, 12 July, 2015

It is a Sunday which means most of the shops in Zurich are closed. We wanted to buy a baguette last night but the girl said that the ones for sale were a couple of days old. She suggested that we go to the shops underneath the train station to get a fresh one tomorrow. So Julie does that and also purchases some travel tickets.

It is our last full day on this extended holiday so we decided we would just do the standard Tourist stuff – the activities are listed as BT .

BT1 – after a nice breakfast from the purchases from last night, which naturally included Smoked Salmon, and purchases from this morning, we go out to the train station. It is a short enough walk, but like all good tourists we take the tram.

A sight along the way. Note that the town is kind of dead

BT2 – we catch a train up to the peak behind Zurich.

Note once again how quiet the station is. Tomorrow this will be packed with people. Any way we find the train and it is a smooth ride up to the top albeit with lots of stops and occasional delays as trains from the other direction go by on the mostly single track.

We have Rose and water - the weather is still quite warm — We have Rose and water – the weather is still quite warm

We are still a ways to the summit so we decide to walk up to it. Once we start it is clear to me that it is virtually straight uphill and my legs will not be able to handle it. Julie goes up on her own and takes a few photos.

Julie comes down just in time to catch a train down the hill. Which brings us to:

BT3 – a Boat Cruise around the Lake

From the train station we take a Tram to the lake. There is not a long wait for a cruise albeit there are a lot of people in the queue. What this means is that the “premium” seats up top and outside are all taken but that does not really matter.

In the background is the peak we just came from

There are a number of stops along the way and at each of them there a lot of bathers luxuriating in the beautiful weather.

We cross the lake to the other side and a few stops on get off at a place where there is supposed to be a good restaurant. Instead, there is a large waterside pub where we settle in for a while.

After 90 minutes, our original boat shows up so we hop onto it to return to the main dock.

We end up sitting in the same seat on the boat that we were in on the first leg

We were just about the last people off the boat. This meant that there were long queues to catch the tram back. It was only a couple of stops and it was a beautiful day so it was no problem at all to walk back.

BT4 – A German Beer Hall

What a way to finish our touristy day. We go to the German (claimed to be Swiss) restaurant just up from our apartment. We are sitting outside so it is not formally a beer hall although inside would definitely be.

http://www.zeughauskeller.ch/home

The menu had a few interesting thing such as:

Whole pork shank (skinned) marinated with fresh herbs and oven-roasted, simmered in dark draught beer and served with fresh potato salad; or

Mayor’s sword: 400 gr of marinated baby-beef steaks, pounded thin, wrapped around the sword blade and grilled lean, served with a bowl of mixed salad or Rösti (hash brown potatoes “Swiss style”) or French fries; served with a curry-garlic and barbecue sauce To share for 2 persons.

No, we did not order that. A waiter kindly took a photo of one ordered at another table. It actually looked a lot more impressive in person than in the photo.

Julie ordered “Gschnätzlets” (swiss gourmet chicken): tender strips of chicken in a spicy sauce with fresh herbs

Julie really enjoyed that dish. The menu had a number of sausages and after the success from the previous night I decided to go with:

Zeughauskeller Wurstspiess: a selection of our finest grilled sausage specialities on a skewer (300 gr), served with our famous homemade potato salad and onion sauce