Tween Travels

Montadito de Atun

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Pasta de Pesto con Pechuga

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Ceviche Traditional

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Assorted Specialty Chocolates

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Rice Pudding

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Sopa de Vegetales

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Good salad, good shrimp! Whats not to like with this meal. Of course it was Nina ordering the salad, but John doing cleanup on the shrimp.

Disco Mixto

Disco is like a hot skillet. Thankfully we only got the single serving of this, we barely were able to finish this. The potato slices were a nice touch that kept crisping up against the hot pan.

Local cure all made from the flower offcuts in the flower market. Also somehow related to catholic saints in this very religious city. It tastes like roses and grass. Only William didn’t mind it and ended up drinking about four cups to finish everyone’s half drunk cups.

Hornado

We had a few hours between buses in this town. We asked the guy at the counter where was good to eat and he pointed us down the street to this spot. This is like the best combination of carnitas and luau. The sides were also great. We went somewhere a few days later that had won ‘best Hornado in Ecuador’ for three years in a row, but I think this place was better.

Nina and Maisey both ordered this chicken sandwich. These sandwiches were enourmous, but we were so happy to not be eating plantain or yucca that every bite got eaten.

Sandwhich Fútbol Times

Finally out of the mountains and hostel life and we were ready for a nice sports bar with our own choice of food. John had this giant steak sandwich.

Local spot next to our Airbnb. Food was very tasty but came with a few unexpected surprises. Under the chicken is blood sausage and beef heart. Under the steak is more intestines. Poor Maisy is now sure she is being pranked. The beef heart was actually lovely, except for knowing you are eating beef heart.

Chicken Soup

Nina went to a few market stalls to order food for us and either did a horrible job of it or was trying to prank us. Besides this soup with a chicken head and foot, we also got a potato soup with a bunch of intestines in it.

This was very tasty, especially the tender squid, but we are a bit done with the fried food. Delicious but slightly wasted on us.

Causa de Atun

During the war between Peru, Chile, and Bolivia the only food left for the women was fish and potatoes. This dish is known as la causa because people ate it in support of the war effort. Unfortunatly Chile won the war and took the bolivian’s coastal access.

We ended up at this cool hip Peruvian Japanese restaurant in Lima. After waiting for half an hour for a table we got in and ordered. Unfortunatly, at that moment a bunch of tween boys showed up for a birthday party, slightly spoiling the mood. We had a bunch of interesting bao and ramen, but this roll stood out with tempura shrimp inside and fresh fish outside.

Bife de Alpaca

William was super into interesting and different meats which was why he ordered the Alpaca. Surprisingly, this was super tasty and tender. Using his usual slow and steady method, William eventually devoured every last bite of this while we all waited around for him to finish.

Nina just wanted ‘a little bite’ for dinner, so ordered this soup. She mostly pawned it off on John and only ate a little bit.

Penne Caprese

Madeleine going back to her standby pesto pasta. Unfortunatly this was like a cashew peanut butter mixed with some basil.

Yuca can be dry and disgusting or absolutely delicious like this. These were super tender little balls and to top it off the purple sauce was a olive cream sauce.

Enslada de Pollo

William and Madeleine were desperate for a salad and got this pretty nice and hearty salad with a good amount of chicken.

We were so hungry by the time we got to this restaurant, it was about 4pm and we hadn’t had lunch yet. John ordered this rather boring chicken and noodle dish. We think he was probably thinking about this dish at Pollo Inka when ordering. Missed opportunity as the other food here was really interesting and tasty.

Miso Ramen

John having some spicy miso ramen. As usual the little fish ball pink and white swirl goes to Nina. This was good, but no comparison to Shin-Sen-Gumi spicy miso ramen.

Everyone other than William with perfectly healthy tummies went for the classic salmon and avocado.

Cucumber Roll

This was William’s sushi choice after a day of bad stomach troubles. Funny that sushi is comfort food for the kids, but William had to improvise or else risk raw fish on a dodgy tummy.

Free soup served with our order. It was a lovely tasty broth without any chunky or slimy fishy bits. Perfect for a starter.

Chuflay

Our hotel room faced east so we got the sunrise and the colors of the sunset. We trekked up to the top of town to get a drink and watch the sunset facing west. That is serious effort with the steep gradient and 13k ft of altitude. This was a surprisingly good Chuflay which is the national drink made with singhani.

Look at that view. And the pizza was good too. Unfortunately it had an overly sweet crust. But hey, look at that view.

Lomo al Pimenton

Lovely steak with a peppercorn cream sauce. As good as the steak was, this meal is shrouded in sadness because we lost our deck of cards at this restaurant. John and William both blame the other for the loss. Tie goes to it being John’s fault since he has overall responsibility as a parent.

Like everything in this hotel, the breakfast buffet was very nice but also a bit odd. There was a wide selection of juices and Nina decided to try the one she hadn’t seen before: pistachio juice. We now know the reason this juice isn’t seen anywhere else.

Pizza Familiar

Lovely pizza during our recovery time in Oruro. It seemed to take forever for this pizza to be made, but it was worth it. You can see in the picture that it is deepdish on the bottom and thincrust on the sides.

Lovely meal alongside a river with some llamas grazing nearby. Much easier to aporeciate the food when the sun is out and we aren’t frozen.

Pique a lo Macho

One of our meals on the overland trip prepared by our cook Marcos. We would have a soup starter and then the main entree. Note the cute little mouse eggs made with green peppers snd carrots. Not pictured: us feeling super super cold and a bit miserable from the altitude.

The other option at this foodcart was a hamburger. Slightly strange to see them pull precooked patties out of a bag to make this. While we were eating it we watched kids racing non motorized go carts down the very hilly streets. It looked like streets were closed for several miles to allow the racing to take place.

Chicken Burger

We were only in Potosi for a couple of hours, but got to head into the city center. It was a holiday with a bunch of parades going sround and a little food stall where we got this tasty sandwich even if the bread was a little stale.

Kids both went for some sushi. Sometimes you just got to give in to those cravings.

Ramen

We found this little korean restaurant and had to fill some cravings. John had this ramen. Yes it probably was just a package of instant ramen noodles, but it was a really good pack of spicy instant ramen.

Cheers to Nina’s brother Guy and girlfriend Lois on their engagement. Quite the dark horse to not even drop a hint when we were with them a couple months ago. We are all do excited!

Hamburguesa Barbacoa

Madeleine had this absolutely giant burger.

Really delicious comida del dia. The salad was lovely and i love that they give you salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar to go on every salad.

Pasta New York, New York

Madeleine loved this dish. And when we went back several days later she ordered this again.

This was the soup that came with a very delicious comida del dia. Kids were very taken by the little letter pastas. The only dish that was still available was chicken millanesa. Didn’t get a picture, but Madeleine said it was the best chicken she has ever had. It was a bit like french toast eggy batter on chicken.

Chopp de Cerveza

Happy fathers day to John!

This was a beautiful spot in a building with a lovely courtyard in the middle. Salteñas are common breakfast or midday snacks in Bolivia. Although I would call this an Empanada, in bolivia empanadas have a sweet filling and salteñas have a savory filling. Nonetheless these were still pretty sweet. They also each had a hardboiled quail egg and a green olive baked inside them.

Pasta con Salsa Alfredo

John was made fun of for devouring this dish while everyone else was still just getting started eating.

Everyone was having a comfort food break before we got on our night bus. This was Madeleine’s dish – cheese on the side obviously, so she doesn’t have to admit she likes cheese.

Sandwiche de Pollo

We were killing time waiting for our nightbus and had dinner at this spot on the central square. Nina was surprised by the size of her sandwich. True story, John once dislocated his jaw on an especially large sandwich.

Nina declared this her ultimate salad. Yes, nina is now eating salads for breakfast as well.

We walked up to this lovely ranch with lovely gardens to walk through and absolutely fabulous food. Kids shared this sweet breakfast platter and although they are often funny about cream, have learned to love scones with clotted cream from our time in England.

Crazy tasty and yummy burger. Fun spot on Friday night with a bunch of people from Santa Cruz partying it up for the weekend. Sadly we lost a beautiful piece of fabric art that we had just bought and left in the restaurant.

American Breakfast and Healthy Breakfast

Breakfast made for us at our hostal by the husband and wife caretakers. Note the amazing view out the window, the window out of the frame to the left had llamas grazing.

This is the other common soup that comes with Comida del Dia. This was spaghetti but we have also seen the little pastas shaped as letters and penne that has fallen apart in other soups.

Bolivian Empanadas

This was a weird hippie cafe in town. The server forgot our order several times in a row. These were likely made with some sort of odd hippie flour and were super mouth drying.

Cute spot on the central square of Samaipata. Kids had this lemon and sugar crepe as a snack.

Enslada Orgasmica

What a surprise, Nina is eating another salad. Atleast the salads in Bolivia are extra tasty. All of the vegetables in Bolivia are super tasty. Egg came off of William’s burger as he was most offended to have an egg on his burger.

Really tasty part of the Comida del Dia. Quinoa is actually really good as part of a soup. We have had alooooooot of this sort of soup in Bolivia.

Chuleta

I love the idea of cutting a tough but tasty piece of meat into a super thin slice to cook. Really nice with the bone in to add flavor.

Bali Restobar / Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Another comida del dia, now down to 20 bolivanos. I forgot to take a picture of the frangollo soup that came as the starter. This was tasty and juicy chicken.

Curry Wurst

John had to issue a mea culpa for ordering this – not because it was bad but because it was supposed to be a snack and ended up being so big we didnt go for dinner. Kids initially turned their noses up at the sweet curry sauce on the sausage and fries, but once they were forced to try it they really liked it.

Lovely and tender chicken.

Lomo al Minon

Surprisingly nice steak in a lovely sauce. The whole meal with salad, soup, this, dessert, and a drink was 25 Bolivanos or $3.5 USD. We couldn’t believe how cheap it was, but our Comida del Dia just kept getting cheaper.

Sopa Picadito de Yuca y Entrada Chucrut

Not very exciting dinner, this place was right next to our hotel. It was an aviation themed restaurant serving fried chicken and burgers, but the food was really well done. They also had a card system where you could pour your own beer.

Ceviche

We have just arrived in Bolivia which is a landlocked country and the town we arrived in is basically a desert, yet there is ceviche served everywhere. The town was way more trendy than we expected and we had this snack in a hip rooftop bar.

For John, the Tapa de Ojo de Bife at this restaurant is the pinnacle of steak. Kids loved the filet mignon which was a first for them – or atleast such good filet mignon. This plate ahows one quarter of each piece of steak. Somehow the waiter cut the steak with two sppons and then used them like chopsticks to serve everyone.

Chorizo y Longaniza

Nice contrast of the very meaty Argentinean Pork sausage with the more finely ground and spicy italian sausage.

Oh my god, so delicious. I also liked that unlike alot of the pickled eggplant we had elsewhere, this was served warm.

Rutini Cabernet Malbec

This was John and Nina’s favorite wine when we met in Buenos Aires. It was a bit more expensive this time around, so we only got to have it on our one last night flying through BA on pur way to Bolivia. This was one of our favorite restaurants with stand out steak even amongst a country known for standout steak. We were very excited to take the kids here.

Love the fresh fish available in Chile. This is a real crowd pleaser for the Baumlers as everyone is always happy with this dish.

Costillar de chancho asado con papas a la Provenzal

These ribs were super interesting in that they had bones running both crosswose and lengthwise. I’m not sure if this is some sort of cut I’m not familiar with or if they just stacked ribs on top of each other while cooking. Either way, this was super delicious.

William had this faux moscow mule. He was very taken by the glass as well as the chunks of ice that he kept eating even after the drink was gone.

Pepi No Sour

It was the last day of school back in El Segundo and we had to celebrate as well. Kids got some serious mock tails. I think they cost more than Nina and John’s drinks, and definitely were fancier. Madeleine had this faux Pisco Sour.

Lovely fresh pasta. It’s amazing how many places we have found fresh made pasta in South America.

Arollado Nacional con Papas Cocidas

Okay, this was crazy and delicious. We were scared of the layer of fat surrounding this and pulled it off. Underneath was basically corned pork that was so delicious. Potatoes, onions, and avocado were also great.

Ordered for Madeleine and William becuase they did the whole fire show tableside to make these. They liked the show but were less impressed by the flavor.

Gnocchi Roquefort

Nina turned to John after he ordered this and said ‘You know that roquefort is blue cheese and you don’t like blue cheese”. Yes dear I know what I ordered and it was delicious.

We were ambling around Santiago and found this place in a ‘castle’ across from a nice art museum. Nina described it as the sort of lovely spontaneous find that makes travelling so great. Ironically it was a french restaurant in Chile. Nina and Madeleine shared this dish and enjoyed these very much.

Pho Beef Soup

These are pumpkin flavored fried bread. They are also ridiculously salty which was great for us. They were served with a lovely spicy salsa. It has been a bit difficult to find spice in Argentina and Chile.

These puff up so that there is just a thin shrimp lining on the inside. John would have preferred more shrimp. Kids were super happy because it came with the sweet red chinese restaurant sauce to dip into.

Beef Chow Mein

We thought we were ordering stir fried noodles, but ended up with fried veggies. No matter still delicious.

Chicken Fried Rice

Another Venezuelan soda. It tasted like the sickly sweet bubblegum taste they add to kids medicine to make them like it. So no surprise, it was a hit with the kids.

Maltin Soda

This is something John knew from Venezuela, so we had to order it when we saw it on a menu. It is made with the left over malt from making beer and is sweet and malty. Kids were not impressed.

We checked out of our Airbnb and sat down in a cafe for a nibble while we waited for our 3:00 bus. At about 12:30, John checked the tickets and realized our bus was actually at 1:00. It was a bit of a scramble but we were just so glad to be getting out of Valparaiso.

Pez Frito

Nice perfectly cooked fried fish. Nice to get back to eating seafood after alot of beef and chicken.

We absolutely love these disshes that are served as starters with most comida del dia which is kind of like a prix fixe menu. The chillean salad is dressed at the table with olive oil, balsamic, salt, and various peppers. This is a dish I would really like to bring back to our house as a starter for dinner.

Pizza Fugazzeta

Once again forgot to take a picture, but have to share this dish which was like a deep dish pizza with lots and lots of onions as the base. Kind of funny that we finally get from Argentina to Chile and immediately go to an Argentinian restaurant.

We went out on a horseriding trip at sunset followed by dinner on the farm. We met some really nice people and had really delicious food that I completely forgot to take a picture of. They cooked an entire fillet mignon roast and just kept brining around more and more slabs of filet mignon with free flowing wine. At the moment shown above, the neighbor had come over to sing Argentinian love songs.

Big Ceasar and Big Foodie Salads

How could we pass up stopping at a place called big salads. The salads were infact big, but also a bit dry. John was super into the cheese which had the shape and texture of tagliatelle.

We were super taken by the fact that the chef´s dad has a hazlenut farm down south, almost in Patagonia, and he drives hazlenuts up for his daughter. The icecream was delicious, but no one really liked the bananas all that much.

Pho Beef Soup

This was the only slight letdown of our meal at Cocina Gardenia. It was good but needed more umph to the broth. It was like bonebroth but needed some chili and salt or something similar.

Madeleine and William claim they hate cheese, but we keep finding cheeses that they really like. This is one of those. Also the black mung beans were outstanding. Everything tasted great on it’s own and even better when put together.

Broccoli Carbonara

We made a point to visit this well reviewed little restaurant around the corner from our Airbnb in Mendoza and it did not disappoint. The chef was a really cool lady who chatted with everyone and obviously loved what she was doing. Madeleine and William thought this was the best brocolli they had ever eaten and they love brocolli and eat it alot. We thought we were ordering pasta carbonara with brocolli, but it turned out to be brocolli cooked like a carbonara, which honestly is just a great idea.

Nina really enjoyed this salad, despite the rather odd cesar salad cream all over it.

Chorizo

Still loving the Argentine sausage. Pete and Jen would laugh at being served a single sausage, but it feels less processed and more filling than the English sausages.

More prosciutto… We need to talk about the size of this tortilla, I think the perspective in the picture may be misleading since this thing was atleast six inches tall – it was an absolut monster. It was really yummy, but also had so much prosciutto.

Croquettes de Jamon

More prosciutto. We thought it would be inside the croquettes, but actually was ‘just’ on the side. Not our favorite croquettes.

Eggs are not part of an Argentinian Breakfast. It would be like ordering ribs for breakfast in the US. However as a capital city you can still find an ‘American Breakfast’ in many cafes. Nina ordered this as she was tiring of only pastries for breakfast.

Medialuna Jamon y Queso

I’m not sure that I have the name of the restaurant correct for this, but hey, who is going to call me out on it?! This would be about as hearty of a breakfast as you could get in Argentina. Breakfast really just seems to be a dab of food here and there to get you through to lunch.

Nina choose very well with this dish. Controversially, she chose off the dry pasta menu instead of the fresh menu. Sauce was delicious. Kids kept stealing all her broccoli and who doesn’t love burata.

Tagliatelle con Mariscos

Oh… Wow… Just so good. These were some of the best squid ever. They were so tasty and so tender and soft. Probably too rich for some people, but John gobbled up the whole thing.

The one miss at this restaurant was this potato gratin. It was still slightly raw in the middle, although just slightly, since it seemed to keep cooling and become more edible during the meal.

Tagliatelle de Espinacas con Salsa Mantecca y Salvia Fresca

I’m getting hungry just thinking back to this dish. The spinach pasta helped cut the richness of the butter sauce. We liked that most restaurants seemed to have pasta and sauce as seperate sections on the menu with seperate prices. It was nice to be able to customize to something ridiculously delicious like this.

We finally managed to stay up until dinner in Buenos Aires and went out for a lovely meal around the corner from our Airbnb. The cured meats here are so good and so much cheaper than we are used to. This is probably the most processed food that we ate here – everything seems to be made much more from whole ingredients.

Limonadas

Every restaurant seemed to have their own variant of lemonade. Many of these were shockingly sour (especially the grapefruit variants). But the kids generally enjoyed these and it was nice that they werent drinking soda.

This was the kids first experience with Dulce de Leche and also their breaking point with eating it. They started eating and absolutly loved it. However Dulce de Leche is incredibly sweet and this was absolutely loaded with Dulce de Leche. Every time the kids cut into the crepe, more and more Dulce de Leche would ooze out. The kids were quickly overwhelmed by the sweetness and possibly permanently put off Dulce de Leche.

Enslada Mixta

Unlike many places we have traveled, it is easy to order a salad with your meal in Argentina. William has unexpectedly become second biggest salad fan after Nina. Although I think he may just be using it as a vehicle for his balsamic vinegar addiction.

the steak at the bottom is flank steak which was pretty standard fare – very tasty, but a bit tough. The steak on the top is a big slab of the tender top section that you just get a little bit of on a rib eye steak. It’s one of my favorites and something I havent been able to find outside Argentina. (Or maybe I just cant figure out how to translate it properly)

Chorizo

Sorry Brits, but the sausage in Argentina is better than yours. English sausage is very good, but this is better. I think that the sausage has bigger chunks of meat in it, but still manages to not be filled with chunky bits of fat or gristle.

We love the dress your own salad style in Argentina. Everyone can get there own perfect dressing: Nina has a normal mix of oil and vinegar, John and Madeleine use a bunch of olive oil, and William drowns his salad in balsamic vinegar. William then sops up the extra balsamic with his fries, bread, and anything else available.

Pastel de Calabaza y Lomo

Nina absolutely loved this meat and squash concoction. John did as well, but probably more for the delicious grilled cheese on top.

This was one of those moments when you chose something just because you have no idea what it is. Actually not horrible. It was kinda like cream of mushroom soup without the mushrooms. It had a pretty strong black pepper umami flavor.

BLT

Madeleine couldn’t resist the BLT and especially liked the sauce on the side which is a sort of curry mustard made at the butcher shop around the corner.

William couldn’t pass up a chicken satay. Unfortunatly, it was more like chicken breasts on a stick than little tender chicken satay strips. No matter to William, he slowly chomped through every last bite and especially enjoyed the peanut sauce.

Pea Soup

Very filling and very tasty pea soup with big chunks of ham and sausage. The rye bread was the sort of super dry and grainy bread that seems to appear in Northern European countries. John could barely finish this, but it was actually the small soup.

Yes, more sausages. However the special dish here was the black pudding which is a staple of the classic full english breakfast. We didn’t tell either kid that this is blood sausage, but neither particularly enjoyed it.

Closet Wine

Nina’s parents laid down several bottles of wine from Nina’s birth year. I remember them being in the closet of the guest room from the first time I visited 18 years ago, but havent been touched until now. They had us bring this bottle to share with Matt, Karen, and Kat. Any wine of this age is a little dicey, so very happy that there was no vinegaryness in the wine. It was however similar to brandy or sherry. John happily drank his glass, everyone else was more circumspect – not sure if that means John has the best or worst taste.

Long day on the canal and then a rainy walk through town to find a pub still serving food meant that Madeleine was going to revert to one of her all time favorites, pasta. This was especially delicious pasta as John can attest to since he did cleanup duty on what Madeleine couldn’t finish. Gorgeous white wine and cream sauce.

Jacket Potato with Chili

This is absolute comfort food for Nina. Jacket potato in England is the same as baked potato in the US. Chili on top is icing on the cake. Yes Nina could get this same meal at any Wendy’s in the US, but it wouldn’t be the same if its not called a jacket potato. Right?

Absolutely delicious pub burger made more delicious by a long morning on the canal.

Chicken BLT

We were on cloud 9 by the time we got to this late lunch on our canal trip. We had passed all the difficult parts of the canal, moores at a beautiful spot, and were eating at this lovely pub along the canal. Both Nina and William had this meal and both really enjoyed it.

John had the standout dish with this pie. The picture doesn’t do justice to just how huge this dish was. Surprisingly delicious with tender chunks of beef.

Falafel Salad

Nina opted for the salad (what a surprise!). Unfortunatly the dressing was so bitter and heavily applied she could barely eat it. Luckily John had more than enough food to share with her.

John thought every meal on the boat would be at a pub, but the very first night we finally found a mooring spot in the pouring rain. After getting completely soaked banging in the mooring spikes, we retreated into the boat and opted to avoid getting a second set of clothes soaked by walking to the pub. Nina made this lovely dish and we discovered how wonderfully cosy and warm the boat was.

Mexican Tortilla Soup

John and Nina cooked this for a crowd the day after Pete’s big birthday bash. We need to make this more often – nice and filling and worked well for a crowd / various dietary restrictions with choose your own toppings.

Beef bourgignone was obviously lovely as any dish with steak and red wine that is cooked all day should be, however the standout of the meal were the yorkshire puddings. In the U.S. these are sometimes called popovers and are eggy, bready pockets of deliciousness. Love the idea of stuffing your meal inside of it.

Ham Croquettes

Nina and John have had a soft spot for croquettes ever since eating them in Brussels many years ago on a street corner along with a glass of champagne. We need more of these in our lives. To the best of my knowledge, these are made by freezing a roux and then forming into a ball which is breaded and fried.

Nina and John had a lovely lunch at this tapas bar in the Grainger Market. We were sharing a bottle of wine and waiting for our food when they brought us this complimentary starter. This is probably the ideal snack plate for Nina. We love sour foods, but the pickles might have verged on too sour.

Cheese Platter

John’s favorite store in Newcastle is Fenwicks department store and in particular their food court and delicatessen. We were walking through the foodcourt when we saw a sign for this restaurant pointing to an elevator with a bouncer in front. At the top of the elevator you are met by another bouncer and led through a maze of passageways to a roof terrace. There were cut orchids in the flower arrangements at each table. We ate the snack pictured above. The standout was the blue cheese which had a touch of the blue cheese flavor without being sickly. Even John who usually dislikes blue cheese loved this one.

William and I were taken to see the final game of the season for Middlesbrough Football club by Mathew and Felix. The Middlesbrough specialty is a chicken parmo which is breaded fried chicken with ham, tomato sauce, and cheese on top of it. This was a sandwich variant. I would have thought breading plus bread would mean a very dry sandwich, but it was actually super tender and tasty. Funny story from the game – I also bought a beer and tried to walk back to my seat. Turns out that no alcohol can be drunk in the stands, so I had to stand in the concourse and finish my beer just as the second half was starting.

Pile of Sausages

Most mornings started with a pan of about this size completely filled with sausages. I forgot to get a picture until they were mostly devoured – of course all the remaining sausages were finished off. Madeleine and William have a prodigious love for and capacity to eat English sausages. I think in the U.S. that so much effort goes into making chicken sausages taste mediocre, that we don’t put the effort into making pork sausages taste amazing like the English do.

Pub lunch after a long walk from Pete and Jen’s house down the Ouseburn to the Tyne river. This was particularly tasty pub food. The panini had deliciously juicy pork and the salad was a lovely mix of greens, cous cous, and hummus. As a bonus, we went for a beer tasting at the local brewery afterwards.

Macaron

Definitely better than the Costco variety pack. Freshly prepared macarons are truly amazing!

The fish was pleasant, although not amazing. Nina seemed to like the cabbage best in this course.

Hogget, Meadowsweet, Mint, Berkswell

Hogget is adolescent sheep’s meat – so somewhere between lamb and mutton. Unfortunatly it was tough like mutton with the bitter aftertaste of guilt that comes with eating lamb. The rest of the plate was superb, especially the thing that looks like a small rectangle of cake. It was like a potato and meat crispy cassrole.

Very few restaurants in the U.S. would dare serve chicken liver pate as an entire course, but it is a much more normal food in England. Nina absolutly loves it and this was especially delicious pate. The presentation in a ball that looked like a small plum was impressive. (Picture shows after I had cut into it.)

Craster ‘Kipperballen’

More kippers, this time in delicious croquette form. The presentation on pepper corns was a nice touch.

John has been asking for kippers for years and finally here they are! For northern Brits / Scots this seems to be one of those foods that you are tortured with a poor version at school cafeterias. All the bones are left in and are small enough that you don’t notice them. However, once you start using your fork to seperate bones from meat – as Madeleine did – you end up with a bony horrible mess that gets stuck in your throat. Eggs were made by Madeleine since we categorically cannot stand Jen’s scrambled eggs which are cooked in the microwave and are usually only slightly more cooked than raw.

Ham and Potatoes with Side Salad

Traditional indiginous food in the north east of England. Note the mandatory meat and two carbs which characterizes a meal here. Green salad was a welcome treat. Very lovely to have a home cooked meal and all very delicious. On a side note – Dijon mustard in UK is way spicier than in the US and really punches up any dish it is served with in a way the US version doesn’t.

This is the dish first made famous by Nobu. Nina was very into it, but everyone else just wanted more delicious sushi for their main course.

Sea Bream Seviche

This was a beautiful meal at the top of the tallest building in the center of the Palm (the man made islands shaped like a palm tree off the coast of Dubai). We all had 2 starters and a main. The waiter was so impressed with William scarfing down the salmon nigiri that we comped him an extra plate of it! Sea bream was lovely and most interestingly had big oversized pieces of corn in it.

A beautiful Emirates meal. It felt dangerous to have metal silverware on a plane! Haven’t had an airline spead like this in years. Everything was delicious except the yellow egg custard in the middle top of the picture.

Frog Porridge

Had this delicious treat at … Just kidding! This was definitely a bridge too far for us.

Satay by the Bay was in the incredible Singapore gardens. It was a hawker market with a beer stand as well. We couldn’t pass up the Satay and had this lovely assortment.

Otak Otak

More Otak Otak for us. John became quite taken by these.

Apologies for forgetting to take a picture until this was almost gone, but we couldn’t stop eating until this was nearly gone. This was a simple but astonishingly delicious dish.

Egg and Taiwanese Sausage Sandwich

Totally delicious sandwich and nice to have pork sausage after weeks in Malaysia with only chicken and beef sausages.

We were excited to see this dish because we make something similar which we call a Nadia after the English cook who we saw make this on a cooking show. Many of you may know Nadia as the runner up on one season of Great British Bake Off. Sauce on the side was a sort of teriyaki salsa concoction. We were amused at the sign in the restaurant that very clearly specified the sauce was only for the omelettes and should under no circumstances be used on the other food as the flavours were wrong. Nina the rebel enjoyed the sauce on her sandwich as well and claimed it tasted just fine.

Fresh Orange Juice

Kids were very talen by these fresh orange juice vending machines. Best of all the machine would put a boba tea seal on the cup.

Most disappointing Otak Otak that we had. I think the issue was that the Otak Otak is delicious on its own and ended up overpowered by the springroll shells.

Kolo Mee

Nina told me several weeks later that she woke up thinking about how good this was. Noodles have a wonderful oily sauce and can either be eaten as is or with the included soup broth. As an added extra, there were shrimp wontons in the broth.

These were a lifesaver in the sweaty sweaty heat! They were more yoghurty than icey.

Durian Balls

Our only durian on the trip, although we smelled it all over. Everyone politely nibbled a corner and then made John eat the rest.

This was pur backup food order in case other items turned out inedible. Luckily, everything was delicious.

Elephant Coffee

The name comes from the oversized coffee beans. I can’t say i can tell the difference from regular coffee, especially after it is diluted down with milk and sugar.

This was the signature dish in a top rated restaurant in an under the radar foodie town. Sadly this was quite disappointing – basically a weak lentil soup with big grisly pieces of mutton.

Chicken Chop

This was the standout favorite of the free executive lounge food. It was mac and cheese on top of beef mince. We will definitely be recreating this at home.

Noodle Soup

This soup was about 70¢. To be fair the bowl was quite small, but everyone loved it. We had to order two more for the kids.

Nina and William were feeling a little under the weather so John and Madeleine went out for an explore. This was a brownie on a stick with a load of sauces and toppings all over it.

Buffet Lunch

We had lunch included in our white water rafting trip and weren’t sure what to expect. We had already had platters of salad, fruit, and french fries and assumed that was dinner when this massive feast was brought out for us. I don’t think we even cracked open the fried fish.

Nina’s comfort food. We often talk about what we would have if we had to have one food for the rest of our lives. Nina talks a good game about salad or pasta, but truth is that her forever food would be pizza.

Pesto Pasta with Chicken

Madeleine’s comfort food. Much better tasting than the picture looks.

We had just left the Cameron Highlands which is the veggie producing powerhouse of Malaysia. Somehow very difficult to get vegetables there. As soon as we arrived in the ‘big city’ of Ipoh, William ordered himself a salad.

Cucumbers with Soy Sauce

Without a menu, it was hard to figure out what we could order. We were oggoling this dish at the next table over where several men were deinking beer and nibbling in these. One of the men noticed and came over to give us a couple whole cucumbers. Best guess is that he was a farmer and these were his cucumbers. The whole region is a fruit, flower, and vegetable mega growing region. The restaurant cut these up for us and we all agreed these were the best cucumbers we had ever tasted.

No idea what greens these were, but they were yummy, if a little stringy to eat.

Thick Noodles in Sauce

Very thick noodles in a delicious soy sauce. Nina normally doesn’t like thick noodles, but these were so tasty that they won her over.

Kids are very taken by the scones here. They even enjoy the clotted cream.

Black Sesame Stick

I had no idea what this was, so of course ordered it. Turned out to be something along the lines of a fish stick with sesame seeds. The ketchup had a pleasant spiciness to it.

Same noodles, this time with a mutton curry on top of them. Nina was obsessed with this curry!

Clay Pot Noodle Soup

I hadn’t expected claypot to be soup – I was picturing noodles and rice crisped on the side of the clay pot. Stll really tasty. I will say, the Malaysian custom of putting dried anchovies in/on may have gone too far here.

Some large amount of the highlands are owned by a Scottish family who grow BOH tea. This might have been the only place we saw any Europeans/Americans in the Cameron Highlands.

Dragon Fruit Mango Ice Cream

Very tasty locally made icecream. This grocery store / restaurant has a genius concept: Upstairs is a bar and hotpot restaurant and downstairs they sell all the ingredients that go into hotpot. This was definitely the ‘fancy’ spot in town.

We are about an hour outside Ipoh, so starting to see more white coffee.

Thai Pork Sausages

We were hoping for something like Satay. Unfortunatly this was like a sausage without the skin. Strange since anything called a sausage here ends up being a hotdog.

We had to walk to this town since it had the nearest ATM. The town was super weird and soulless, but it did have this delicious Thai restaurant. We really liked this, although Madeleine struggled with the spiciness.

Fried Rice

Really, really good fried rice. Somehow it was super flavorous without being greasy. Madeleine has decided this is her favorite meal.

We are in a teeny tiny mountain village. In the corner of this restaurant was a fish tank. William pointed to one of the fish and they scooped it out for our dinner. After a loud thump from the kitchen and a few minutes wait, we were served this meal. Consensus was that this was best fish we have ever eaten. William even ate the eye. Nina was considering asking for private cooking classes since she liked the sauce so much.

Chocolate Milk

Madeleine getting spoiled by Doubletree staff during evening cocktail hour.

We are back at Loong Fong Cafe so the kids can have more Kaya Balls and Croissants. Nina ordered this very aesthetic Nasi Lemak. She has decided that the dish is great except for the peanuts. Refer to comments at Lepau for difference between white and purple rice.

Salmon Bowl

William seemed to enjoy everything about this except the very fragrant kim chi. Nina tried a bite of salmon and ended up with the only bone.

Nina would like to share that she has found her perfect salad. Sesame dressing and capers were key.

Steak Sandwich

We got back to our hotel at about 1:30 and it was beyond hot. I think the ‘feels like’ temperature was ~106°. There was no one at the hotel lobby and our card wasn’t working to get into the building. We ducked into this well air conditioned restaurant and had some delicious western food for what felt like a small fortune ($55USD with a few beers). This was Madeleine’s very tasty steak sandwich.

This was the finale to best food day ever. This was from a super busy cart about a block from our hotel. No running water, so someone was washing the dishes in a 5 gallon bucket next to our table. @Alissa – Nina spent the whole meal talking about how horrified you would have been. Still delicious and no upset stomachs from this.

Kerabu Bee Hoon

We ordered this because Madeleine wanted some noodles. Sadly these were too spicy for her. Somehow everything at this restaurant was too spicy for her. The rest of thought this was the most delicious food ever. On the walk home Madeleine tried to get us to stop for Kaya Balls

This was Nina’s favorite dish. She declared it the best eggplant she had ever eaten.

Acar Awak

We sought out this spot since it was a Michelin starred restaurant. We turned up with no reservation and got a table straight away. Everything was amazing and final bill for 4 was under $30 USD. These pickled vegetables were John’s favorite.

I’m not even sure what this was – the red liquid was a rose cordial, but the white spores were a mystery. It was tasty, but very confusing treat.

Salted Fish Fried Rice

So good, with an almost overpowering saltiness. It could have been too salty, but we are salt lovers and this was amazing.

These were standout delicious. They were carefully prepared in the metal contraption to the right. They had a soft coconut center with a crisp waffle outside. The kids could have eaten these all day long.

Grilled Red Snapper with Garlic

This was a cool spot on top of a car park with stalls around the outside and big tables in the middle. You choose the seafood from the tanks or ice trays and then it is cooked for you. Fish was really tender and delicious. I wish we hadn’t been so full since we only ate the fillet meat and didn’t get to see William dig into the head.

We love our kangkong.

Sea Snails in a Spicy Sauce

I really liked these. Two complaints: 1) They weren’t spicy. 2) They were so small and rounded that it was really hard to get them out of their shells. You would need bugs bunny teeth to be able to get them out with your teeth.

Nice thick handmade dumplings.

Chicken Dumpling Soup

Madeleine ordered dumpling soup, after sharing dumpling starter. Dumplings were good but soup was a little bland.

Yummy savory pancake. I would have liked if it were slightly less eggy and more full of batter. (Is there a word for this: Battery / Batterfull?)

Eight Treasure Crocodile Meat Soup

Of course William couldn’t resist ordering the crocodile soup. It had big tender chunks of crocodile and tasted like some combo of dark chicken meat and strong fish. Surprisingly similar to how we imagined it would taste.

Madeleine’s favorite dish of the meal. The beef was closer to steak than to stew.

Midin

Jungle fern. This was our second time having this dish, but this time it didnt numb our mouths and tongues. I’m wondering if we need to be worried about what we ate before

Definitely Nina’s favorite. It is a sort of eggplant stew / dip with a little bit of spice.

Wrapped Purple Rice

Since we have been in Malaysia we have been seeing rice or even whole dishes wrapped in a banana leaf, so we were excited to get this. What does rice wrapped in a banana leaf taste like? More or less like rice from a rice cooker. What does purple rice taste like? More or less like white rice.

Nice tea type drink

Kolo Mee

Perfect little lunch. This was supposed to be eaten separately with noodles and meat in one bowl and the soup in another, but come on, everyone loves noodle soup.

Thank you hotel credit card! 5-7pm free drinks plus an assortment of snacks. Our biggest issue was not eating too much when we were planning to go out for dinner. Nina had been missing white wine, so this was a welcome treat.

Salad Bar

We had 5 hours at the airport and couldn’t have been happier with this lounge. So much delicious food, but certain things aren’t common to find. All of us will gobble up any green salad. The brie cheese was another rare find here. Another plus for this lounge – we had gone to the airport straight from a snorkling trip, so being able to shower at the lounge kept us from many hours of sea water itchiness.

The level of sweetness on this was bonkers. I don’t think that Madeleine could eat much more than the nibble in the picture.

Fish and Noodle Soup

We are back at the Three Tastes fermented vegetable place, this time for breakfast. This was a really tasty poached fish and yellow noodle soup. I ordered thick noodles and got concerned when I first pulled out a white gummy wormish noodle. Luckily that was a piece of fishball and not the noodles that were hiding in the bottom of the bowl.

We just needed something that wasn’t fried.

Chocolate Donuts

Sadly, I think this was the main portion of the kids’ dinner.

How could we not order something with John in the name. Roti John means Subway type bread rolls. Unfortunatly everything went downhill from there. The filling was some sort of sloppy egg batter cooked with chicken and covered in mayonnaise. Nina couldn’t eat it at all. Somehow she ended up ordering the same thing again a few days later. The picture when you order is really different.

Takana Pickles

We went for ramen in the local mall. Not very exciting, but sometimes you need your hit of Ramen. It was especially good ramen, but not particularly unique other than these pickled mustard greens. We had to put a ban on snacking on them in order to save some for topping our ramen.

The backstory to the cusine is that hundreds of years ago farmers in a Chinese village were going hungry, so they started hunting some monkeys to eat. The monkeys retaliated and ripped all the villagers crops out of the ground. In order to salvage the food, they dried the vegetables and stored them inside bamboo poles. When they retrieved the vegetables they had fermented and were especially delicious. We can attest to the deliciousness in this dish. They are super flavourful with a pleasant bitterness that cuts through the greasiness of the food.

Plain Noodles

I love that this is what passes for plain noodles in Malaysia. Also pretty amazing that they cost the equivalent of 60 US cents. To be honest, these did taste pretty plain.

William enjoyed this enough to get another later. We debated grabbing these for breakfast, but hard to resist Nina making crepes and french toast in the Air BnB.

French Toast

We stayed in an Air BnB in Kota Kinabalu after the jungle and the kids really just wanted some of Nina’s cooking. We have had crepes, carbonara, and french toast. It probably costs more to cook than to eat out, but sometimes the kids just need the special ingredient – Nina’s love.

I can’t say enough good things about Malaysian Airways food. This was served on a 50 minute flight and was very tasty. Even on a 20 minute flight, they served us peanuts, a chocolate pastry, and a drink!

Chicken Noodle Soup

William going back to his classic choice. We all had some and agreed this was one of the tastiest soups ever, broth was salty and tasty, but the noodles were the real star. It tasted like they were cooked in the broth and every bite had a delicious chicke soup taste oozing out of them.

Local rice wine. It came in reused bottles of rum or gin and every bottle tasted different and had a different level of cloudiness. Despite that Nina fell in love with Tuak. Two glasses were just the trick to sleep through a noisy jungle night. By the time we left Nina was pretty sure that the restaurant staff were calling her the Tuak lady when we came into the cafe, and made me order her drinks for her.

William’s Birthday Feast

William tends to rate every meal not by the quality of the food, but the number of plates on the table. It is a yes/no of feast or not a feast. This rated as feast by the William scale.

This is Sarawakian ceviche and it is delicous. Also nice to have a cold meal in the heat.

Mee Mamak

Delicious and slightly spicy – even though it was supposed to be very spicy. Everything was underspiced to accomodate foreigner taste.

Nina ordered this local specialty. It was drenched in sweet soy sauce. Unfortunatly the only person who didn’t like it was Nina.

Brinjal (Eggplant) Tempura

We have mixed feelings about this dish, Tasty, but less of a tempura and more of a fried.

One of the few disappointing meals at the park – undercooked beef patty..

This was so good that Madeleine and William traded off who ordered the Chicken Satay each meal.

Some comfort food for Madeleine.

This resturant seems to revel in being non-halal and serves pork with just about every meal.

Two hour flight had a lovely meal service. Unfortunatly we just had lunch at the airport, but no worries for John, William, and Madeleine who eagerly dug into lunch number two. We forgot to take a picture of the other option ( fried rice with curry fish) but John and William both agreed it was the best airline food we have ever had.

William is still loving his chicken noodle soup.

An especially delicious Laksa.

Minmum order of ten satay, but not a problem for William. Every satay here is so much more delicious than what is served in US. Nina and John thought the peanut sauce was amazing, but kids seemed to avoid it.

This was Madeleine’s peak noodleness. She looovved this dish and tried to make us order her a second serving.

William’s go to dish of chicken noodle soup. He has always been a slow and steady eater, but the noodles slipping off the spoon make this an especially slow meal for him to eat. We are typically all finished and sit watching William enjoy every slurp for another 20 minutes.

Yes, just pigs blood. I guess it’s similarr to black pudding, but was surprisingly tasteless. It’s a bit like having some tasteless jelly in your mouth, which is fine until you start thinking about it being pig’s blood.

So much food and all so delicious. William started eating shrimp eyes. In the top right is a jug of watermelon juice that kids absolutely devoured trying to deal with the spiciness.

Madeleine ‘worked’ at A&W to make her meal herself. We were pushing her to work at the other restaurants instead: Nina wanted her to work at Subway (her absolute favorite chain) and John wanted her to work at the sushi restaurant. But the draw of flipping burgers was too strong to resist.

This is what Nasi Lemak should look like (as opposed to what we had on the airplane). It’s such a nice breakfast with a little protein, spice, and crunch. When served later in the day it normally has a chicken leg or similar as well.

Stumbled into this spot in the late morning when we kept missing out on finding breakfast. We are here during Ramadan so many people aren’t eating between sunrise and sunset. While a number of spots are closed during the day, many are open and fairly empty. This was in the bottom of an office building and was only open during daylight hours. They had sign basically asking for business because it would be a hard month. We were hungry, but it was so delicious

As part of Nina’s credit card hotel rerwards we received two free glasses of wine on our first night. The wine was way to expensive to go back, but their pastry treats were half off after 7PM. Every morning the kids would run to the display counter to see what amazing creations the pastry chefs had made overnight and debate what they wanted that night. I can’t describe how elegant an delicious all these treats were.

Polo Bun

Specialty in the restaurant. Instructions are in the picture. but basically all that iced butter goes inside along with condensed sweetened milk. It was delicious but I can’t imagine eating an entire one on my own. We shared this between the four of us. It’s supposed to be like pineapple with hard crusty on the outside and a soft center.

We went in to this restaurant for an iced coffee and a bit of a recharge from the heat. We all ordered different iced coffees with varying degrees of success. John had a lovely White Coffee (more on that soon). Madeleine had this funny tasting drink that we didnt realize had Cincau or grass jelly in it. The black bits aren’t extra ice but little jelly worms that come squirting up the straw. When we got the check we realized that Madeleine had ordered a tea instead of a coffee.

The start of Madeleine’s love affair with Malaysian noodles. This was a rather expensive meal at the airport for the cost of 4 USD – which feels extra cheap after being in Australia.

We grabbed lunch before the long ride into downtown Kuala Lumpur. John ordered this delicious soup, but the kids stole the shrimp. William has officially changed from shrimp hater to shrimp lover and now sucks the juice out of the shrimp heads.

Yes we ate at McDonald’s and yes it was delicious. Nina would only let me take a picture of the salad, but we had the family feast and enjoyed every bite of it.

Nina’s dinner choice – she was happy since it came with not one but two salads(garden and seaweed). Unfortunately, the kids took the california roll and everyone wanted some of the salmon.

Handroll means something different in Australia than it does in the US. Best I can tell, handroll is sushi made fresh to order. A standard sushi roll would be made ahead of time and therefore not have any raw fish in it.

This was the best food we had in Australia – small Thai restaurant specializing in street food in a melbourne suburb surrounded by a bunch of asian restaurants. The soup was so good that we forgot to take a picture until it was almost gone. It included fishballs which are one of Nina’s favorites.

Really, really good and it filled Nina’s salad needs. William was very taken by the tiny dried shrimp in it.

Popular with everyone which bodes well for our next stop in Malaysia where these sell for 20¢ each on the street. The peanut sauce was excellent with nice peanut flavour while avoiding any peanut butterryness.

William’s dish was the clear winner. This was breaded chicken covered with ham, tomato sauce, and mozzarella. Richardsons – William is definitely going to be happy visiting you all and the Masham!

Very fancy way of saying Fish and Chips. Didn’t taste any better than average and fish and chips, but came with a side of John getting shamed by the rest of the family for greasy food.

All that Madeleine wanted was Mom’s buttered pasta. Nina cooked this for us in our cabin. We were told in very specific terms that cooking crab or curry in our room would result in a $500 fine.  Smoking only gets you a $150 dollar fine.

Another lunch, another burger ordered by the kids. Amazing fries!

Super delicious! Really nice balance of flavors between the sour pickled onions / balsamic dressing and sweet corn. Dukkah adds a nice crunch.

A typical Baumler family breakfast picked up from the supermarket.

Stopped by for a small appetizer. So delicious – especially with prosecco! The little white swirls are wasabi cream.

This was beautifully presented inside a mason jar in perfect layers in the counter fridge display. Bit more of a jumble once served, but still pretty good. Still not the salad Nina has been looking for.

Nina said no more food posting until we had a picture of a salad. A constant refrain in Australia is Nina telling us she wants a salad. Honestly, none seems to meet her expectations. This had BIG chunks of beets, carrots, and zucchini in a yogurt sauce. Apparently not what Nina was looking for – will share once we find Nina’s perfect salad.

First Lahksa that John and Nina ever ate was in Sydney 19 years ago. So great to be back and eating more. Definitely top 3 soups along with Ramen and Bangkok street cart chicken noodle soup. Sadly William was not very enthused by the coconut milk flavour.

Love Singapore Noodles and the fried curry flavour. Can’t wait to get to Singapore to compare!

Lovely spot serving a mix of asian street food. In ‘The Rocks’ with a beautiful outside location.

Oh my god, so delicious! The garlic bread was fried and everything else just rocked!

Shrimp were especially delicious.

Good, not incredible.

Each roll costs $3USD. They are really big – this was dinner for all four of us. Kids couldn’t stop talking about cheap sushi and had this again the next day for lunch in a food court.

This is apparently a Sydney institution. The classic pie comes with mashed potatoes and mushy peas on top, then covered in gravy. Very good pies, especially the curry chicken flavour. The sausage roll wasn’t nearly as good as Greg’s.

Pretty average, even for airplane food.

Madeleine says the eggs were all one piece which was unfortunate. Hashbrown and fruit passed muster.

The joy of an airport lounge! Doesn’t really matter how good the food is.

Not at all sickly, just delicious. Normally the kids love octopus and John and Nina can’t stand it – exact reverse this time.

We tried to order the Honey Chicken, but the server said it was very small and recommended this instead. Chicken was average, but that side salad was one of the most delicious things ever.

Yummy and super salty.

Absolutely devoured by us. Unfortunately we were being devoured by mosquitoes at the same time.

Another unsuccessful soup for William. We went into this trip thinking that William would only be eating soup and yet so far not so much. Nina and John always live a daal.

Classic favorite for William and Madeleine. Once the drink is done, they will cut in half and you eat out the coconut meat.

Local starchy root – Everyone loved it. Maybe just really well prepared but this was way better than similar regional starches like Yucca.

So spicy! Also had that spicy/peppery flavour that goes to the back of your throat and makes you cough. William was really excited about this but could only eat a spoonful. Nina and John enjoyed it.

Delicious!

Maybe a little too much fusion.

Madeleine said it was her second best chicken sandwich ever.

Really delicious. Also nice to get two full meals on an international flight.

Big yuck! French toasts were poor. The sauce seemed to be some sort of sweet lemon butter, but was still completely tasteless. Madeleine and William mainly ate the fruit and sausages from Nina and John’s meals.

Really unappealing presentation. Per William, actually really tasty once you got down to the raviolis.

Surprisingly decent. Mushrooms with the chicken and lettuce with the pasta salad were nice touches.