Not the Pizza for You & Me

Like almost every other native New Yorker, one of my favorite foods to consume is pizza. The minute I step back onto Long Island from New Paltz i’m at Monte’s pizzeria going in on a buffalo calamari slice. There’s nothing more satisfying than having 5+ options of pizza slices in front of you, giving you the opportunity to get one plain slice and one BBQ chicken, a white and a pepperoni, whatever you’re into. Pizza slices are definitely, without a doubt, the way to go. England happens to think differently.

Here in the UK, all their pizzas are more personal size. The type of pizza you expect when you go to Cosi. They don’t have pizzeria’s here the way we do, and let me tell you, it has been a STRUGGLE. I don’t want a full personal one type pizza, I want two slices of two different types of pizza, but that’s not a thing here. It’s sad, when you think about it, being confined to one flavor. Honestly, none of them even seem that good. Maybe i’m just spoiled having so many pizzeria’s back home that serve buffalo chicken and chicken bacon ranch pizza’s, but either way, you won’t find them here. Instead you’ll find chicken tikka pizza and weird vegetable mixes. Many places also have an “American” pizza option, which is usually pepperoni and a few other things. It never seems appetizing.

One of the first places I went to my first month here is a popular chain called Pizza Express. If you ever come to the UK, save yourself the trip to there. Nothing special. The description of the pizza I ordered said it has prosciutto on it, and wanna know what came out on my pizza? Little slices of ham. Like, Boars Head ham. The type you get at the deli counter of Stop & Shop for your sandwiches. My Italian roots felt so disrespected when the pizza came out and I saw bits of ham on top. Prior to going there I still had high hopes and expectations for food in the UK, but there was a significant drop after this. I haven’t had pizza from anywhere besides Domino’s or Papa John’s since this, though i’ve tried to stay away from pizza in general.

As a whole, I wouldn’t say i’m the biggest fan of UK food in general. They have a lot of chicken based stuff, but the only chicken i really enjoy is in nugget or parm form. Chinese takeout is also really different. I haven’t actually ordered it, because looking at the menu I hardly recognize anything. To say i’m excited to go home so I can find better food is an understatement. I will give the thai food an A+ rating, though. I may not have tried it in America, but I can still say I thoroughly enjoyed it here.

What they do do well, as expected, is tea. And dessert. I was never a big dessert person, but now I love getting a cupcake or some little pastry from somewhere. I even made it a point to go to a few popular bakeries while here. So much good dessert. Thank you UK.

Just a few more weeks until i’m surrounded by all the food i enjoy the most!

Second Half Of A Wild Winter Break

After a day of traveling, Trish, Gissel and I arrived in Nice around 7pm to meet Anna and Gabby at the next apartment we reserved through airbnb. All of the palm trees made it feel like a true vacation.

Once we settled in, we walked through town to find a place for dinner. We landed at Poupon & Marinette, a small traditional Nice restaurant. There were two men and a woman working, which I assume were the owners. I had honestly felt like I was just invited into a grandmother’s house because the woman taking care of us was so inviting.

She decided that we would be eating from the prix fixe menu and she decided almost everything else for us but I was totally fine with that. We started off with bread, raw vegetable that we dipped in a fish paste, and some more bread toasted with olives because you can never had too much bread in France. She then decided we were going to have a bottle of red wine with that.

For the main course we enjoyed gnocchi and a stew of our choice. Gabby had beef, Anna had chicken, Trish had lamb, and Gissel and I had rabbit. I wanted to try something knew and I was definitely not disappointed.

Our stews came in huge portions

Our stews came in huge portions

After being completely stuffed, we had dessert and an after dinner shot almost against our will. It was a delicious meal and an incredible experience.

The next day was the Carnaval de Nice, the reason why we traveled over 8 hours from Besançon. During the day was the flower parade where women on the floats threw thousands of flowers into the crowd and many different countries were represented.

I had bought some festive glasses

I had bought some festive glasses

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Many things were also written in Italian since Nice is right next to Italy

Many things were also written in Italian since Nice is right next to Italy

We even got to spend some time on the beach

We even got to spend some time on the beach

After the carnaval, we rested up before heading out at night for the Festival of Lights. We grabbed some pizza from an Italian pizza truck on the way, each ordering a personal pie. that definitely is up for the running for the most amazing pizza I’ve ever had.

Pizza with chorizo, peppers and olives

Pizza with chorizo, peppers and olives

 

We were caught in a torrential downpour on the walk to the night session of the carnaval and the rain soaked right through our jackets. So we ended up turning around, heading back to the apartment and streaming Girls for hours. We ended up having a fun night regardless before we had to spend all of Sunday traveling for over 9 hours back to Besançon. This break beats any other break I’ve ever had.