During the Roman times, the main rival of Arles was Marseille as a port town. Back then, the town was closer to the Mediterranean and the Romans built a series of canals to the sea, but over the centuries, the silt flowing from the river has buried the former harbour. Marseille is the bigger city today, but in that time, Arles was of considerable importance to the Romans. The leaders of Arles sided with Julius Caesar in his war against Pompey. Once Julius Caesar won and consolidated power, Marseille’s possessions were transferred to Arles. The city went into decline during the barbarian invasions that led to the fall of Rome.

For breakfast, again we found that the French, at least in this part of the country, don’t open any of their restaurants until noon. Even the places that are open, only serve drinks. This often left us hungry from morning till noon. At least for lunch, we went to La Gueule du Loup (literally translates to the Mouth of the Wolf). There we got to try a bull steak and a bull tataki (maybe a reference to the bullfighting event). Apart from the bull meat, the steak itself is prepared the standard way with a red wine sauce. Upon ordering the steak, I realized I didn’t know how to say rare in French, but the server was nice enough to explain it to me – “saignant” (the same server later also taught us how to pronounce Arles, like “arrrl”). The tataki was much more special – a blue rare bull steak with a miso/sesame sauce, mushrooms, and a black rice risotto topped with truffle oil (tataki is a Japanese culinary term, but the only thing Japanese about the dish was the use of miso and sesame). The black rice is grown locally in the region of Camargue, that Arles is a part of. They even brew beer with the rice, but the taste isn’t too different from other types of lagers.

After lunch, we headed over to Avignon, which used to be the seat of the Catholic church (as opposed to the Vatican) for 7 successive popes in the 14th century. Eventually, there was a dispute resulting both Avignon and Rome both declaring their own line of popes and for a time the papal succession had branched. The line of popes from Avignon were subsequently declared as illegitimate “antipopes” (but we like to say “bastard popes” for fun). The last antipope eventually agreed to relinquish the title and became a bishop. The popes resided in the Palais des Papes. The palace itself was both a fortress and a residence for the Avignon popes. The walls were intentionally very thick to withstand long sieges – to add on to that, the city has its own walls too.

The inside of the palace explains the long history of the Avignon Papacy along with different rooms in the palace. Like European history in general, it’s pretty tough to follow because there are so many interconnected people and events happening concurrently.

Walking around town, we stumbled upon a confectionary also selling the same calissons from Aix-en-Provence – they even had nougats too. This time, we got flavoured calissons, but they don’t taste as good as the original flavour. The nougats themselves are nice and soft.

As we headed out of the city, we got to see the massive walls surrounding it. They were built during the Avignon Papacy and deterred enemy attacks during the Hundred Year’s War. Heading further out, we also got to see a vineyard.

After a short drive, we reached Pont du Gard, the ruins of an old Roman aqueduct. It has three levels and people can walk all the way to the top if they follow a guided tour. The Grand Rhône runs through the area and people can spend time at the nearby beach or hike the trails in the greenery.

Looking closely at the bricks used to build the aqueduct, it’s amazing to see that the Romans were able to figure out how to cut each stone so precisely that they’d neatly fit together. And it’s also cool that they figured out how to ensure that the structure didn’t collapse under the load and that arches were the optimal shape to use. The keystones on the arch are still clearly visible.

For dinner, we ate at a nearby restaurant with a cozy courtyard. It was nearby the aqueduct in a small town, so we didn’t really have high expectations going in. But to our surprise, they were able to prepare a nice pizza, a salad, and razor clams (I’d never tried them before). But like many meals we had recently, we always get whiffs of cigarette smoke from some other table.

Check here to see more photos of Arles and Avignon

As usual, food was the goal. Miso-Katsu, a kind of Japanese schnitzel with with miso sauce, is a specialty of Nagoya. Yabaton was the name of the restaurant and it is one of the most famous places in Nagoya for Miso-Katsu.

Nagoya also has the largest planetarium in the world at the Nagoya City Science Museum. And they have palm trees! We went to the planetarium show too, and they showed us how various constellations and planets looked in space, but unforunately, all the explanations were in Japanese. Still, it is worth a visit for those who enjoy stargazing.

Some crazy stuff they were able to do with bubbles too.

And I found the dome and helix fossils. I just need to go to the lab in Cinnarbar Island… Now I am wondering if the museum people put those two fossils together on purpose.

I wanted to walk inside this tornado so badly.

Another specialty of Nagoya is Hitsumabushi, which is grilled eel on rice. Probably many non-Asians may think that this is weird to eat, but regardless it is very very good, but expensive. According to the local culture, there is a “standard” way to eat this. First is to eat a quarter of it as is. Second, is to add various spices like green onion, and wasabi to it and eat another quarter. Third is to mix it with the given broth and eat another quarter of it. Lastly, it is to eat the last quarter with the favoured method of the three.

In the downtown district of Sakae, I saw a Ferris wheel attached to the side of the building. I should get one for my house too.

Not sure if this is a thing in Nagoya, but someone had the great idea of mixing melon in their spaghetti batter. Step 1: Make spaghetti with melon batter. Step 2: Add whipped cream. Step 3: ???. Step 4: Profit! Apparently, the kiwi one was better, according to a friend.

Another speciality of Nagoya is Tebasaki, Nagoya-style fried chicken wings. I believe it is deep fried with a coating of sweet soy sauce. It tasted okay, I guess.

Not exactly a specialty of Nagoya, but this is raspberry Kit Kat. It is not good. Don’t try it.

As expected, epic food often makes appearances in my travelling

Links to photo albums:

• Nagoya
• Nagoya City Science Museum

A while back I bought Groupons for a sushi platter at this restaurant and so today my friends and I went here for dinner to use them.  When we walked in, I went up to the counter and told the lady in German that I made a reservation for four people yesterday.  I then overheard her speaking Mandarin to her colleague.  It threw me off since I expected the staff there to be Japanese (even though a lot of Chinese people run sushi restaurants in Vancouver).  Knowing that the lady spoke Mandarin, I started speaking that instead and I told her that we wanted to use Groupons.  She seemed really surprised at how I started speaking Chinese and asked where I was from.  I told her I was from Hong Kong and she told me she was from Korea.  That totally took me aback.  For a Korean, she spoke Mandarin as well as someone natively Chinese.  She said that I spoke pretty good Mandarin for someone that came from Hong Kong (but maybe that’s just her being polite).  After that brief chat, she then invited us to sit anywhere we wanted and gave us our food menus.

Looking through the menu, I realized the restaurant had more than just Japanese food.  It had Korean and Chinese food.  The last few pages of my menu had some items written only in Chinese and my friend didn’t have those pages in their menus (likely because they knew that I knew Chinese).  It turns out they served the Cantonese style chicken feet (鳳爪)!  I definitely had to order that one.  I also ordered a bowl of Kimchi as I hadn’t eaten that in a while.  I had both of those along with the sushi platter that the Groupon got me.  My friends ordered Gyoza, spicy fried squid (I think it was 椒鹽鮮魷), miso soup, and Inarizushi (fried tofu filled with sushi rice).

My friends didn’t know what it was so I explained it as a Korean version of German sauerkraut except spicy.  I don’t eat Kimchi much, but this one tasted really good.  It had the perfect amount of spiciness.  I guess that is kind of subjective since everyone can handle a different amount of that.

The chicken feet that I ordered didn’t taste as good as I thought it would.  I can’t help but compare the taste with the kind I’ve had in Vancouver.  Some people do say that Vancouver has the best Chinese food in the world and now I’ve begun to see that.  Compared to Vancouver, the meat (pretty much skin I suppose) on the  chicken feet I got here seemed to be a lot “tougher”.  I was really expecting it to be really soft.

Although I didn’t try the miso soup, it looked really delicious.  It looked a lot different that the usual kind that I’ve seen in Vancouver.  I wouldn’t know which one is more legit or better tasting though.  Everything else looked really good and super legit too – especially the fried squid; that looked really good.

After eating our appetizers, we chowed down on the sushi platter.  Almost immediately, the mediocre seafood quality of Stuttgart revealed itself.  The taste was a lot more bland and had less of the natural flavour of the animal itself.  Again, I compared it to Vancouver and it’s really no contest there.  Vancouver has such good access to the ocean for fishing, while Stuttgart is landlocked and relies on frozen fish being delivered. 

Despite that though, I thought that this place had good sushi for a landlocked city. Although, the biggest drawback in eating sushi in Stuttgart is that it’s really expensive. The only reason we went was because of the Groupon that gave us 50% off the sushi platter.  I don’t think I would have gone otherwise.  Seeing that I’m going to be back in Vancouver really soon (16 days by my count), I can have all the amazing Japanese, Chinese and Korean food I want!

On our way out, I had another brief chat with the lady there and it was really difficult for me to understand Mandarin.  It wasn’t the way she spoke, but more so the way I really had to focus my attention to her talking because my Mandarin ability wasn’t that good.  My mind literally zoned out of everything and focussed purely on understanding what she said.  I ended up saying something back in like a mix of Chinese, German and English.  It was kind of strange, but she understood what I wanted to say.  It was kind of random yet really fascinating to have a trilingual language conversation and tri-culture meal going on.

The day after going to Munich, some of my friends and I went to eat some traditional Japanese food.  We went to a restaurant called Tokio Dining (http://www.tokiodining.de) and at the time they had a deal (until the end of June) where the first 20 bowls of Miso Ramen served each day would be half price.  I actually went to this restaurant once before, but for some reason I never blogged about it the first time.  As I kept writing this, it sounded more and more like a restaurant review.  Either way, the food was so good the first time I went, I decided to go again.  It was the best Japanese food I’ve ever had.  And by Japanese food, I don’t mean sushi.

I’ve never had Japanese food in Japan before, but I’d say this place was the closest thing.  As we walked in, the chefs greeted us in Japanese, and if I knew how to reply in Japanese, I totally would have done that.  When we went in, we were the only people there and that usually says something about how good the restaurant is, but not for this place.

Jasmine Tea

Unlike Japanese restaurants in North America, they do not serve green tea to all their customers by default.  It might be a German thing where they like to charge for every drink – even water.  I ordered their Jasmine tea since it is one of my favourites.  They served it in a very traditional looking (at least to me) teapot with a teacup.

In addition to looking good, it also tasted good.  The tea had been steeped for the right amount of time for it to have flavour and yet not have taste that was too concentrated.

Edamame

My friend had this the first time we went and this dish was perfect for him because he is a vegetarian.  Edamame is a dish that has immature soybeans that have been boiled in water with a little bit of salt.

I tried a little bit and it was pretty good.  I can’t say that it’s super delicious or anything because I’m a huge fan of meat.  It was pretty fun trying to get the beans out of the pod though.

Takoyaki

The appetizer I had the first time I went was the Takoyaki.  It is a dish that has a ball-shaped pancake with grilled octopus meat as filling.  It is also served with Japanese mayonnaise, takoyaki sauce, katsuobushi (dried fish flakes), and green onion flakes.  The restaurant served it in a wooden boat shaped dish, which made it extra cool.

When I bit into one of the takoyaki balls, the pancake layer felt so soft and delicious.  The octopus part was even better, but I think I say that only because I’m a huge fan of octopus meat.  The sauce and the fish flakes made it even better.  As I’m writing this part, I’m craving more of it.

Ikura

Ikura is the Japanese word for roe, which are basically fish eggs.  The restaurant called it Ikura Oroshi and the word Oroshi apparently means a strong wind blowing down a slope (if I got the context correct too).  I guess it makes sense when considering how it was served.  It was served on a small mound of water chestnut with the caviar on top.  On the side of the mound, there were a few strips of sliced cucumber and I guess that would represent the wind.  I never realized how much sense the name of the dish made until I looked it up while writing this part.

The dish was really small, but that makes sense because roe is quite expensive to serve in large volumes.  When I bit into one of them, they just pop as my teeth sinks through the outer protective layer and when that happens juice comes out.  It had the coolest mouthfeel.

Miso Ramen

Our main dish was the Miso Ramen.  The noodles had a soup base made of miso (hence the name) and was served with a slice of pork.  It also had other ingredients such as bean sprouts, seaweed, half a boiled egg and corn.  All of that made the noodles so much more delicious.

The noodles were soft yet chewy in a way and that was perfect for my tastes.  Many people think that the instant ramen and this kind of ramen are similar, but their only similarity is that they’re both noodles with the same name.  They taste completely different.  Although the dish was kind of small, everything in it was so good that I ate all of it – even the soup.  While I was eating this, I faced a dilemma.  In Japan, it is customary to slurp the ramen loudly to show appreciation of the food, but in western countries nobody does that.  In the end, I just slurped it like how I normally ate noodles (something like in between the two extremes), while my friends were really careful about making any slurping noises.

Conclusion

Everything here was so good that I would want to go there to eat all the time until I get sick of it.  I never thought I’d be going out for Japanese food while in Germany, but I think this worked out really well.  On our way out, we said thank you to the chefs there in Japanese.

When I go back to Vancouver, I will try to find another restaurant that is on par with this if not better.  That shouldn’t be too hard since Vancouver does have amazing Japanese food.