Portia_Smith

Apart from the obvious - the Budvar Brewery. We're taking advantage of cheap ryanair flights to Linz over Easter and there is so much we want to do - but if there are any must taste/drink experiences that we might miss, we'd love to know about it. Sadly, we won't have any significant time in Linz as we are heading north into Southern Bohemia to visit Ceske Budejovice for a few nights. We're planning on doing day trips to Cesky Krumlov & Trebon. The Eggenberg and Bohemia Regent breweries are also on our list of things to visit. Hopefully - we'll even get a chance to spend an evening at the Castle Brewery in Kefermarkt on our way back to Linz. There is accommodation in the stables for only 16 euros per person and regional cooking too! We know we have to try Linzertorte - and have been told that only this konditerei is acceptable. I was hoping that there would be a concession in the airport - but neither the airport website, nor the bakeries gives me any indication that this is so. I'll just have to rush from the railway station into town I suppose. We love Czech/Austrian food. Give us dumplings, smoked and cured pork products, kraut, dorte.. but we've only really spent time in Moravia - so.. what's Bohemian and rhapsodic?? Let us know! We promise to post pictures...

Elizabeth, I'm really sorry you were dissapointed with the other diners at the pub. I wish I had an answer for you on how to deal with the problem. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect you not to be bothered by other pub goers and there is nothing worse than incredibly wasted and loud (and often offensive) diners in the vicinity. I don't think the 'hey - it's a PUB! It's made for bad behaviour' argument washes either. When did society disintergrate so much that we have to accept being marginalised and have our enjoyment of food/drink/a gig/a walk in the park lessened simply because every one else feels entitled to act badly? It's one of the things that really upsets me about modern living. A wowser I'm not - i'm as happy as the next person to have a discussion about - Hell, I don't know - what can I put here to make me look riske and with it ? - but I like to think I'd have some consideration for the tables nearby and maybe not scream about it if there are young kiddies/ older folk about... Maybe I would have have asked to have a quiet word with the manager in your case and clarified with them why you were leaving and that you didn't think that your food £ would be spent there again. Indulging in tut-tutting or approaching the offending party is now not something I'll do - I WANT to - desperately - but I had the misfortune of witnessing some poor bastard getting glassed after asking a neighbouring table to stop hassling a waitress. In Australia over Christmas I had to endure similar - we'd popped into the Little Malaysia off Bourke Street quite late for dinner and it was busy with office parties. One of the parties was a group of about 15 blokes, techie/engie types from the look of them whom I suspect were employed with a major communications company around the corner. They had a lone woman companion who looked absolutely miserable and was mostly ignored by them - she left shortly after we arrived and we have never seen someone look so happy to be escaping a work event. At this stage the restaurant was emptying out - so the conversation the party table was having became more audible. And I was appalled. Embarrased to be an Australian - fuck. Embarrassed to be human. They spent the night talking about the 'cleavages' in Human Resources and what bitches/slags/frigid cows they were. Absolutely sledging their female colleague who had just left - random racial slurs - how another (absent) colleague was probably a 'poofter' because he wouldn't go to the lap dancing club with them. All of this was conducted at top volume in a restaurant with about half a dozen tables of couples still there. I repeat it in more detail than I'd like because I want the thread to see how isolating and distressing it is to hear those kinds of attitudes broadcast with nary a thought for how it might feel for any women/gay persons/non anglo celtic australians to overhear this kind of crap while trying to eat a meal. I was so angry I almost broke my non-confrontation rule - but I was persuaded otherwise. I wish that I'd been able to confirm the company they'd worked for then I would have written a letter to HR explaining how they behaved and how offensive I (a shareholder if it was the boys from the suspected company) I found them. I figured it was a company paid christmas outing and they should be more careful about their adherence to corporate discrimination policy. Damn it - i'm still angry about that! I hope further dinner's aren't ruined. Let's take back our restaurants and be PLEASANT!

Hello mrsadm - I can't comment on the restaurant you mention, but I can tell you to put away your fears about dining alone in Paris. I've travelled their solo twice now (once aged 30 and then aged 33) and have never ever been treated with anything less than the utmost respect and courtesy by the restaurant trade - even though my french is pretty shabby and i have no couture clothing! So please don't worry and instead concentrate on the fact that you are in a city where the solo woman diner is not the restaurant nightmare that some less enlightened places think she is! If you are still feeling nervous - why not try some of the tea rooms and cafe's for a less stressful introduction to dining alone. The tisanes, hot chocolates, patiesseries and viennoiseries at the cafe at the musee jacquemart andree are all fantastic and it's a beautiful space where you won't feel you are sticking out like a sore thumb. I was also treated really well at this restaurant in the marais back in 2001. I was given a window table - not tucked away in a shitty corner near a door or the bogs. The food was great and it has provided me with great memories of being really contented and happy - despite being by myself.. A girlfriend once told me that being able to eat a meal in a restuarant alone, comfortably is the most important skill a woman could develop!

sorry i've been away from the thread for so long - work (or the imminent threat thereof)has interfered.. but i'm glad to see i'm not the only tea purist here with finicky rules about eating what/when. firstly - scone nomenclature. what i will call a scone has to be round, rolled and cut with a metal cutter (or empty vegemite jar! - although I've heard that cutting scones with jars causes the edges to stick as you don't get the 'clean cut' that a proper scone cutter would provide you with and there are problems with them rising as well). The US scone imposter creation that I mocked and disdained in an earlier post looks like this . I'm sure it's nice - but that to me looks like a rock cake. It's ok for tea - but not to be served with jam and cream as a proper scone should. I've had a flip through all my tea/cake books. Two are Australian - the Maryborough Cookery Book and Housewife's Companion (fourth edition) from 1927. It was published by the local methodist church and had a heavy temperance society influence... so great cakes and scones to go with all the tea and coffee they were allowed to drink. Also the Dimboola District Hospital Cookery Book from 1963. Both these books offer recipes for scones using self raising flour, milk, butter, a tiny amount of sugar, egg, rolled and cut and baked in a really hot oven for 7 minutes. The UK book - Good Housekeepings Basic Cookery from 1958 has a fruiter scone - plain flour leavened with bicarb and cream of tartar with sultanas and egg to glaze. Same cooking method - 450f for 7 -10 minutes. In Australia these would be served with jam and thick, thick cream. That would be a 'devonshire tea'. In the UK, the same thing is referred to as a cream tea - and served with clotted cream rather than pure cream. My mother in law is from Wiltshire and spent time when first married living on a dairy farm in Honiton Clyst in Devon. She made her own clotted cream which still amazes me - but they'd get the milk fresh from the cows as a perk of my father-in-laws employment and then just heat it very very gently for ages til it turned into clotted cream. I only found out recently that there is a school of thought in Cornwall that asserts that the Phoenicians bought the skill of making clotted cream to the UK when they were trading with the locals in tin. I'm rambling! And I had so much to add... but i've got to get the bus to Marlborough today where i'm meeting friends for.. TEA! at the Polly. So I'll report back... Good luck with your venture.. it must be so exciting to open something like that. Oh - and I second the poster who mentioned how gross it was to be enjoying something sweet and delicate and be overpowered by the smell of fried food.. blllaaach...... And - the pumpkin scone thing. In Australia I think it developed from the fact that most houses in the country and suburbs had a big old pumpkin vine growing in the back corner and there is only so much roast pumpkin, pumpkin soup or mashed pumpkin an aussie can eat. So they created the scone.. we (were) a frugal people and would have frowned on the addition of something as poncy as pumpkin pie spice - even if it would have made it tastier! So in my experience, the pumpkin scone was only served plain with butter.....

yes, yes, yes to a Q&A with the beastie boys on eg. 'cos she's the cheese and i'm the macaroni' is lyrical genius. must buy new album...

I missed proper afternoon teas soooooo much when I lived in the US! Firstly - please ensure you offer a proper scone. Not one of those random triangular weird scone wanna-be things that were served in places like starbucks and sadly, most of my local bakeries when i lived in CA. That's not a scone. That's like a rock cake but with strange flavours. It's very very wrong. I prefer the plain scone - but currants and sultanas also rock my world. And the date scone - also good. For a touch of Australian fabulous-ness that might be too strange for an American palate - the pumpkin scone. All scones must come with butter - and plain scones only should have the clotted cream/ strawberry jam option. I would like to sea more properly made 'plain cakes' included in an afternoon tea selection. Plain gingerbread - derbyshire seed cake - orange cake - victoria sponges are nice and more filling - sometimes the uber-gooey patisserie selection that is offered as the top tier is just too sickly. Blaach... Another way to mix it up - and echoing chefette's suggestion - is to offer an Asian style high tea. I've visited cafe's in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand that not only offer the whole scone cake colonial fabulousness experience - but supplement it with local snacks. It ROCKS! A meal where I can drink champagne, eat strawberries, crab sandwiches and pakoras, samosas, noodles and indonesian style layer cake is just. well. it's just perfect. Tea cosies! yes to the cosy! Find a vintage pattern and get some friends to knit up gorgeous mis-matched ones for your establishment. Most of my local tea rooms here in Hampshire offer light lunches as well - they tend towards the filled baked spud and sandwich. Too much lunch and it's a cafe - not a tea room! remember that!

Australian here - living in the UK - of mixed 'skip' and austro/czech background. I noticed when I was in Melbourne for Christmas that there was more offal than I remembered on the menus of places we ate at. I'm fairly sure that tripe was on the menu at the Metropolitan in North Melbourne and crumbed brains and lambs fry were both listed at this Ballarat pub. I love, nay ADORE marrow of any sort - especially osso bucco, but i've never considered that to be 'proper offal'. Which I don't eat. Ever. Unless it's disguised as something else (headcheese, pate, liverwurst, weisswurst, steak and kidney). My parents are happy to eat lambs fry and liver - although I don't think they do anything particularly regional with it. Chitterlings - a Wiltshire speciality - give me the fear.

Chufi, This thread is incredibly informative and mouth - watering. Thank you for all the hard work you have put in over the last few months. I'm so incredibly appreciative of what you have done to show us all about 'everyday' Dutch food and baking. My only experience to this cuisine - and culture really - was the year I spent working at Huis ten Bosch in Nagasaki prefecture a decade ago. It is a recreation of a 17th century dutch sea port on about 150 acres on the island of Kyushu in Japan. The theme park does have a dutch restaurant and various gift shops that sell dutch rusks and cookies - there was also some amazingly expensive gouda for sale that was vacuumed packed and never seemed to move from the shelves. The park also hired some dutch students to work in the cheese market they would put on for the tourists. I can't remember eating any dutch food while working at the park. All official functions I attended had either 'continental' or french food on offer. This area of Japan does have a historical connection with Holland as the Dutch had a trading relationship with Japan from 1600 and for a few centuries were the only westerner's allowed in the country. I find it interesting that I could never really find a Dutch influence in Japanese cuisine, depsite the length of their stay but there was a marked Portuguese influence - it's widely believed that both tonkatsu and tempura were introduced by them. 3 years ago I travelled by train through Holland on my way from Vienna to London. I only spent two hours at Amsterdam station but was struck at how beautiful everything was - the sea, the bikes - the buildings. I also decided that I'd treat myself and try to sample some of the local cuisine and dragged my backpack to the quite posh dining room on one of the upper floors. I knew nothing about Dutch cuisine, apart from a vague thought that croquettes might appear somewhere on the menu. I was hungry - tired - dirty and was quite looking forward to some croquettes. I recieved the menu and nothing made sense - I had seen Dutch written before and could recognise some of the words as they were vaguely similar to German so I was suprised and a bit distressed that nothing seemed really recognisable on the menu. I had already lowered the tone of this rather posh establishment by turning up with backpack and bad hair so I refused to admit that I might be totally out of my depth and ask for help, or even point at the delicious looking daily special that everyone else seemed to be having. So I had steak frites with bearnaise. It was good. But it wasn't dutch. And it wasn't kroketten!! But thanks to Chufi I am now prepared for a return to Holland and will have a list of things to order. Oh - the only other thing that I remember about my afternoon trip through the Netherlands is that when I got on my train - very full after all that steak - and a bit grumpy as I'd failed in the small task of sampling Dutch cuisine that I'd set myself - we travelled through Utrecht and I saw the Dom tower. Huis ten Bosch also has the Dom tower - but looking over Omura bay and it was very odd to see it in it's natural surroundings! I was a bit weirded out for the rest of the day.

I've not actively joined a cook-off before - although I've read many of the threads with interest. My question is 'Does Kaiserschmarrn count as a beaten egg dish with stuff in it?' The picture clearly shows eggs - and beating of aforementioned eggs so I hope this counts. I am worried some people might interpret it as more of a pancake type dish than an omelettey thing, although it does translate as emperors omelette and the version I intend to use contains five eggs - rather than the meagre three shown in the pictorial I've linked to. Ja? Nein? Let me know please and I'm all over it!

not strictly true. i'll be coming in from darkest hampshire today to eat a meal at new tayyabs. it's my reward for going to a horrible contractors assessment in the City. I'm both a colonial and a yokel so I'm not looking forward to this. the dry meat however - THAT I'm looking forward to. but it's good to know that the capital has closed and therefore i don't have to make a reservation.

I was thinking more along the lines of 'how did you celebrate your divorce' ! And let me say that those pork dumplings were so much more satisfying than the al fredo I had at applebee's on the wedding night of marriage number 1! But in the spirit of celebrating long and happy unions- my parents, still blissfully in love after 45 years of marriage - had a pre wedding drink at the Court House Hotel, Brunswick. On reflection - maybe it was just my dad - pre wedding nerves being soothed.. with some mates. I think it was a VB. He was only 21 - bless!

Ellen - I hope your divorce works itself out in the most painless fashion imaginable. At least you have great food memories of your wedding! My first marriage (NOT the one mentioned upthread!) took place 10 years ago last week. In Yuma Arizona. We eloped. He was a Marine and let's just say we really had no business tying the knot. Nothing in common, huge cultural differences, blah, blah, blah. In effect - a disaster waiting to happen. No guests as he was on nuclear biological chemical training (!?!?!?) and we didn't know anyone in the area. No food or drink at the dry baptist wedding chapel. Then he took me to Applebees (WARNING! ANNNOYING MUSIC ON SITE) and I probably paid. He then had to report for duty. Good lord I'd forgotten how crap it all was. On the up side - when I finally got my divorce back home in Australia - because of various jurisdictional issues - I went out and got fabulously drunk at 10 am at The Yak Bar who were nice enough not to blink an eyelid at the laughing/crying/hysterical chick downing champagne cocktails at a completely inappropriate hour. I then decided I HAD to eat or I was going to be violently ill. So I went to Camy Shanghai Dumpling and Noodle and scarfed down two plates of peking pork dumplings. Then got taken home by future husband number 2 and made to sleep it off! I think we should start a divorce food thread!

Oh I didn't know this topic existed!! I love Bratislava - and the UFO Bar is quite fabulous. No - incredibly fabulous. A group of 7 of us travelled to the Slovak Republic for my partner's 40th birthday last year. Stayed at the Radisson opposite the Slovak Restaurant on Hviezdoslavova Namestie. The Radisson had an incredibly low priced internet offer of about 80 euros a double - hence the chance to see how the other half lives. Note - we flew Ryanair. Our group consisted of 3 vegetarians and 2 fussy eaters. So I did approach the trip with a certain amount of trepidation. I love central european fare, but then I grew up thinking that knodel were a vegetable -so what do I know? But previous visits have demonstrated that even the most unreasonable vegie is pacified with fried cheese after a number of 40p beers. I did plan the birthday meal to be held at Au Cafe an Italian restaurant on the side of the danube. The reasoning being that Italian restaurants are more sympathetic to vegetarians in the former Austria- Hungary and I have a (crazy) theory that a number of them are run by citizens of the former Venetian empire (present day Croatia, Slovenia, Trieste - who may or may not be ethnically Italian, but certainly cook like they are and the food is usually good!) Au Cafe had a beautiful location and has been very sympathetically restored. Those aspects are probably best appreciated in summer, or at least during the day time when you can appreciate the view of the castle. The meal was certainly more than adequete - I can remember some excellent tortellini with a cream sauce - but more than that escapes me. It was fun, but despite it being a saturday night there seemed to be only a few other diners having dinner - our table was the biggest. This surprised me. We also ate at the Slovak restaurant - this was the highlight of the weekend! We had been drinking at the UFO bar - and before that, lunching (and drinking) at a strange little restaurant that had a secret police theme and uniformed waitresses - I think it was based on a 1960's cop show that was made locally. So we were in dire need of food on a Sunday night and the Fontana ( I think) down the other end of the square were not serving dinner, so I was sent in to negotiate their willingness to serve a table of 7 englishpeople. They were lovely, very accommodating. The restaurant is decorated in a folk/rustic style and it's the only place i've been to that offers a slivovice trolley. It was duck / goose month and most of the guests decided to go for that - there were veggie options. I think Halusky. And I had a farmer's plate which consisted of a lot of sauerkraut, various smoked, cured and roasted pork products and potato dumplings which were divine. We were offered desserts off the trolley which were mainly strudels and some sacher/ dobos type creations. The apple strudel looked (and tasted great) but I chose the cheese strudel which was fairly dry and a bit average really. On looking at their web menu I should have gone for some of the plum dumplings which would have been a better option, but we weren't given the menu for dessert - just the trolley.. Oh - and the UFO cafe. What can I say. I just drank there - but it's fantastic and the restaurant looked beautiful. We had lot's of gorgeous cocktails and watched the sun set over the danube- it was the highlight of the weekend for my husband and I believe more cold war listening stations should be given over for the drinking of highly alcoholic beverages.

thank you for the good wishes.. he's much better now. although he admitted on saturday that he might not ever be able to handle dumplings ever again which is almost a marriage breaker! we'll be back in hong kong next winter i hope - so i'll be trying out both the hot pot and the shabu shabu then - can't wait!

So sorry about your bad day - why do all the crappy things have to converge on us at once? My first thought was mac and cheese too - with gruyere as my cheese-o-choice and breadcrumbs on to it's gotta have crunch. And red wine to drink. Lots of red wine. the obvious problem is then you'll have a mother of a hang over tomorrow if you follow my suggestions. maybe there's something in fat guys suggestion after all? i'd probably have the carb/wine/booze buzz followed by the almighty crash than the virtuous buzz. hope things are getting better.

I was intrigued to read in Stephanie Alexander's 'The Cook's Companion' that Williams pears grown around Shepparton in Victoria, Australia are also distilled there and that large amounts of the resulting Poire William is shipped back to France for bottling and marketing! My first brush with poire eau de vie was in this restuarant in Paris where a generous shot of it was served over two scoops of house made pear sorbet for dessert - I'd never encountered it before and loved the way it brought out the fragrance of the fruit in the sorbet and was a brilliant palate cleanser. I also liked the whole 'ice queen' vibe the drink gave when combined with the glace. Perfectly suited for a freezing November evening. On recent trips to the Moravian region of the Czech Repubic I've sampled and bought Hruska which is a local pear schapps/slivovitz/eau de vie. I love the smell of the drink, and it's probably ideal for sipping at the end of a big meal - but my problem is that i tend to encounter it with hard drinking friends and family when it's done as a shot. eeeeek! I was told during my last visit that most villages have a co-op distillery where they bring their fruit and have it made into schnapps - this the fruit grower can then call home made and it's often on local menus as 'domaci slivovitz' - the domaci signifying 'of the house'. I was given of the local 'home' distilled stuff by some friends and when it was opened all I can say that it smelt like bostick glue and actually burnt my lips. I noticed a drink on the digestif menu of a bistro in Arras that served 'fleur de biere' which only later I realised was probably an eau de vie made of hops or some how beer related. I wish I'd ordered it now... the Kurbis schnapps sounds fascinating and i'm going to keep an eye out for it next time i'm in the area and i'm determined to try the gentian schnapps as i recently found out it was a favourite drink of my late grandfather.

Thank you for all the replies - we were left with too many choices in the end, and we'll certainly be going back to check out the places we didn't get a chance to visit. We decided on the Thomas Cubitt - it sounded slightly less foody than the others and at that stage we thought (money, money, money!) we'd only be wanting a drink. Arriving at about four when it was near empty the staff were incredibly welcoming and we can confirm the beer was great - I had a glass of merlot/grenache blend from the Languedoc and we sat around out of the miserable biting cold really enjoying ourselves. The staff make everything look effortless and really appear to take pride in what they do. It's a great place to people watch - we had a table near the front french windows and watched a stream of rich belgravian women wearing fur drop off their pets at the vets surgery opposite. The pub rapidly filled up after working hours and their was a nice buzz. In the end (budget be damned!) we couldn't resist eating as the bar menu looked great - we were not dissapointed. Hubby had the organic burger for a £10 - I decided that as it was Australia Day, I needed to show the flag and eat lamb. They had an amazingly tender and full flavoured huge braised lamb shank with wedges of roasted beetroot and mash. Totally fabulous. And £11. In fact -we were stunned by the prices - there we were in Belgravia and we were eating great food in a beautifully restored pub for less than I pay for a bloody pizza here in the heart of Hampshire. What's all that about??? The entire bill - three rounds of drinks and the two mains came to £44 - we decided to be virtuous and walk back to Waterloo station in the tornado/ sub zero temperatures and thus save the tube fare! Thanks again - it was a great afternoon and exactly what we wanted!

Thanks to everyone who responded to my query.. I had intended to try both chinese hot pot and shabu shabu whilst in Hong Kong - I think it was a goma craving I had that was making the latter quest so important to me! But as you can see from the story below.. we never quite made it to either.. We'd left Australia with my partner suffering from a mild flu ailment, and while we made it to dim sum for my birthday breakfast (afternoon tea at the peninsula and then shabu shabu were to be the remaining food treatsof the day!!) we then took the ferry to kowloon to go and check out the markets in mong kok.. and as we were walking up nathan road i noticed hubby going a bit green.. i whipped him into kowloon park where he got progressively paler and was positively midori coloured at this stage.. suddenly - he turns around and projectile hurls into the stormwater drain behind our seat. Cue evacuation of all nearby Hong Kongers in disgust while englishman heaves, and heaves and heaves and sweats and shakes... It then occurs to me that we're quite close to Chungking mansions and they probably think the shaking lanky pale english dude is some kind of backpacking junkie who's having some kind of withdrawal/breakdown. I manage to get him back to our hotel where the rest of the day and night is spent being violently ill in our bathroom - I was worried about dehydration so managed to get some salt and sugar and do some home made dehydration salts and was kept busy running back and forth to the local 7-11 for ginger ale, sprite and crackers... So - I can't report back on either shabu shabu or hotpot - but I'm happy to say that I now have almost the entire 7-11 'dogs club' paper dog collection for Lunar New Year! With regards to hubbys sickness - it could have been food poisoning - although I ate identical food at dim sum and at dinner the night before and was fine - he did have a mango juice earlier that morning.. Also, he did have a slight touch of the flu which might have just pushed him over the edge. The worst thing is that he doesn't think he can ever have dim sum again!! AAAAAAARGH!! We will return though - and by god i'm going to that all you can eat place!

Partner and I will be training it up to fancy London later this week and although we are on the world's biggest budget after 2 months holiday in the sun, we've promised ourselves a quiet afternoon in the pub after our work obligations. We are looking for somewhere for a casual late afternoon drink near Victoria Station - freehouse? interesting drinks list? nice beer? Possibility of bar food in the evening, but this is by no means necessary - we're happy to keep this event liquid with the possible exception of a packet of salt and vinegar and a pickled egg - I'm trying to push for an afternoon visit to the Tate Gallery, so a pub near there wouldn't be a bad option for us either.. Thank in advance!

Wow - all you can eat shabu shabu! sounds fabulous - how do they do that? do they just keep loading your iron pot with broth and giving you extra veggies and meat? or is it pre cooked by the kitchen staff? do you have an address?? the problem with hong kong is that i only have 3 days there - that's only 9 meals..plus some snacks.. and there's just too much too eat! thanks for responding!

A quick question as we are flying back to to the UK via Hong Kong tomorrow and I have a sudden and very very strong craving for Shabu Shabu - does anyone on this forum have any recommendations for this in Hong Kong. I have noted that a previous poster has said that the 'Inagaku' restuarant at one of the Kowloon hotels is excellent, and a brief look at their website confirms they are doing a pork winter style hot pot - but I'm looking for something beefy and full of winter veg.. By the way - all the previous recommendations from people were really helpful for our stopover in November and i'll be sure to post them on my return to england. thanks!

I highly recommend the cafe at the musee jacquement-andree in paris. it's a beautiful room as you can see here and you an enjoy your afternoon pastry and tea in very glamourous surroundings. The tarte aux framboises was spectacular. A perfect accompaniment to a wander through 18th Century french art. I also love the cafe at Bitov Castle in the southern part of the Czech Republic. You sit in the courtyard of the a fabulous castle looking over the Thaya River towards Austria and you can order a half litre of krusovice lager for about 30pence or a slice of sacher torte for about 50pence. You can't beat the price and it's pleasant to sit in the sun with the fountain running in the back ground. But make sure you eat before you do the guided tour as it has the world's largest collection of taxidermy in europe. Baron Haas - one of the former owners, especially liked to remember his pets Just upstream is the chateau at Vranov nad Dyje - again, there is an outdoor cafe with astonishingly low prices. This cafe is set amongst vines and specialises in local wines from the znojmo region. If you climb from the village below you will appreciate a cold glass of wine here I love the cafe on one of the higher floors of the Tate Modern as you can see St Pauls and the traffic on the thames. But it's a little too expensive for my tastes and you often have to wait for about an hour for a seat. Cake is always fabulous though, and everything tastes better with a view.

it's tuesday and i have a big exam today that i'm horrendously unprepared for. the good news is that i've (a) got the day off work (b) got to sleep in & © have taken a novel approach to studying which meant ignoring the course work and just eating brain food for the last week... so breakfast this morning is blueberries and porridge with raisins, water and salt. i also made 2 pots of tea - one for me (earl grey) and one for the man (english breakfast) and then proceeded to drink the wrong one. not happy, but hopefully fortified for the horrors to come

It's a beautifully sunny sunday morning - so I WON'T have my usual weekday breakfast of organic oats made into porridge with sultanas, salt and water with a cup of earl grey tea. We are having some issues using up our veggie box allocation now that I've got a three hour commute, so I've decided to save what spinach I can and have a spinach, feta and sun dried tomato omelette along with roasted potatos with garlic and toast. drinks are assam tea and freshly squeezed oj with sparkling water. i'm tempted to make some carrot cake muffins, to use up our carrot allocation too.. but that could be guilding the lily. Also, I'm meant to be off for a big energetic walk later.. i have to grill some bacon too - that will stop the other half sulking about the spinach omelette...

fabulous! thanks for the links - i am especially interested in showing my partner what all the fuss is about - i'll just need to start saving my pennies now.