Another Day, Another Pasta

Yesterday we made another pasta, this time one that we had not made for quite a while, from a cookbook from the Culinary Instute of America that we had not used in ages. We had to make our own Eye-talian sausage, and it was worth it.



A decided to go all out Eye-talian for the wine which was a good choice. I am not sure whether it was the fennel seeds, tomato or rosemary that made this pairing work, but it worked really well.

More Snow

Today we did another nice little hike in the forests around Saarbrücken. We found this wonderful website that gives information on where we can get food and drink, and we just plan a hike close to these places.



Today it turned out that we were hiking in our own forest.



And afterwards we were lucky to find some place with sausages --- what are the chances of that?

Chinese Food

We love Sushi! Meatz, vegetablez and fishz. (And the fried potato mountain, but sadly no picture today.) Yum-o!

Escape From Beijing

Today we rented a car to get away from the pollution. When we got to where we thought we wanted to go (Zhangjiakou), and got off the highway, we saw a long queue of trucks parked on the road towards the highway. They looked like the had been there for a while, and weren't going anywhere soon. Since the trucks were parked right in front of the entrance to the toll road to Beijing, our hypothesis is that, in an attempt to get pollution levels within "normal" levels again, Beijing has put a temporary ban on trucks entering the city.



Zhangjiakou turned out to be pretty polluted too, however, so we turned around and went to another city in the vicinity: Xuanhua. Here is our hotel room/temporary office:



And, to make sure this is blog is not only about whining, but also about dining, here some picture of our dinner here.







Yup, Beijing duck.

Purple

We had lunch at Yan Ming Yuan this week, and had some of our favorites. Pictured above is the hot red bean juice, and we also had the duck with glutinous rice. I did not take a picture of the latter, and it turns out I did not need to either: see here. (No peas this time, though.)

Dinner with discount

There is this fancy restaurant next to the Tsinghua Gate that we hardly go to, because we think it is too fancy and we think that means it can't be good. But then when we do go, it turns out to be pretty damn tasty.

Today, we went because we still had a 100 yuan discount coupon lying around.







When we had ordered sufficient food for three people (it was just the two of us) we weren't anywhere near the required 200 yuan we needed in order to use the coupon. The waitress helped us figure out how much more we needed, and it turned out a plate of foie gras was enough.

Lunch at Yan

Finally, a restaurant of which we know the name. It's a bit expensive but its rice with duck is extremely tasty on a cold day (of which we have quite a few now). Especially on a cold day before November 15... On November 15 our heat will be turned on (although reportedly only up to 16 degrees celsius), but until then it is just tough luck when it is cold...