Though I would have liked to go eat at St. John — a restaurant that’s pretty famous for helping to popularize nose-to-tail eating in London (and the world) — it’s a bit out of my price range. You know what is in my price range? A restaurant called Hereford Road that was opened by a chef who worked at St. John.
Hey, when you’re on a budget, you take what you can get.
The oldest restaurant in Berlin is called Zur Letzten Instanz, and it’s been around since 1621 (so, not quite as old as the bakery I visited in Austria, but still pretty darn old).
Pretty much everyone seems to be in agreement that when you come here, you have to order the grilled pork knuckle (also known as a roasted ham hock — basically a huge chunk of pork, bone and all, from just above the pig’s foot). I require very little encouragement to order a huge chunk of pork, so obviously that’s what I got.
Tasty Treat Number One: I had a pork dish called schweinsbraten at Gasthaus zur Alten Press, and if that sounds extremely Austrian: yeah. The whole restaurant was extremely Austrian.
There’s a place back in Toronto called Porchetta and Co. that serves what was, up until now, the best porchetta that I’ve ever had. I had kind of assumed that it was porchetta perfection; I honestly didn’t think it could be topped.
It has been topped. Sorry, Porchetta and Co.: your porchetta sandwich is officially garbage.
So here’s a thing that happens a bunch in Portugal. You’ll head to a restaurant, all excited to try whatever dish they’re known for; you’ve walked a few kilometres to get there, and oh, what’s this? Yeah, they’re closed for the next three weeks. Apparently Portuguese chefs love to shut down for the month of August.
This recently happened to me (for the third or fourth time), and so I was wandering around looking for something to eat. I very quickly (and fortuitously) stumbled on a park that just happened to be hosting the Porto Food Festival.
You know what’s better than eating one bifana? Eating two bifanas. And you know what’s even better than that? Eating three.