I Ate That

And it was delicious!

If you can't tell, that's tiramisu in a giant chocolate egg cup, made a little less fancy for the paper plates and Pepsi machine hanging out in the background.

This may make me sound like a giant nerd, but my favorite thing to do in Vegas is walk through the casinos.  "Ooh-ing" at the Chihuly glass at the Bellagio, "Aah-ing" at the pirate ship outside 

Treasure Island, hunting down every exotic animal on the strip.  Lions at the MGM Grand.  Tigers at the Mirage.  Flamingos... at the Flamingo.

And it's fun to see how the casinos are different, but still the same.  The ceilings feel close to your head (even if they aren't), and the lights are kept low, the better to tie your attention to the flash and jangle of the slot machines.  And if you're committed to losing your quarters, you probably don't notice, or care, but if you're just walking the floors, it can feel a little claustrophobic.

Which is why stepping into the Paris is such a breath of fresh air.  The ceiling is high, or it feels high, perhaps it's just painted to look high.  It's still dark, but the street lamps hanging from the cast iron awnings that cover the tables and machines give the impression that you're gambling away on a Parisian sidewalk just after sunset, instead of midday in a Nevada desert.

We follow the path of fake cobblestones to the line of gift and snack shops, all done up stone facades and curly-cue signs to match the bright blue sky painted over our heads.  We've been walking long enough for our feet to throb just a little, and our stomach to rumble just enough, that when we catch sight of dessert in the window, we decide to treat ourselves to an unbalanced meal.  It is Vegas, after all.

(We did split a sandwich before hand, for our own piece of mind.  And because the sandwiches looked delicious, but I didn't think to snap a picture.  Sorry!)

I Ate That

That is an unbaked apple strudel.  Or, as they say in Austria, "apfelstrudel."

It's a traditional Viennese dessert, though we were in Innsbruck at the time, stopped at a pastry school that sat on top of a hill.  (Years later, I'd find out that Friend Ashley had gone to school to become a pastry chef.  I didn't ask if the two were related, but I like to think that they were.)

Our big group of forty American teenagers split down into ten groups of four, one for each of the ten baking stations in the big, sterile kitchen, each station with the ingredients carefully measured out for us.  The instructor, a small man with grey hair and a kind smile, barked out instructions from the front of the room in heavily accented english, making big, comical gestures with his arms when he couldn't find the right words.  We'd take turns rolling the dough and chopping the apples, trying to find the best way for four people to make one apfelstrudel.  And once the apple filling had been carefully folded into its dough pocket, and the glazed pastry baked gently in the oven, we'd titter headily at the rum the recipe called for, and how much extra we'd pretended to put in the filling, making sly references to smuggling the bottles, still capped at our baking stations, out of the school under our jackets.   

The finished pastries would come out of the oven with varying degrees of success, but we didn't care.  We made them!  And though ours was a little lumpy, and had too much cinnamon for my taste, we ate every last crumb. 

Make your own!

I Ate That

 Or rather, I ate there.  If you couldn't tell, that's fried shrimp served out of the back of a truck.  It's actually not totally uncommon in Hawai'i.  It's not that different from buying a hot dog out of a push cart, only this Plate Lunch comes with two scoops of rice.

The truck is parked next to a shrimp farm, though I don't know if they get their shrimp fresh from the man-made pond.  They have about five different shrimps on offer - lemon-garlic shrimp, spicy shrimp, and 'original', just to name a few.  One Japanese woman hangs out the back of the truck to take our order, while the second busies herself behind the deep fryer built in to the space behind the driver's seat.  I wonder if the truck still works, if they drive it home every night and back every morning.  Probably not.

Not pictured are the shanty-style awnings spread out over a handful of picnic tables, complete with a portable hand washing station and restaurant ketchup bottles full of soy sauce.  And the shrimp itself?  Delicious.  Best I've ever eaten out of the back of a truck. 

I Ate That

They only ever called it...French Pizza.

I'm sure it had a real name.  I'm sure they even told us the real name, but it was still our first day over there, and our first meal, and we were all still a bit "Blarg!  France!" to pay too much attention.  But when they called it French Pizza, we all seemed to understand.

It's not pizza, not quite.  It lacks a certain pizzaness, that distinctly pizza quality that makes a pizza so, so good.  I don't know for certain that there's a sauce between the cheese and the bread, or if it was just the moisture from the cheese making the top of the crust a bit doughy, but there was an unusual, sticky texture to the thing that raised a couple of eyebrows.  The less adventurous among us took a few small bites, and discretely pushed their piece to the side.  They didn't know it, but they'd be sorry later.  

You have to understand that we were at the beginning of our European food journey.  The group we were traveling with had...well, we'll call them ideas about what American teenagers would be willing to eat.  Nearly every meal we ate was a chicken dish with some form of potato side.  Those who picked apart their quiche dinner that first night in Paris were crying for a little variety after the first seven days of chicken and potato.  Verdun?  De poulet et pommes de terre.  Vienna?  Huhn und Kartoffeln.  Monticatini?  Pollo e patate.  We were elated during our Austrian home stays.  Could hardly spell 'wienerschnitzle,' but I couldn't wait to eat it.  Ashley's joy at getting a little bowl of pasta in Venice was quickly over taken by near tears when it was followed by yet another plate of chicken and potatoes.  Oh, how we yearned for French Pizza then.

So I ate it.  It wasn't bad.  Cheesey, bready, a touch of hammy and just a little chewy, but not bad.  Not the best pizza I've ever eaten, but then, still not actually a pizza.

Oh, French Pizza.  Mystery of ages.