CROATIA & SLOVENIA - FOOD TRAVELS

This year I went travelling to Slovenia and Croatia! It was a very exciting holiday - I did a lot of things that pushed me out of my comfort zone! There were lots of really different things to eat..I ended up trying truffles...it was interesting to say the least! We ended up staying in Istria which is a region in Croatia that used to be part of Italy which meant there was no shortage of gelato or pizzerias!   

As we flew into Venice and then drove to Croatia we ended up stopping in Trieste for a few hours (we cover a lot of ground when we go travelling)! So I got my first taste of gelato! I got stracciatella flavoured gelato. This was only our first gelato of the trip but wow it was good! So creamy! My go to ice cream flavour in croatia was yoghurt flavoured and it had a cherry jam rippled through it. It reminded me of raspberry ripple and even though it was ice cream and not sorbet it was really refreshing! 

One of the most common things to try in Istria are truffles. Every other shop either sells truffles or truffle oil or some other kind of truffle product! As someone who is studying the culinary arts, I decided I should try some so I got truffle pasta but I really wish I hadn't. The dish itself looks about as appealing as this picture. I do not like truffles at all! Yuk! Eating  truffles was like eating a dirty sock...nasty! Apparently it is chemical, some people can smell the chemical androstenone found in truffles and some people cannot and consequently that is why some people really like truffle and some cannot stand them like me!! If you are in the 25% who doesn't smell this chemical...count your blessings!! I'm glad that I tried them but I shouldn't have tried them as my main meal of the day. Luckily my family were nice enough to eat some of the pasta and allow me to have some of their much nicer meal choices.

From there on out the food was really good - I tried a lot of sweet things. Fritules were the next thing I tried in Croatia...much much better than the truffles. Fritules are deep fried balls of dough that are commonly flavoured with raisins, lemons or alcohol. The ones we had only had a hint of lemon. They were nice but not exactly spectacular. We got ours with powdered sugar. 

Once we got to Slovenia we tried Gibanica which is a pastry made with lots of layers of poppy seeds, cottage cheese, apples and dates. It doesn't sound very appealing but it does taste pretty good.  The cottage cheese layer almost tastes like baked cheesecake. Although it tastes good gibanica is quite heavy, you couldn't eat a lot of it! The first time we got a slice in a local bakery - the only problem was that they didn't give me a fork so it was really hard to pick up with my hands let alone get a bite of every layer! Luckily the second time around we went to a cafe and they gave us cutlery! 

We also spent a night in Ljubjana the capital city of Slovenia. The city is so beautiful, excellent for people watching and pottering about! We ended up finding a food market (my favourite kind!!!!) Apparently every friday night the local restaurants come out to the market to showcase their food. It just so happened that we were there on a Friday night! There were tonnes of food options from Shawarma to meatballs to crepes. They also had a lot of vegan and veggie options. This pleased my little sister she got a "burger"made from mushrooms. She seemed to like it but I prefer my burgers with meat in them! I got shawarma it was delicious but really messy to eat because the sauce the chicken was cooked in was quite runny. They also made the shawarma with something similar to a tortilla. I'm used to having shawarma in pita bread. It was so awesome and I did not go hungry after eating it! 

Final stop - Bled cake. This has to be my favourite out of all the foods I tried. I was looking forward to trying it all throughout our holiday. Bled Cake is a typical cake for the region of Lake Bled. I think dad was as excited to try it as I was so much so that he got a slice from Lidls...I thought I had taught him better!!! While it was okay it does not compare to fresh bled cake you can find in almost any eating establishment around the lake. We went and tried the real thing at the Park Cafe which is the birth place of Bled cake. You can get other meals there but all the tourists go in for bled cake. What is bled cake? Well it is fresh cream and a variation of creme patisserie sandwiched between two thin layers of puff pastry. If made correctly the cream and creme pat should wobble when cut but maintain their shape. The puff pastry should also be crisp - this is how you know if it is fresh. We went back to the park cafe twice in a row because we loved it so much. Even though it was the birth place of the cake it wasn't too badly priced - around 4 euros for a generous slice that does two people! Anywhere else sells theirs for just a few cents less than this.