Taking it easy in Euskadi

The first view of the Spanish Basque province of Guipúzcoa as you drive in from France is not good.

Squeezed between the western edge of the Pyrenees and the turbulent waters of the Bay of Biscay, the motorway roars through a concrete tangle of highways, ‘sixties housing blocks and bleak industrial estates.

We weren’t worried though, from the web site we knew our hotel was well away from the urban sprawl, nestled in deep green foothills, among the hayricks and pretty villages made of stone and red-tinted timber. At least that’s what we thought as we turned off the A-8 from Bordeaux and climbed up an increasingly rustic byway.

After a few kilometres, the sign for Hotel Usategieta pointed down a country lane, overhung with branches gleaming in the drizzle that gives these hills their emerald hue.

Then came a surprise. The lane suddenly became a bridge, taking us over the highway again, we passed a lorry park and a service station, and there was the hotel, within sight and sound of the rumbling traffic below.

With trepidation, we parked and walked toward the reception. Although the traffic hum faded, it was drowned out by a blast of Mika’s “Grace Kelly”, swiftly followed by a brace of Spanish disco numbers as a rowdy family fiesta got into full swing in the ground floor restaurant. So much for our restful country inn.

We needn’t have worried. “Ongi etorriak,” smiled the receptionist. That’s welcome in Basque. Even more welcome was her assurance that “Dancing Queen” blaring away downstairs was to be one of the last numbers at the party. As a bus pulled up to take away the revellers, we took a stroll round the grounds.

The Usategieta turned out to be an oasis of greenery amongst the urban mess. The main building is a solid old farm house with stone walls overhung by an oak-beamed roof. The crimson façade was hung with a tumble of blue and white petunias.

Broad-leaved oaks sprout from the lawn with a hammock strung between them to lie back and admire the view of mount Jaizkibel looming over the coast. The vegetable garden was bright with curly lettuce, tomatoes, parsley and anis.

Our room was a stylish mix of traditional and modern, with wood floors, terracotta tiles in the vast bath room. From the balcony we could see the cloud-shrouded Aiako Harria mountain park off to the east.

The Usategieta makes a great place for exploring what turns out to be a wonderful region with the natural grandeur of the mountains to the coast lined with sandy coves and a cuisine which any Basque will assure you is the best in the Iberian Peninsula.

Just a short drive away is the city of San Sebastián, Donostia to Basque speakers. The city’s elegant 19th-century avenues radiate from Concha bay, Europe’s nearest rival to the Copacabana, complete with golden sands overlooked by Monte Urgull in the role of the Pão de Açúcar. There are splendid harbourside fish restaurants on the Paseo del Muelle and a warren of bars and eateries that keep the parte vieja or old quarter humming late into the night. Txikiteo is the Basque equivalent of a pub crawl and the bars of the parte vieja are renowned for their pintxos (the Basque equivalent of tapas) to be nibbled with a zurito (small glass of beer), cider or the local taxakoli white wine.

At the Usategieta they make their own cider from the apples growing in the garden during the season from December to April. Then it’s served with a menu of tortilla and salt cod especially designed to sharpen your thirst. We had to make due with a bottled version as a pre-dinner drink, made with apples brought in from Asturias. It’s poured from on high into tall, chunky tumblers, never more than a finger’s thickness at a time. I have to say that this ultra-dry tipple is something of an acquired taste.

The restaurant is in a great vaulted room which must once have served as a stables or barn for the farming family living above. We were not surprised to find it empty, this is Spain after all and people eat late. But on a damp, July night we stayed eating till 11 p.m. and remained the only diners, which was a pity because the food was excellent.

As we scanned the menu, hot crusty rolls appeared, ideal for soaking up some fruity olive oil from the jar on our table. There were also croquetas de jamón, puffs of potato and ham.

The opening courses were copious. My salad of bacalao contained loads of shredded salt cod, mixed with lettuce from the hotel garden in a light garlic mayonnaise sprinkled with toasted pine nuts and strips of grilled red peppers.

Garden produce featured heavily in the other starters: five fat white asparagus with mayo and vinaigrette on the side; and grilled foie gras served on a bed of seasonable greens that included baby broad beans, peas and tiny florets of cauliflower.

It was a great start, helped down with a terrific wine picked out by tour waitress _ Fernández de Piérola, Crianza 2003, a gorgeously perfumed Rioja filled with plums, figs and summer fruit that’s producee by a new bodega on the border between the Rioja region and the Basque province of Álava.

Among the main courses were that Basque classic bacalao al pil-pil, salt cod slow cooked in garlic and olive oil with a hint of chilli. This is always a simple dish that depends very much on the quality of the materials. The only complaint here was that maybe the cod was a bit on the bland side for having been left to soak too long in the desalting water.

The waitress was insistent that we try the bonito _ a summertime favourite from the Cantabrian coast. Cooked encebollada, braised with sweet onions, the two-inch-thick posto of this small relative of the tuna was fabulous, but too much for a single appetite to handle. For carnivores, the sotomillo steak was grilled to perfection with a handful of chunky chips and more of those some charred red peppers.

The desert list included Tolosa cigarros _ almond and butter cakes from the nearby hill town; orange soup with white chocolate ice-cream and the house special _ raisins and dried local cherries soaked in Armagnac (from just over the French border) served with helado de queso _ cream cheese flavoured ice-cream.

After that, there was a café solo and a glass of patxaran, the local sloe gin, to give us the energy to stagger upstairs.

The next morning we were up early, but squeezed in a breakfast with good café con leché, freshly squeezed orange juice, oven warm rolls, a mixture of hams and jams and a slice or two of Idiazábal sheep cheese from up in the valleys.

B&B was €140 for three, dinner came to €117. All that was left was to say eskerrikasko and agur until the next time.

http://www.hotelusategieta.com
http://www.pierola.com/

Beside the Seaside

There’s something special about eating beside the sea, knowing your fish has just been plucked from the depths, breathing in the salt air, listening to the surf, watching the sun sink into the water as you down a glass of cool white wine. We’re spoilt in Europe with such variety of coastlines from the Adriatic to the North Sea, the Baltic to the Atlantic ...

Piran is a jewel of a town on Slovenia's short Adriatic coastline. Squeezed within the shores of a narrow promontory, its pastel hued Venetian houses shimmer in the still blue waters.

A tangle of medieval alleys run up the hillside which is topped by the campanile of Sv. Juirja's (St. George's) cathedral _ a copy of those across the bay in Venice. From the cathedral steps, the whole coast of Slovenia curves round to Italy in the west and Croatia in the east.

Side-by-side on Piran's eastern waterfront are the twin restaurants Pavel I and Pavel II, long established local favorites where you can feast on fresh fish and Istrian specialties looking out over the harbour.

We were a big group and put ourselves in the staffs, hands asking for a selection of their best _ although we settled for just two courses and skipped the offer of lobster spaghetti to go between the starters and the fish. Slovenian cooking can be a complicated mix, reflecting the country's location at the crossroads of Central Europe, Italy and the Balkans, but at Pavel's seafood simplicity rules.

The antipasti comprised clams, mussels, shrimp, a fishy carpaccio, soft white cheese and Kraški pršut, Slovenia's air-dried ham which rivals the San Daniele from just across the Italian border. A selection of gleaming fish were presented for our approval, then whisked away and returned grilled or baked to perfection with olive oil, lemon and garlic, there was gilt-head bream, sea bass, rascasse and a big, juicy flat fish.

It was all fabulous, washed down with the excellent malvazija Capo d'Istria wines, and finished off with a tray laden with on-the-house liquors_ plain grappa and others flavoured with lemon or blackberry.
Pavel, Prešernovo nabrežje, Piran, SI - 6330 +386 (0)5/674 71 01, +386 (0)5/674 71 02

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Noordwijk's dunes lost their pristine nature long ago as the scatter of holiday homes and guest houses was gradually built up until the coast became dominated by the hulking hotels like the Huis der Duin, a luxury ziggurat favoured by NATO ministers and the Dutch football stars.

This North Sea resort is packed in summer with beach lovers from the cities of Holland and Germany's industrial heartland and in springtime it can be bracing base for exploring the nearby tulip fields.

Along the coast stretching away to the south the concrete strip soon gives way to the sandy heathland dotted with villas in eclectic styles from thatched faux cottages to modernist cubes and belle époque palacettes. On a blustery Autumn weekday, the dunes were deserted apart from the odd brave soul braving the cycle path through the grass. The beach is a wide and flat strip of compact sand favoured by joggers and horse riders.

Hidden among the dunes on Noordwijk's southern edge is Het Zuiderbad - restaurant and sun terrace. It's a curious place whose wooden beach huts and deck chairs have been attracting visitors since the 1920s. For 10 years now the main building has housed a restaurant serving seasonal, local produce in trendy, vaguely nautical surroundings looking out over the beach.

It was packed, with an open fire providing a welcome antidote to the near gale blowing outside. Lobster soup fortified with chunks of freshwater shrimp was an excellent warming starter. The main course was grilled fillets of brill served in a Champagne sauce that went very well with the house white, a fruity Castilian Rueda.

The exotic-sounding bavarois van Zeeuwse babbelaar op een spiegel van karamel _ an mousse cake flavoured with the much-loved toffees from the southern province of Zeeland _ rounded things up nicely with a sweet, scented glass of Muscat de Rivesaltes, Domaine Sarda-Malet, 2005.
http://www.zuiderbad.nl/

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Medieval Porvoo is hidden on an inlet of the Gulf of Finland about 50 kilometres east of Helsinki. Dating back to the 14th century, its old town is mostly made up of wooden houses painted in shades of pale grey, power yellow or rust, clustered on the bank of the Porvoonjoki River. They are filled with little shops, galleries and cafes, which provided a welcome haven on a chilly December day.

This cozy place even has its own chocolate factory, Brunberg's which has been turning out truffles, chocolate kisses and that Nordic favourite, salted liquorice since 1871.

The medieval cathedral which crowns the hillside is under repair after a fire started by teenage vandals a couple of years ago, but thankfully the Wanha Laamanni restaurant just across the square survived. It's in a cherry red lawyer's house dating back to the 18th century, an era recalled in the flowery but restrained rococo interior.

Today's Finnish cooking takes full advantage of the wonderful natural products on offer in its lakes and forests _ game, cold-water fish, winter roots, matchless berries. At Wanha Laamanni you can try arctic char with creamed mushrooms and beetroot, or fried pikeperch with chanterelle sauce. Carnivores can go for the reindeer fillet with puikula potatoes from Lapland, or roe deer with game sauce. They're not their web site, but I remember spotting exotic treats like snow grouse and bear (for a high price) on the menu when I was there last year.

Expect to pay at least €50 for three courses, double that if you take a bottle from the wide, international wine list.
http://www.brunberg.fi/
http://www.wanhalaamanni.com/

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Our arrival in Alvor did not get of to an auspicious start. After an age to find a parking place along the quayside, the Àbabuja restaurant that we'd been recommended was full. The man barbecuing fish at its neighbor, A Ribeira, said we could get a table there in 40 minutes.

"Tudo bem," we said and set off to take a drink in a nearby café where we could watch a glorious sunset over the lagoon.

The Ria de Alvor is a haven of natural beauty on the Algarve coast of Portugal between Portimão and Lagos. Its mouth divides the great sweeping strands of Praia de Alvor and Meia Praia. The shallow waters are a haven for yachtsmen, seabirds and shellfish.

Alvor was once a small fishing village. Now surrounded by holiday homes and the sandstone cliffs looming over the wonderful beaches off to the west are marred by some ugly concrete hotel towers. Despite that, the waterfront retains its charm and the main street running down to it is a lively evening strip of bars and shops like the cool Atlantic Sud tee-shirt emporium.

When we finally got to the restaurant it was still bursting at the seams and waiters buzzed between the icebox and the vast open-air grill with trays filled with squid, bream, sole and a shoal of other fish.

It looked and smelled wonderful. But after weeks of grilled fish, we fancied a change and kicked off with some amêijoas, the sweet clams which are the finest fruit of the lagoon, steamed with lemon, garlic and a fresh bunch of coriander. Having spotted somebody fishing for cuttlefish in the lagoon earlier in the day, our main course had to be cataplana de chocos. A cataplana is unique Algarvian pan that combines the functions of a wok and a pressure cooker _ in it were chewy cuttlefish, fat prawns and potatoes bathed in a rich tomato sauce flavored with more coriander.

This came with a bottle of chilled white wine from the Alentejo and was finished up with delicious fig and carob cakes. We left late in the night, but still had to thread our way out past the crowds waiting to get in.
A Ribeira, Largo da Ribeira, 15 - Alvor. Tel. +351-282 457 012

Düsseldorf for the weekend

Rated one of the world’s most live-able cities and one of Germany’s most affluent, the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia offers major league modern art, romantic walks along the Rhine, über posh shopping and an old town that calls itself the biggest bar in the world.
Saturday breakfast:
You can follow in the footsteps of Gorbachev and Pavarotti nipping into the Café Heinemann which is celebrating 75 years of serving quality kaffee und kuchen. The Bahnstrasse branch is the perfect place to fill up before an assault on the shops round the corner on Köningsallee. The showroom in the front is filled with cholesterol boosting confections like the almond-liquor-cream filled herrentorte, award winning champagne truffles or the towering black chocolate baumkuchen. Out the back is a classic old café with leather chairs and dark wood tables serving up creamy coffee and a renowned breakfast selection.

Saturday morning:
Köningsallee is Germany’s most exclusive shopping street. Behind the vitrines are shimmering gold dresses, antique broaches encrusted with rubies, and ermine overcoats, a snip at €13,000. The posh stores are mostly arrayed along the eastern side of the street opposite solid ranks of banks and office blocks.
Between them, along the kilometre-long thoroughfare, are two stately rows of horse chestnut trees and a shady canal cut by low arched bridges. This used to be called Kastanienallee after those conker trees until 1848 when a visiting king of Prussia was pelted with horse muck by disgruntled Rhinelanders, causing the local burghers to make things up to the monarch by naming the avenue after him.
Aside from the international designers, D’dorf is proud of being at the forefront of German fashion with the likes of Sabine Schumacher and Peter O. Mahler, not to mention supermodel Claudia Schiffer who started her career here.
Most of the streets leading off the Kö are also lined with chic boutiques and the odd quirky store like Manufactum _ a marvellous place selling a completely eclectic range of goods from lederhosen to garden hoses, tin trains to Trappist ales. The common theme is that everything is hand made by small manufacturers, with a special section linked to goods made by monasteries and convents. (https://www.manufactum.com/).
At the northern end of the Kö the avenue broadens out and is surrounded by department stores, like the Galeria Kaufhof. These may be ubiquitous in Germany, but a good place nevertheless for those who can’t afford a €1,000 blouse, to pick up a more modest souvenir like a clay pot of AB mustard, a red-and-white Fortuna Düsseldorf scarf, or a snow done showcasing the cart wheeling kids who are a symbol of the city, featured in X-shaped statues around the town.
Lunch:
Düsseldorf’s Altstadt is something of a misnomer. The old town was almost entirely rebuilt after the city centre was devastated by allied bombing raids in World War II. Despite that, the tightly packed streets convey something of the aura of the medieval city. It’s mostly pedestrian and filled with cafes, restaurants and beer houses that have earned its moniker as “the biggest bar in the world.
Within this warren are four old brewery pubs where they make the local specialty alt beer on the premises. Schüssel, Uerige, Schumacher and Füchschen all make alt around the old town _ their beer houses are huge, bustling places, but also manage to stay cosy due to the interlocking rooms lined with woodwork stained to the same the copper tones of their ale and decorated with old etchings or fading photos of celebrated former guests. There are several other alt producers scattered elsewhere around the city. Alt is a refreshingly sharp brew. Served in small, narrow glasses, it’s not a strong as most German beers and is designed to be drunk in quality. In fact it’s much like the Kölsch served in Düsseldorf’s great Rhineland rival Cologne (although natives of either city will argue strongly that their brew is the best.)
The beer halls of the Altstadt don’t mess about. Food here is rigorously traditional, but provides great snack opportunities. How about Flönz – a curl of shiny cold blood pudding served with chopped onion and a slice of black bread at the Zum Uerige. http://www.uerige.de/.
The beer made on the premises is considered by many to be the best in town. Other options include thick pea soup, known as ähzezupp; halver hahn, not half a chicken, but rye bread served with a slice of cheese with caraway and onion; brawn; or mettbrötchen, minced pork rolls.
Saturday afternoon:
Take a stroll round the Altstadt: the Berg platz overlooking the Rhine with its Baroque tower, all that remains of the once mighty palace of the Dukes of Berg after a fire in the 1870s; the ivy-clad 18th century Rathaus, with its horseback statue of local hero Jan Wellem of Paletine; the birthplace of poetic great Heinrich Heine; the gothic Catholic church of St. Lambertus and its Protestant counterpart the Berger Kirche.
Then head downriver along the Rheinuferpromenade, a riverside walkway which brought new life to city in the 1990s when the main road which cut the old town off from the Rhine buried in a tunnel. There are rows of café terraces and views of the endless barge traffic.
Keep walking and you come to the Rhine tower, a 234 meter spike offering great views of the city from a viewing platform are revolving restaurant at the top.
Just beyond, is the MediaHarbour a new development on the river port which has become a showcase of new architecture, most notably Frank Gehry’s jumble of leaning towers clad in whitewash, redbrick or shimmering steel. The MediaHarbour is a cool place to hang out, featuring the trendy Lido restaurant serving French food in a glass cube surrounded by water. At the Eigelstein café, there’s even an outpost of Düsseldorf’s great rival, serving Kölsch beer and Cologne cooking.
Saturday night:
Returning for more beer in the old town is always an option. Zum Schiffchen is reputedly the city’s oldest eatery, dating from 1628. Tuck into liver dumplings with sauerkraut and mash, and kidneys served in a creamy Düsseldorf mustard sauce. It serves Frankenheim alt. http://www.brauerei-zum-schiffchen.de/.

At Zum Schüssel there was himmel und erde (heaven and earth, aka: hot black pudding with mashed potato and apple puree spiked with onion) or Stadtschreiberschmaus _ pan fried leberkäse (liver paté) served with fried spuds, baked onions, fried egg and green beans.
http://www.zumschluessel.de/
You are unlikely to pay more than €15 a head at any of these places. To ease all that down, head to the Kabüffke hole in the wall bar for a glass of Killepitsche, a cherished local herb liquor.
Round off the evening at Roncalli’s Apollo a much loved cabaret replete with acrobats, dancing girls, mimes and magicians. It’s been going since the 1890s, but this year is celebrating 10 years in its new venue under the Rheinknie bridge. http://www.apollo-variete.com/.
Sleeping:
Top of the range is the majestic Steigenberger Park hotel at the top end of Kö. Five star luxury, rooms start from around €200, but go much higher. There have some special offers at the moment, giving weekend nights from €98. (http://www.steigenberger.com)
The Stage47 has doubles from €160 (http://www.duesseldorf-hotels.de/) and the Burns Art Hotel from €145. (http://www.hotel-burns.de/) Both are trendy, arty places.
Cheerfully down market, the Hotel Haus Hillesheim has been in the same family for four generations. It has a nice kitsch bar, OK rooms and a reasonably central location at the southern end of the Kö. http://www.hotel-hillesheim.de/. Doubles from €60. They have a handy car park and will throw in a pass for free public transport for the duration of your stay.
Sunday breakfast:
Stay in your hotel and enjoy the typical German spread of hams, sausages, cheese, jams and breads dark and white. Coffee is not normally a highpoint, but these days you can usually ask them to rustle up a decent cappuccino or espresso.
Sunday morning:
Go north to Kaiserswerth, or south to Benrath.
Kaiserswerth is a history-packed suburb on the right bank of the Rhine. Surrounded by meadows and filled with baroque homes and cobbled lanes it feels more like a village than part of a great city. The U-bahn stop on Klemenzplatz a leafy square lined with cafés, like the cake-laden Café Schuster, the Tonhalle or Fuch amKemensplatz which serves Fuchschen alt beer. It’s a short walk to the Markt square with its high gabled houses and luxury boutiques. On a backstreet next to an old windmill, there’s a 19th century nursing home, where Florence Nightingale learned her trade. Overlooking a bend in the Rhine are the ruins of castle the built by crusading Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa to collect taxes on river traffic in the 12th century. There are romantic walks under rows of lime trees and some sunny beer gardens next to the castle or down by the little car ferry over the Rhine.
Benrath is at the opposite extreme of the city. The pink pleasure palace built here in the 18th century and its vast formal gardens were the playground Prince-Elector Karl Theodor, fun-loving patron of Mozart. The roccoco pile is up for World heritage status and contains the museum of European Garden Art. The grounds a filled with fountains, nymphic statues and swans gliding over ornate pools. Wikipedia says it was here that the late Austrian pop star Falco shot the video for his 1980s smash “Rock me Amadeus.” http://www.schloss-benrath.de/.
Sunday Lunch:
Try one of those Kaiserswerth beer gardens, or if you’re feeling flush check out Im Schiffchen, one of Germany’s most famous restaurants, run by French chef Jean-Claude Bourgueil, a holder of two Michelin stars who long ago traded the Loire for the Rhine. A typical dish would be Glanage et Cueillette de Fruits de Friches Ecrevisses, Mousseline de Cuisses de Grenouilles, Infusion d'Herbes, de Pousses d'Ail et Anis Etoilé for €42. Jean-Claude's is a more modest bistro on the premises, which has a take on the old Rhineland favourite himmel und erde, but substituting the blood sausage for goose liver. http://www.im-schiffchen.com/.
In Benrath, try the Schlosscafé, a pastel gatehouse at the entrance to the gardens serving refined light bites.
Sunday afternoon:
Get some culture.
The K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is one of Europe’s great collections of modern art. Picasso, Warhol, Pollack, Kirchner, Ernst, local boy Joseph Beuys and over 100 works of Paul Klee. Its sister museum the K21 features contemporary works from 1980 onwards. http://www.kunstsammlung.de/.
Sitting beside the Rhine, the Kunst Palast has its own permanent collections ranging from the medieval to German expressionists. Up to January it’s pulling in the crowds with its temporary show Bonjour Rusland, bringing French and Russian masterpieces from the great collections of Moscow and St. Petersburg featuring the likes of Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, Kandinsky and Chagall. http://www.museum-kunst-palast.de/.
Sunday evening:
If you’re seeking an antidote to all that sausage and beer, sushi would seem a good choice. Düsseldorf has one of the biggest Japanese communities in Europe. Many of the best Japanese restaurants are concentrated around Immermannstrasse or Klosterstrasse. The most renowned include Benkay in the Nikko Hotel, the Kikaku Ito, Nippon-kan, Yabase or the Naniwa noodle bar.
A more traditional option would be Weinhaus Tante Anna which has been has been serving up top notch Rhineland grub since 1828. Up to December, it’s offering a traditional winter goose menu for €42.50 comprising from foie gras with apple jelly, goose consommé with mushroom crepes, roast goose breast and leg served with red cabbage and pears, Brussels sprouts, potato dumplings and chestnuts glazed in honey. It’s finished off with a mouse of rum and spekulatius (Westphalian ginger biscuits) with marzipan sauce. http://www.tanteanna.de/.
If you can still move, try a concert. Düsseldorf is the home of German rockers Kraftwerk and Die Toten Hosen, schlagermeister Heino as well as hosting the Deutsche Oper am Rhine and a bunch of other classical music venues.
Getting there:
D’dorf is a two hour drive along the autobahn from Brussels, Amsterdam or Frankfurt, five from Paris, six from London and just half-an-hour from Cologne.
Düsseldorf international airport is one of Germany’s largest with direct flights to several European cites, North America and beyond.
The railway station is connected to Germany’s excellent high speed ICE system.
There’s an extensive and efficient regional public transport system running trams, busses and a metro around Düsseldorf and into neighbouring cities.

Tahli Ho! Spice hunt leads to exotic East Midlands

Tea was a mistake.
After stuffing ourselves to the point of exhaustion with the wonderful array of rotis and curries, farsan and daals at Bobby's famed vegetarian restaurant on Leicester's Belgrave Road, a nice cup of spiced chai seemed to be the ideal thing to ease our overworked digestive system.
Wrong.
The steaming mugs came with a complimentary selection of from the dazzling array of sweets on show at the takeaway counter _ syrupy globes in garish orange, saffron and cardamom mounds, lozenges of fudge tinted almond, chocolate and shocking pink edged with edible silver foil.
It was irresistible and necessitated a long post-dinner walk in the rain past the saris and jewellery and Bollywood DVDs in the bright shop fronts at the heart of one of England's most vibrant south Asian communities.

Like many of the restaurants around here, Bobby's serves food with its roots in India's western state of Gujarat, food dubbed the haute cusine of vegetarianism by no less an authority than the actress and food writer Madhur Jaffery.
Bobby's eschews not only meat, but also onions and garlic, although there is some confusion over whether this is because of adherence to strict Jainist principles, or simply because the cook's husband (like Prince Charles) does not like them.
There's nothing fancy about the décor. It's a brightly lit, colourful, cheery and reputedly named after a much-loved early-seventies movie of Bombay romance. The prices are pretty cheerful too. An all-you-can eat buffet for little more than a fiver, complete meal thalis for a quid or two more.
For the uninitiated, a thali meal involves a metal tray containing a collection of dishes each with a different dish.
We were three, and ordered two special thalis _ which included a selection of starters, a mixture of main courses, breads and a glass of cool lassi yoghurt drink _ and one Gujarati thali which had just a main course tray.
The starters were made up of farsan, typical Gujariti snacks. They included samosas with paper-thin pasty encasing a filling containing of potato, peas, cashews, ginger, fennel, coriander; bhaji fritters made with chickpea flour filled with potatoes, cassava and green chilli; kachori (delicate, pastry covered lentil balls); dhokla (fluffy, yellow sponge sprinkled with mustard and sesame seeds) with a couple of delicately spiced dipping sauces.
The thalis themselves contained a cornucopia of delights: buttery lentil daal (midway between a soup and a stew), shredded cabbage salad stained a turmeric gold, a selection of chapati and puri breads, crisp poppadoms. There's khichdi (a yellow rice and bean mash) with a bowl of and lemony sour kadhi sauce to pour over it. There was a curry of potato and chick peas, one with a richly spiced aubergine mix, yet another of fresh green peas and cubes of paneer cheese. One bowl had cooling mint-scented yoghurt, another a sweet, thick cream cheese.
It was immense. By the time we'd wiped out bowls clean with the chapatis and gorged on those free sweetmeats we could only stagger out into the street, to full to contemplate a purchase of takeaway cakes.
Leicester's Asian community was on course to make the city England's first with a non-white majority, until the recent influx of new immigrants from eastern Europe upset the demographic predictions.
But the city's gastronomic traditions are not limited to its eastern imports. The covered market in the city centre claims to be Europe's largest. Its display of fresh local fruit and veg (plus some exotic imports) in the market square is a foretaste of the delights on offer on by the fishmongers and butchers inside.
There are great blocks of Red Leicester cheese and wedges of blue veined Stilton (whose production is limited to Leicestershire and the neighbouring counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire).
Leicestershire's other traditional gastronomic glory is the pork pie. Fine examples of this crusty morsel can be found in the market or the famed Henry Walker's butchers shop in nearby Cheapside.
Leicester city centre is a surprising pleasant place, with several pedestrian shopping streets lined with stately Victorian buildings, reflecting the city's past prosperity as a hub of the textile, engineering and footwear trade.
The Town Hall square is filled with greenery and a bubbling fountain supported by four winged lions. The St. Martin's Square and Leicester Lanes neighbourhood is filled with idiosyncratic little shops and cafes. There's a medieval, half-timbered Guildhall, where both Shakespeare and Cromwell are reputed to have stayed. Nearby, the gothic cathedral contains the tomb, but not the body, of Richard III who lost his crown and his life at the battle of Bosworth Fields where the Wars of the Roses came to an end in 1485.
At weekends, the jumble of pubs and clubs around Belvoir and Hotel Street are jammed with thousands of partygoers scantily clad in tee-shirts and miniskirts despite the chill October drizzle. The Grand Hotel _ now part of the Ramada-Javis chain _ is an opulent 19th-century pile in the midst of all that. It's a bargain at 65 pound a night including the full English breakfast, even if the rooms are in need of freshening up.
For a quieter time head out to the plush suburb of Oadby past the millionaires' row of mansions built by the former hosiery magnates.
The Cow and Plough is a country pub on the edge of the city. Opened only in 1989, in some old farm stables, it seems much older thanks to the collection of Edwardian pub memorabilia which the landlords have build up over the years.
Sadly the farm park which originally surrounded the pub fell victim to England's 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. The pub has a great laid-back Sunday lunch atmosphere. It has its own brewery, the Steamin' Billy Brewing Co., named after the pub's Jack Russell terrier, making over a dozen award winning ales. The foods not bad either, ranging from giant chunky sandwiches like hot pork and cheddar served with salad and fat fries, to full meals like cod with fennel butter, or roasted pork with Steamin' Billy cider.

http://www.eatatbobbys.co.uk/

http://www.steamin-billy.co.uk/

http://www.goleicestershire.com/

By the Loire, cursed cats and the pike that got away

The Chateau de Chenonceau was under siege.
Battalions of Italians flooded through the wooded grounds; regiments of Japanese tramped the formal gardens; platoons of Poles rushed the bookshop, a rowing boat flotilla skirted the graceful arches over the River Cher.

"I've done Azay-le-Rideau and Cheverny, it was pretty tough, but nothing like this," groaned one Parisian veteran of the Loire Valley summer campaign as he manned the line in the stables-turned-fast-food-outlet.
Chenonceau it is the epicentre of the annual August invasion of the Loire's chateaux route.
The combination of its graceful towers and arches, its unique position astride the Cher, art-filled rooms and a scandalous history filled with the amorous adventures of French royalty draws tourists from around the world.
Fortunately Chenonceau's charm manages to survive the assault. The view of its arches reflected in the shimmering waters of the Cher is one of the great sights of France and a triumph of Renaissance planning.
Inside, there are paintings by Murillo, van Dyke, Tintoretto, Poussin, Veronese, Rubens. Bed chambers are hung by the richest Flemish tapestries, graced by vast ornate fireplaces and silk draped four-poster beds. Every window offers a glimpse of the river or the formal gardens below.
Those four-posters have seen some wear and tear over the years. Chenonceau is known as the chateau des dames, and this delicate retreat was long the favoured rendezvous for the French monarchy and their courtesans.
Renowned 16th-Century beauty Diane de Poitiers made the place her own while she was the favourite of King Henri II _ until his wife Queen Catherine de Medici kicked the mistress out.
A right royal schemer, Catherine became the power behind the throne in France while three of her sons became king. She ran affairs of state from the little office next to Chenonceau's library. A charming place, no doubt, to plan the massacres of Protestants and poisonings of rivals for which she was renowned.
One of the chateau's most richly decorated chambers is the room of the five queens in honour of such illustrious guests as Mary Queen of Scots and La Reine Margot, played fetchingly by Isabelle Adjani in the blood-soaked movie of the same name.
In the Francois I bedroom, there's a painting of three naked sisters _ the Mesdemoiselles de Nesle, who took turns as the mistress of Louis XV.
The helpful guide also explains how the mother of another of the Louis once threw a birthday banquet for her son and his chums with nude serving wenches on hand to grant their carnal and culinary desires. The era is captured well in Eleanor Herman's rollicking history Sex with Kings.
Just passing through, we had little time to visit the other great chateaux on the banks of the lazy Loire between Tours and Orleans. Just a peak at classical Cheverny _ the model for Tintin's Moulinsart _ and mighty Chambord where we were watched by a boar munching its way through the undergrowth of the surrounding forest.
On the eastern edge of the main chateau drag is the sleepy little town of Beaugency, which boasts its own 11th-century castle keep and brace of medieval churches. The Loire is wide and lethargic here, spanned by a 14th-century bridged considered such a wonder at the time, that many suspected a supernatural hand in its construction.
Local legend has it that the Devil build the bridge over one night aiming to capture the first soul that crossed it. Old Nick's plans were thwarted when a black cat scampered across at dawn, saving the townsfolk from damnation, but earnng the curse of witchery and evil eye for all sooty felines.
Overlooking the bridge, L'Abbaye de Beaugency, rebuilt in the 17th century after a fire, is now is an atmospheric hotel, with rooms in the old monks' cells. Many are duplex, great for families, with views over the sandy banks of the river. There are roaring fires, mounted stags' heads, monumental staircases and long, spooky corridors. A wide terrace beside the shady Loire shore is the perfect place for summer breakfasts.
The restaurant features a tempting selection of sander and langoustines, lapin chasseur and rognons de veau a la grains de moutarde. Unfortunately, both times we've stayed there, the chef's been sick or on leave and we've been forced to dine elsewhere.
With Beaugency perched between the Solonge, the Beauce and the Touraine, three of France's great culinary regions, that shouldn't have been a problem, but both times we ended up disappointed by restaurants brandishing snooty staff or substandard grub.
On our most recent visit we tried L'Abbaye's rival, L'Ecu de Bretagne, an old post inn on the town square, where there's a fine market on Saturday mornings replete with crispy rillions of pork belly, andouilles and andouillettes, fresh local fruit and veg and ash sprinkled Saint-Maure goat's cheeses.
Here the rooms in the main building are cosy and cheap at 70 euros for a double, but a bit rudimentary, those in the outbuildings have been restored to a high standard but come at a higher price.
The restaurant came highly reputed. Comfy despite its size, it's a typically old school French countryside place, with cheery waitresses, an authoritarian sommelier and the expectation of regional cuisine of the highest quality.
We started on a bottle of Cheverny Point du Jour full of cool cherries and a hint of liquorice, then dived directly into the menu de terroir which began with a delightfully creamy terrine de chevre and finished with the pungent pick of the cheeseboard and a refreshing soupe aux fraises.
In between came quenelles de brochet, the restaurant's signature dish.
This is a speciality here beside the pike-invested waters of the Loire. These were fluffed up with beurre blanc and produced a light souffle texture full of fresh eggs and fine butter flavour.
There was just one thing lacking _ the brochet. I could detect hardly a soupcon of any fish. Maybe my brutalised Anglo-Saxon taste buds were missing some subtlety here, but the frown on the face of Parisian missus confirmed that this fish seemed to have gotten away. I asked the waiter if the pike were caught locally, he looked confused and muttered something about a cash-and-carry.
After a third disappointing dinner in a town which has seems to have everything it needs to produce gastronomic success, we were left to reflect that perhaps Beaugency's black cat had crossed out path.

http://www.ecudebretagne.fr
http://www.hotel-abbaye-beaugency.com
http://www.chenonceau.com

Food on the Run in Seville

Two tips for travelling to Seville: don’t go at all in July or August and take care when jogging after a storm. The first is obvious. It’s just too darn hot. My first trip there was in August, the sun beat down without relief. The heat was Saharan, so hot that we were permanently in a rage. Taking a siesta through the worst of the afternoon might have helped, but we were too poor to afford air conditioning it just led to a restless sweat in our airless hotel room. One July, years later, I’d worked all day protected by the A/C, only to be hit by a wall of high 30’s heat at 8 in the evening.

If you do find yourself there in high summer, go for culture and relate to the suffering saints of Zubarán and Murillo in the Museo de Bellas Artes, or get some holy cool in the vast vaulted space of the Cathedral. It’s the biggest gothic church in Christendom – although of course it started life as a mosque and its great bell tower the Giralda was once the minaret that towered over one of Iberia’s great Moorish cities. Exploring the interior will reveal art works to rival the museum, macabre saintly relics and the tomb of Christopher Columbus, who set off from Seville on his accidental discovery of the Americas.

Seville can be kind on joggers. It’s flat, has some fine parks and both banks of the Guadalquivir offer breezy views for runners. There were no fears from the heat on a bright February morning, but an overnight storm presented an unlikely obstacle to my fitness program _ the streets were littered with oranges. The glossy green trees which line the streets of much of the old city had been laden with fruit the night before and the nocturnal burst of raid and wind had scattered them across the cobbles, presenting an ankle-threatening obstacle course out of the old Jewish quarter.

Once past this slippery challenge, there was a glorious trip through the Jardines de Murillo, around the University _ once the tobacco factory where Carmen rolled cigars in Bizet’s opera. Then past the fountain of the Plaza de España _ a grandiose setting for the planet of Narboo in Star Wars II _ into the shady allies of the Parque de Maria Luisa. Next, the Paseo de las Delicias which follows the palm-lined riverbank alongside the Torre del Oro _ part of the old Arab defences _ and the Real Maestranza bullring. On the left, the multicoloured facades of the Tirana neighbourhood famed for its flamenco bars. Crossing over the river back along the Tirana bank then over again on the Puente San Telmo, past the Cathedral, then dodging the tourists and the fallen fruit into the Barrio de Santa Cruz.

My goal after all this running was Las Casas de la Judaría a hotel of enormous charm occupying a jumble of mansions and courtyards that once belonged to the noble Béjar family, patrons of Cervantes and hosts to the first American Indians who returned with Columbus. Painted in lemon and white and decorated with antique furnishings with a series of linked patios filled with flowers and fountains and Andalusian tiles, it oozes character. The rooms are airy and tastefully furnished. From 120 euros including a great breakfast of jamón, fresh bread rolls, cheese, fruit, freshly made café con leche and orange juice served in a beautiful, cool room covered with murals. The only drawback, would be if you were arriving by car, since the access is through a maze of narrow lanes, culminating in an ally barely wide enough for one vehicle leading to the private underground parking. It’s next to the Santa María la Blanca church, a former synagogue in the heart of the old Jewish neighbourhood which existed here before Columbus’ bosses drove out the community in the 15th century.

Wandering the tapas bars is one of Seville’s great pleasures. Dating from 1670 El Rinconcillo is generally supposed to be the city’s oldest. It retains a spit-and-sawdust feel. Like most of these old hangouts it’s has hams hanging from the ceiling and dusty wine bottles lining the walls. We stood at the counter and chewed some slices of acorn-fed jamón and a plate of espinacas con garbanzas – spinach with chickpeas – a signature dish in Seville, pungent with garlic and with a hint of curry, washed down with a glass of dry manzanilla sherry. Across the street in a rival Plaza de los Terceros establishment we had toasted rolls topped with fried quail eggs, and next door beer with slices of salty Manchego cheese.

The problem the tapeo is that with all that drinking, eating, strolling and chatting, it's hard to remember the names of all the places you’ve been. Las Teresas in the center of Santa Cruz and is well known to tourists. We stopped there for rough red wine with some re-located fabada asturiana and spicy chorizo, then moved down Calle Mateos Gago for garlic prawns and more jamon beneath the bulls heads in Bodega Belmonte, then on to La Goleta, a tiny, hole-in-the-wall for snails in tomato sauce followed up with sweet viño de naranja.

Saturday lunch time around the Plaza del Pan is filled with shoppers knocking back glasses of chilled Cruzcampo beer and tucking into shellfish delights. Café Europa opened in 1925, its award winning tapas include prawns and pungent garlic spuds doused in Baena olive oil. This is the old commercial center of Seville north of the Calle Sierpes. It’s makes a refreshingly down-to-earth alternative to the tourist trail around Santa Cruz. There are splendid tiled advertisements from the 1920s, shops ablaze with flamenco dresses, natty waistcoats and sombreros, embroidered mantas, printed fans and other paraphernalia of the feria and semana santa. Somewhere around here I stopped in for a haircut in an old-fashioned place filled mirors and bright coloured bottles and old boys discussing the upcoming Betis-Sevilla derby. It tested my Spanish to the limit, but you cannot go to Seville without seeing the barber. Then on to one of the many tapas bars in Calle Pérez Galdós for some squid and finally a plate of menudo _ a Sevillian tripe stew in a trendy place on the Calle Alfalfa.

La Campana, a cake shop and café, at the start of Calle Sierpes is the place to go for a café solo and polvorones, a crumbly sugar-dusted sweetmeat made with almonds and lard. It's been the city’s best-known day-time meeting place since the 1880s and boasts a terrace perfect for people watching.

For a more substantial bite, Casa Robles and Becerrita have a lot in common. Both have a long tradition of serving fine Andalusian cuisine. Both are housed in centuries-old buildings offering tapas in front of a succession of dining rooms decorated with tiles, antique prints and paintings.

Juan Robles started his restaurant in the 1950s as a bar to sell his fruity white Condado de Huelva. Robles now has a chain of restaurants, but the flagship in the shadow of the Giralda is still highly recommended by locals. I’ve had a couple of excellent meals here, but the last visit was bit of a disappointment. Our group was tucked away in a rather austere upstairs room hung with Baroque religious paintings. The mixed starters were fine – excellent jamón, satisfyingly salty boquarones (anchovies), grilled vegetables and a tasty dish of mixed wild mushrooms, all washed down with a fine bottle of the Condado de Huelva. I was really looking forward to the main course of perdiz á la Sevillana _ the partridge came stewed whole with potatoes, but was rather bland, dry and tough, a let down, that even the fine Rioja couldn't cheer it up.

Becerrita can be found up near the Puerta de Camona on the edge of La Macarena district. Here a recent second visit lived up to expectations. We started out with a mixture of Andalusian tapas _ boiled new potatoes with lots of garlic and local extra virgin olive oil, fried aubergine with salt cod, strips of steak, bull’s tail croquettes, matched with Torres viña sol from Catalonia. My main course was ventresca de atun rojo con ali-oli de Albahaca – red tuna belly with garlic mayonnaise made with Albahaca olive oil – simple but fabulous, pungent fish, the lightest mayo. Among the choices by my companions, grilled squid with black rice and lomo de buey (ox loin) were all greeted with unreserved praise. Gelado de arroz de leche (rice pudding ice cream) which came with a glass of sweat, sticky Pedro Ximinez wine was the penultimate treat before a huge glass of brandy rounded off a meal that cost about 60 euros a head.

Back over the river in the backstreets of of the old gyspy barrio of Tirana, the Casa Anselma warms up round midnight. It’s packed and steamy and wonderful place to experience spontaneous flamenco, where guitarists, dancers and singers get up and let rip in a whirlwind of foot tapping, hem spinning and palm clapping sevillanas. The formidable Anslema is a renowned performer, when she is not surveying the spectators to ensure nobody has an empty glass, since there is no entry fee and the drinks pay the musicians. Grab a chilled bottle of barbadillo white wine from Cadíz to get into the swing. Forget about being the only tourist though, that ain’t gonna happen _ there was an awed group of Japanese business men when we went _ but they were well outnumbered by local aficionados and it’s the nearest I’ve found to the real thing.

A Load of Tripe in Porto

Dusk on the Douro. As the golden glow fades, one-by-one the neon signs on the port houses in Vila Nova de Gaia light up, Offley, Calem, Ferreira, the Sandeman don with his cape and rakish Andalusian hat. On the right bank of the river the facades of Porto’s Ribeira district cast their electric yellow reflections on the waters where the high-prowed rabelo boats bob, glossed black as the wine they once carried down from the terraced slopes upriver.

The waters of the Douro and the dark port wines link two U.N. World Heritage Sites: the vineyards carved into the rocky hills high above the river’s serpentine descent from Spain and the ancient city where the Douro meets the Atlantic.

Arrive in the Ribeira by funicular down from behind the Teatro São João and you suddenly emerge from tunnelled shadows into the magnificent vista of the river spanned by the great arch of the Dom Luís I bridge, its Eifelesque grandeur immersed in the lingering rays of a summer sunset. Built in 1886, this engineering marvel is not, as many believe, the work of Eifel, but that of his Belgian associate Teófilo Seyrig. The Frenchman is however responsible for the slightly older Dona Maria Pia bridge which spans the Douro gorge just a little up.

Ribeira is Porto’s riverside heart. A hive of ancient lanes permanently shaded by multi-storied houses linked by washing lines and alive with the bustle of urban life which has grown on these steep shores since the city called Portus Cale by the Romans gave it’s name to one of Europe’s oldest nations in the 11th century. Of course it’s been poshed up a bit, tourists now outnumber washer women and fish wives and café terraces have filled up the Praça da Ribeira cramping the style of the street urchin would-be Decos. There’s tastefully fancy new hotel, the Pestana Porto, newly opened in one of the ochre houses on the corner where cod-fishing fleets used to moor.

Gentrification has not however taken over. Porto remains a rough and ready place. Its citizens take northern pride in the saying that Porto works while Lisbon plays. They are happy in the nickname of tripeiros _ tripe eaters _ dismissing the effete inhabitants of the capital as alfacinhas _ lettuce eaters. In the confusion of streets around the wonderful Bolhão market, seemingly endless road works squeeze hordes of shoppers onto narrow pavements and into the path of beggars and hustlers, raucous lottery ticket hawkers and gypsy women traders dodging police with their bundles of fake-label T-shirts.

Along Rua de Santa Catarina and its tributaries there are havens to be found. Alongside the FNACs, Zaras and other pan-European chains are venerable stores specialized in surgical appliances, hardware, seeds, dried fruit, miscellaneous wheels, flags. Bolhão is one of Europe’s great markets. Behind its iron gates, the two story courtyard is filled with gleaming white slabs of tripe, hams from Chaves, fat crimson cherries, paprika-red choriço, alheira sausages from Mirandela, cumin-scented blood puddings, ripe peaches and meddlers, fresh-baked loaves. All this spills over into the surrounding rows of grocers, butchers and pastry shops that appear to be little changed since the 1920s. The Confeitaria do Bolhão is the place to try a francesinha _ a hearty Porto speciality that’s basically a huge white bread sandwich filled with steak, ham, cheese, bathed in a thick gravy with mysterious list of ingredients like mustard, beer, wine … like I said, hearty.

In the belle époque interior of the Café Majestic, white-coated waiters hover with trays loaded with toasted rye bread, pasteis de nata, pataniscas de bacalhau, glasses of chilled vinho verde and concentrated cups of coffee that are called bicas in the rest of Portugal, but known as cimbalinos here in the north. There’s also tea and scones with cream and jam _ recalling the British influences in this city where port wine traders from England once formed part of the city’s commercial elite.

Running through the heart of Porto is the Avenida dos Aliados, the local Champs d’Elysée, lined with grand banks and trading houses running up to the towering city hall. High on the hill to west is the baroque tower of the Clérigos church, one of the symbols of the city. It sits alongside the fabulous Livraria Lello a neo-gothic bookshop dating from 1906 where the excellent choice of volumes on Porto and Portugal are lit by sunlight from the stained glass ceiling and reached by the amazing twisting double staircase linked the three stories of books

On the hill opposite is the Praça da Batalha once the centre of Porto’s high society, the screen of masked balls, wild bachelor parties and operatic imbroglios in Júlio Dinis 1850s novel Uma Família Inglesa. Now it’s a mixture of chic and shady where down-and-outs line up outside a mobile soup kitchen beside the grand Teatro São João and the Hotel Batalha _ a modernized 1950s block which retains some local charm despite being incorporated into the French Mercure chain. It was a real bargain at 60 euros a night for a room for three. The corridors are decorated with photos from the next-door theatre and the rooms offer great views over the city.

Back on the riverside, Dom Tonho is Ribeira’s most famous restaurant, boasting a guest list that includes the likes of Eusebio, Fidel Castro and Catherine Deneuve.

However following a local recommendation we went this time to its more modest neighbour Mercearia renowned for fresh fish and tripe. Like most of the restaurants on the quay, this place is built into the old arched storehouses built into the cliff.

Upstairs is quieter, the window tables offer great views across the river to the port houses in Gaia, and the mighty stone walls are decorated with framed prints of old Porto. Downstairs it’s more down to earth with FC Porto memorabilia taking pride of place.

As with most traditional restaurants in Porto, they don’t make much fuss about port wine. We asked for a glass of dry white and were told they didn’t have any so made do with a icy glass of meia-seco. With it came aperitifs: a dish of whole prawns, some creamy cheese from Azeitão south of Lisbon, tuna paste, olives, good crusty bread rolls.

For the main courses we went for two Porto favourites. First up, polvo à lagareiro _ barbecued octopus. We got three thick tentacles, blacked over coals, doused in olive oil, with a sprinkling of garlic and raw sliced onion served with grilled green pepper and batatas à murro _ tiny whole potatoes baked in ash of the grill. It was … okay, could have done with more garlic, salt and the portion was on the small side.

Next up, tripas à moda de Porto – the city’s signature dish. The legend behind this dates back to the 15th century when the Portuguese went off to conquer the North African port of Ceuta. As the fleet prepared to sail out of the Douro, Porto’s patriotic citizens gave all their meat to feed the troops, keeping only the tripe for themselves. The resulting speciality is a huge stew of white beans, cattle guts, chorizo and carrots usually augmented with such delights as pig’s ears, cow’s feet, lard, bacon, smoked ham, a chicken. It’s all served with a big bowl of boiled rice. This one was nicely seasoned but a bit heavy on the beans and thin on the meat, just a meagre scattering of chunks of chewy tripe and some slices of sausage.

Our wine was a Quinta de Picoto, a fresh Douro red at 12.50 euros. The febras _ pork slices _ with chips which our little'un selected were fine, but this was a disappointing meal not improved by the dessert. Our leite-crème (crème brulé) was supposed to have been caramelized on the spot, but was in fact served cold and undistinguished. The ice cream appeared to be of industrial origin. Overall it was cheap _ 86 euros for three, but I’ve eaten better at the next door Filha da Mae Preta _ which locals tend to deride as a tourist trap. In the end I wish we’d tried the Dom Tonho.

Next morning things got better quickly. The boat left from the Vila Nova de Gaia dock at 9.0 a.m. We were taking a trip up the Douro from Porto to the vineyards and this was an unqualified success.

Our purpose-built vessel was an updated barco rabelo, but instead of hauling a cargo of wine barrels it was set with breakfast tables for the 60 passengers on this purely-for-pleasure trip.

The views were spectacular as we pulled out of the quay under the great iron bridge with Porto rising out in all its summer morning splendour on one side and the circular church of the Serra do Pilar convent high above us on the opposite bank _ the scene of heroic deeds during Portugal’s civil war in the 1830s.

Our cheery guides were pointing out the baroque Palácio de Freixo on Porto’s outskirts as we were served milky coffee and honey coated croissants for breakfast, then we were out of the city, sitting back on the sun deck and admiring the increasingly wild scenery as the successive meanders of the river each revealed a new landscape _ forests of chestnut and eucalyptus, rocky promontories, villages churches covered with blue azulejos, patrician mansions and a surprising number of glass-fronted homes in the modernist style inspired by world-renowned Porto architect Alvaro Siza Vieira.

We travelled with RentDouro which offers these day-long trips from 53 euros-a-head, or even less for larger groups. We passed through a couple of locks that took the boat up 14 and then 35 meters and were then served with an excellent lunch of vegetable soup, stewed steak, and chocolate cake and copious amounts of a very drinkable Douro red.

As the afternoon drew on, we hit serious wine country where embankments of ancient stone terraces rose above us on all sides loaded with vines carrying the raw material both for the excellent Douro table wines and the port itself. The boat moored at Peso de Régua the river town at the heart of the wine trade, where we had an hour to pick up some bargains at the excellent shop run by the Port Wine Route before catching the train for the panoramic journey back along the river to Porto.

Trout by Moonlight in Macedonia

The full moon lay low and huge over the hills, giving a mercury shine to the lake’s choppy surface. We were deep in the Balkans and on a mission touched with mystery and a hint of danger.

It had started when work finished late on a balmy summer night. Although the hotel’s roof terrace offered a spectacular view over the water and the Albanian mountains on the far shore, the buffet dinner was uninspiring. So we asked some new-found Macedonian friends if they knew a good place to try the famed Lake Ohrid trout.

This provoked some consternation. Several whispered discussions followed over mobile phones in quick-fire Slavonic before a deal was struck and we were told to squeeze into Boris’ Nisan.

Soon we were revving out of Ohrid _ a pearl of city squeezed between the ramparts of Czar Samuel’s 10th-century fortress and the lakeside in a tangle of cobbled lanes, ancient taverns and medieval church domes resonant with the chants of Orthodox priests.

With midnight fast approaching our path dipped and rose past shadowy mountains, hushed villages and snatched glimpses of the glittering waterside. Then we arrived, edging the car into a dimly lit square and scurrying down an ally where our hosts were waiting.

This was clearly not just any trout, for the trout of Lake Ohrid are legend throughout the Balkans, so prized for their succulent flesh that over-fishing has left them endangered and visitors hoping to get a taste are forced to head out to clandestine fishermen’s haunts like the speakeasies of prohibition America.

It thus was with pangs of conscience as well fear of the local constabulary that we awaited the arrival of our illicit main course. But the Macedonians brushed aside any qualms, insisting such clandestine transactions were vital to keep fishermen and restaurant owners in business after the two year ban on trout catches _ and blaming the shortage on unregulated catches on the Albanian side of the lake.

Only when I read up back home did I find out just rare they were. Scientists believe the Ohrid trout are a throw back to the age of dinosaurs, the like of which are only found in a handful of ancient lakes.

Ohrid is one of Europe’s great hidden gems. Few places can combine such spectacular natural surroundings with the glories of 2,000 years of civilization. The city was a major staging post on the Via Egnatia linking Rome to Constantinople. Known as the “Balkan Jerusalem,” it developed as a Christian cultural centre reputed to have a church for every day of the year. Scholars here helped develop the Cyrillic alphabet. Albanians, Slavs, Byzantines and Ottomans sought to gain control before the 1390s saw the start of five centuries of Turkish rule that has left minarets alongside those church domes as well as the bazaar-like shopping streets and the taste for strong dark coffee.

Part of independent Macedonia since the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Ohrid looks out across Europe’s oldest lake. We were lucky to have just avoided a heat wave that had temperatures pushing up to the high 30s. Instead a balmy 25 C had crowds of local youngsters taking the sapphire clear and surprisingly warm waters of the lake in the lee of St. Jovan in Kaneo. This is Ohrid’s most photographed church _ a tiny red brick hive perched since the 13th century on a rocky promontory pointing out toward the Albanian shore. After the brilliance of the sunshine outside it takes a bit of time to adjust to the sombre interior, but 100 denar (2 euros) brings on the lights to reveal murals of a plethora of polychrome saints. The whole area is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Back at our anonymous village, the mezzes were arriving, another Turkish tradition that lingers in the former Yugoslav republic. First a laden tray of crudités _ ripe tomatoes stuffed with sliced onion, fat black olives, shredded white cabbage, cucumber and pale green pickled peppers. Next up, a briny, hard feta-style white cheese served deliciously deep fried. Then a local specialty served for breakfast, lunch and dinner _ a kind of compressed, savoury pancake layer cake. There was a wonderfully pungent bowl of mashed garlic, lightly toasted country bread and wickedly hot grilled chilli peppers. This was all washed down with rakija _ not the aniseed flavoured raki of Turkey, but a mildly spiced brandy served ice cold. We were assured this one was homemade and at over 40 degrees was stronger than anything produced in neighbouring countries.

At this late hour we were the only customers, sitting under a vine trellis with the water lapping up alongside, our conversation broken only by the sound of the surf, a chorus of amorous bullfrogs and the occasional step of moonstruck couples wandering along the shingle shore.

Once the trout served in the Ohrid way was a major attraction here. The ban instigated by the sorry state of stocks is just the latest calamity to have hit the once thriving tourist trade, which has so far yet to entice Western travellers scared away by the violence of the Yugoslav wars.

A bottle of local traminer wine was produced. It came with a powerful floral perfume but turned out to be surprisingly dry and the perfect partner for the approaching fish.

The trout when they came were magnificent, the size of boxers forearms, they were split from head to tail and splayed for the pan, acquiring golden, crisp surface that peeled off the bone to reveal the sweet pink flesh within. The waiter said they’d been pulled form the lake barely an hour before. These were litnica, known as the summer trout. It is one of two species unique to Ohrid. The other belvica is the winter trout, although both seemed to be available on this June trip. In contrast to the rosy flesh of the litnica we were told its cousin has white meat. It was piscatorial perfection served just with a plate of chips, the vegetables left from our mezze and another bowl of that great garlic mash.
We finished up with sweet melon from the fertile lakeside fields and a cup of thing Turkish style coffee at around 2 a.m. Not only can I not reveal the name of the illicit restaurant, but I cannot say how much the feast cost _ Balkan hospitality dictated that our friends snatched up the bill before we had time to so much as glance at it.