Thursday, May 12, 2011

Switzerland - Eating with Friends

My blog is slowly turning from a food/restaurant review blog into a travel blog! Although I suppose that's inevitable as a travelling foodie, have to share all the goodies I get to devour no?

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So it's just another day in Switzerland, more countryside and getting stuck behind tractors going at 40 kilometres and hour. On our third day in Switzerland, after a quick trip to Zug station for a somewhat business related meeting (can never fully escape that grind...), and picking up some adorable macarons from Sprungli, we drove to my old classmate's house (Izzy) to have lunch with their family. When I say old classmate, I mean old, we were classmate's and neighbours in primary school when I was still back in Hong Kong, so well over 12 years ago now! It's so wonderful to have friends all over the world...

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They have the most gorgeous house in the hills, that's right on the edge of a lake. Like literally. The last time I was here my Izzy's brother had just jumped into the lake for a swim. Although it was a tad too cold this time.

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They had us over for a barbeque, isn't their old school barbeque cute? With a lil smoke chimney and all? Love, love, love!

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The food was plentiful, but not overly indulgent, and when you're with good company, the food is always tastier. Don't you think?

Although that was a serious slab of meat. They cooked two of them, plus some delicious veal. Mmm!

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Izzy's father used to work for Movenpick, so they're always very well stocked! And I found it so interesting, I don't think I've ever met a more particular connoisseur of ice-cream before! He made sure the ice-cream came out a little after we finished lunch, so that they had time to soften, warm up a little to the right temperature and make sure they were the right consistency to eat.

It's amazing how much difference it makes, I've had Movenpick in Melbounre once or twice and been a bit underwhelmed at it. However when you do let it soften, it really is absolutely creamy and rich. Something else I didn't really realise initially until he mentioned it was that all their flavours have some of the actual flavour ingredient in the ice-cream, so chocolate obviously has chocolate, their caramelita flavour (which I LOVE) has small chunks of soft caramel candy in it, so on and so forth.

So amazing. I ate so much ice-cream that afternoon, it wasn't funny. It's amazing how many little scoops of different flavours fill you up...

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Izzy and her mum had gone down to Zurich to pick up these adorable (and naturally delicious cupcakes), I don't have the name of the bakery but I'm sure I can always find out...

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These are the macarons we picked up from Sprungli, (which has some connection with Lindt), which are delicious. It's interesting in Melbourne that they are sold at cost per piece, but in Switzerland, they are sold by weight! Which seems a little surprising as they are so beautifully uniform in shape. The macarons from Sprungli are about half the diameter of the macarons I'm used to seeing in Melbourne (although they're probably about the size of the macarons you get at EARL canteen or Le Petit Gateau), but absolutely stuffed with filling.

They were all so delicious, the texture was just beautiful, light...mmmmmm.

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Ah travels. You finish one meal and then you're immediately shepherded off to the next one, we drove back to our host's house in Schiers....for yet another barbeque! I think I had barely enough time to finish digesting from the first meal!

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We had an absolute plethora of fresh salads, I loved how bright and colourful everything was!

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This is a special bread that's had especially around Easter (it was Easter Saturday), home made by our host's sister, just look how beautifully glossy it is!

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Bratwurst and chicken wings. Sorry Australia, your sausages cannot compare the the deliciousness of veal bratwurst. Those guys seriously swelled up while getting grilled, they were about half the size uncooked!

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And to finish up, a home made lemon cake. Yum yum.

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It's interesting eating in Switzerland, the breakfast's are typically cold, the lunches are usually the biggest and warmest meal of the day, the dinners tend to be quite light. As you can see mainly with one protein and a bunch of salads. And surprisingly, they really make just enough to finish, whenever our Swiss friends have cooked for us, we've always finished everything without any leftover's. That's something Asians have always spectacularly failed at, with one meal lasting for a few days after....