Limey's new travel and food critique
 

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...b87f63c96a.jpg
Lebanese breakfast and I'd not even left the UK. This very tasty dish, featuring spicy lamb sausage and delivered to my table in its own hot skillets, is what I started my day with at Gatwick airport.

Mr Limey was recently diagnosed type 2 diabetic (ever the follower of fashion, he!) and, while we're not going all-out paleo in our diet, we've been advised to restrict intake of carbohydrates (and substitute brown for white wherever possible). At home this is easy, but travelling ... well ....
I have left Mr Limey at home to look after the cats, but nevertheless I have a heightened awareness of the carbohydrates on my plate now.
I quite like the food on Turkish Airlines (my carrier of choice for many, if not all, of the destinations I get to go to). But with a new, critical eye, I looked at my airline tray (no pics, sorry Sundae!). Green bean and tomato salad for starter (OK!), beef stew and ratatouille with a generous portion of (white, BOO!) rice ... so far not too bad. But also, a brown bread roll, a packet of savoury biscuits (in fact I got two!), and plum cake for dessert. I ate the brown bread roll (with butter, mustn't go too mad!), left half the rice and all the other carbs. But I did have a beer. The air hostess assumed I'd want European, and it took them a little while to find an Efes (Turkish beer) for me.
As I have another Turkish Airlines flight in a couple of hours (currently posting from Istanbul Ataturk airport), perhaps I'll remember to take a pic of the next meal ....

ohmigod that pan of food looks fabulous!

Sorry to hear about Mr L's diagnosis. That must be a bit of a pain.

That food makes even me want to eat.
Although I'd probably leave 2/3.

I don't worry about carbs as my body seems to thrive on them. Although I've had little
bread and no rice or pasta for a while now. Or potatoes. Oh actually I lie. I ate a lot of everything when I was at Mum's for the Bank Holiday. She'd gone out to buy things for me specially.

I think I would like Turkish food. Except for all the bits I had to pick out.

Keep them coming! You let us see parts of the world we never evere would otherwise.

limey - you are truly a woman of international intrigue. please post more

:lol2: It looks awful!..:lol2:

I bet it was delicious.

:)

Sorry I have been remiss. Here is a local beer - very hoppy and quite mild. I'll be happy to drink it again.
And rack of lamb, ribs really, roasted with a slightly spicy rub which I ate with the beer this evening in the hotel restaurant.
And the fruit bowl I had delivered by room service this afternoon.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...18350dc6e9.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...648a432fac.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...4e6421917c.jpg
I should add I am currently in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

I think they gave me a straw for the beer because I'm a girlie. The Texan (man) who also ordered a beer didn't get a straw.

They gave you a straw because you look so young.
Gorgeous fruit bowl btw (not a euphemism). Nice use of pen to establish scale too, clever girl.

The twisty straw in the beer made me literally LOL... :lol: hahahahhahahahhhahah......

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...9df8dfb4e7.jpghttp://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...173fa9b4e6.jpg
Tonight's dinner was Kuurdak (mutton, tomatoes, potatoes,onion and bell pepper).
The beer isn't actually 11% by volume, that's what used to be referred to as original gravity, I think. In the small print it say 4% ....
Oh, and no straw tonight. Maybe the bar staff read teh Cellar :eek: !

Did the bendy straw's corrugations make the beer foam on the way up?


Hard to beat meat & spuds...

That looks like very classy expense account chow. :haha:
I'd assume you've traveled in that part of the world enough to know what to avoid and what their secret treasures are.

I like to try the local food. One of the perks and quirks of my travelling gig is that I get a per diem allowance and if I don't spend it all I get to keep the change (less a slice for the taxman). It can be hard finding the line between eating exotic and eating inedible when trying to reasonably economise.

Good old home cooking at a former Soviet holiday camp on Lake Issyl Kul. Here's last night's dinner: chakhochbili (referred to on the internets as "Georgian chicken ragout"). With a side dish of beetroot salad (grated beetroot with crushed garlic and a slug, literally, of sour cream!). Bread, and a bun with a sweet tvorog filling (hey, Ortho, I'm looking at you here ;) ).
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...8818215ec4.jpg

Today's breakfast looked much like yesterday's so here's a picture of yesterday's. Millet porridge, bread (sadly not delicious black bread), cheese, sausage, a hard boiled egg and a dod of butter. There's a dod of butter in the porridge, too. No-one was eating the sausage so I didn't either!
For some reason we're not given knives (at any meal) so I used a fork to spread the butter on the bread.
Today's porridge was made of oatmeal.
Also they serve something they call coffee but I have no idea how to describe it. Sweet and milky with some other vaguely familiar flavour, not coffee nor chicory.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...f242afb98e.jpg

Yesterday's dinner at the holiday camp was noodles and meat with peppers and tomatoes. You begin to see a theme here? With "crab salad" probably containing the ubiquitous evil crab sticks. However there was very little in evidence and I suspect it was mostly rice, boiled egg and cucumber from the previous day. And why not?
Attachment 49011

Lunch yesterday was grilled trout fresh from the Whitewater River in Grigiryev Canyon (scene of my pic with the horse and the eagle). Local handmade bread, crunchy cucumber, juicy tomatoes and cold prefab crinkle cut chips. Black tea sweetened with homemade raspberry jam.
Attachment 49012
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...b674193d02.jpg

You'll have to get a Swiss Army Knife to cover all their eccentricities.
I wonder it they make a plastic version for air travel? ;)

I had one once. It was nicked from a suitcase at an airport somewhere in Russia long before 9.11. I seem to recall at the same time a jar of "Scotch bonnet" chillis was also opened and sampled, left to leak a little hot juice into the rest of the contents of my suitcase.

Ain't that the way. It's not what they take, it's the damage/mess the make taking it. :rolleyes:

I was driven back to Bishkek airport by a young man who had brought a couple of friends along for the ride (he has a right-hand drive car and they drive on the right, so he wanted someone to ride shotgun to help him with overtaking when coming fetch me).
We stopped for some local delicacies along the way.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...957effd574.jpg
Buying salt fish and smoked trout.
Attachment 49021
We stopped at a wayside eatery. They didn't mind that we'd brought some of our own food. They supplied us with fresh bread, boiled potatoes and tea.
Attachment 49022

Sure helps to speak the language.

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...aefe2390e5.jpg
Plov. Linguistically and culinarily related, I feel sure, to pilau (the rice dish, not the dog of sainted memory!). Rice, beef, carrots, spices.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...658f209650.jpg
Manty. You've seen these before. I'm pretty sure they are on that Silk Road food route between dim sum and ravioli. Pasta parcels filled with chopped mest and onions.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...cf772a0c80.jpg
Horse steak on noodles. This was DELICIOUS. A sort of chocolaty rich beef flavour, and so tender.
I also drank some kumiss (mare's milk. Usually described as fermented but my companions on the wee road trip assured me that what I drank wasn't fermented). This was surprisingly sour and salty.

I would have all of that in a heartbeat.
Well, spred over about four days anyway...