Finale!

I treated my boyfriend to a delicious chocolate extravaganza birthday dessert at Finale in Boston. If any of you don't know Finale, you are missing out. It is a great dessert restaurant with just about the most decadent sweet things you can imagine. We had molten chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream accompanied by a flight of 3 decades of port. I know how to get to a man's heart!

Okonomiyaki in London

On my way back from Turkey, I stopped by London for the day and had a most unusual but thoroughly satisfying meal of Okonomiyaki. This is really great Japanese food which is kind of an omelette based primarily on cabbage and other foods. The restaurant, Abeno, prepares it right in front of you so you can see all the goodness happening before you. I love that! As I was traveling alone, I pretended that I was some sort of food critic or food writer taking notes and tons of pics. The meal itself was really filling and oh, so good! Highly recommended.

Good Turkish food

So, I've been out and about for a while, hence the lack of posts. I was away on vacation in Turkey, which meant lots of amazingly tasty and fresh foods.

To describe Turkish food in one online post represents a gross under-representation of the decadence, freshness, goodness, and bliss of Turkish food. So, I apologize to all Turkish food lovers out there. I will NOT do Turkish food justice. I do not intend to do so. I will simply describe what I ate and the sensations I experienced.
I traveled with my best-friend for our 30th birthday celebrations. All we wanted to do throughout the trip was talk, connect, hug, dance and...EAT!

Here's a sampling of my favorite foods/drinks we had during the trip
Breakfast: We found a little family-owned place that offered typical Turkish breakfast. The funny thing about the whole experience was that we always had to point and nod because we didn't speak Turkish and our hosts didn't speak a lick of English. I loved the fact that breakfast is a leisurely exercise in Turkey. We typically started breakfast at 10 am and didn't leave the place until 11:30 am. I also enjoyed the fact that we had fresh tomatoes and cucumber for breakfast. Such an amazing deviation from the sugar-laden, refined carb, American breakfast of our day. The other indulgence in the breakfast was this amazing creamy cheese, drowned in honey.









Cafe food. A simple tuna sandwich and soup was made so well. The lentil soup was very mild and soothing to our tired bodies after a morning of sightseeing











Spices at the spice market. It was amazing just to see all of them out in the open.














And then there was this deadly stuff, Raki. I only had one sip. Enough. Really.


Though I didn't get to photograph this, we had a whole bunch of mezze throughout our stay. These small plates are a delicious mix of flavors.

A post on London and West Virginia.