I’ve left Mattapoisett after successfully consuming two and a half pints of lobster meat along with a significant amount of fries. I have to thank the Oxford Creamery for my success, for their lobster rolls are second to none and highly addicting. One may assume that I got sick of lobster rolls after eating them for five days straight, but it’s actually quite the opposite. I’m still craving the utter pleasure of the Oxford Creamery lobster roll, for nothing else brings me the same unique tastes. I wish we had an Oxford Creamery in Seattle because any time I’m feeling a little bit down, I could have Mom just drive on over and I could scarf down a couple lobster rolls. I never appreciated the raw power that the Oxford Creamery held because my taste buds hadn’t quite matured, but with a year of traveling under my belt,  I understand why my parents constantly obsess about the Oxford Creamery lobster roll.

While we were in Mattpoisett, Terry and PopPop arranged a party with an exclusive visit by the Oxford Creamery, Oxcart, which is their version of a food truck.  This was encouraged partly by Wescott’s Great Wall Of China Blog Post with his wise comment: “My eyes have sampled holy lobster rolls from the Mattapoisett Oxford Creamery, and now just roll their eyes (pun intended) whenever you say, ‘We’re going to go down to the xyz restaurant and get some lobster rolls.’”    The Oxcart is a small trailer hauled by a pickup truck that holds a great amount of cargo considering it’s size. The Oxcart set up shop in Terry & PopPop’s driveway and we had a bash with all the blog followers that were on the east coast.  So there I sat, on my grandparents’ deck, enjoying my lobster roll and fries while looking out to Cape Cod across the wide Buzzard’s Bay.  It was at that moment that I finally understood that while I saw many things traveling,  it still can’t get much better than enjoying time with family and friends with a lobster roll in hand (and mouth)

Mom and Dad hanging out in the Oxcart

YUMMMMM!

Mom, Dad and Yve with Mom’s cousin John, Aunt Muffin and my great-grandmother, Grandfan!

Views from our table!

Outside Deck

Nepenthe is a greek word meaning anti-depressant drug. So good news depressed people, this restaurant is the cure!  But seriously, their hamburgers are in fact sublime. The fluffy bun is baked to perfection and practically melts in your mouth while the patty oozes it’s flavorful juice onto your tongue. Every bite reveals a new flavor, triggering sheer pleasure to arise. benin As your mind experiences emotions you had never discovered, you look out to the beautiful view of the open sea beyond the crackling fire, and realize the name, Nepenthe, fits this place as much as “awesome” fits Otto.

The Nepenthe Burger, worth the trip!

 Sushi Heaven. That’s not a way to describe the restaurant, that’s literally the name of it.  Maybe they just figured they’d save the trouble of describing it by making the name of the restaurant the description of the restaurant. After a plate of five rolls, my sushi pallet was broadened greatly along with my stomach.  What iI love about sushi, is the amount of flavor that is packed into one roll and Sushi Heaven took that to whole new level. Usually, all sushi, to me, tastes pretty similar, but not Sushi Heaven.

 It just so happens that we also tried making sushi ourselves in Carmel. I am still a newbie in the sushi making world, but I plan on being a master sushi chef by the end of the year.  Anyway, we made some mean rolls with the ingredients: nori, rice, carrot, cucumber, tuna, salmon, and crab.  We rolled them up in a disorderly matter with our ingredients of choice. They tasted great, but not particularly restaurant quality from the display side of things.

 We also visited a stupendous sushi restaurant in Sausalito, Sushi Ran, for Wescott’s B-day that offers Sushi Heaven some stiff competition! I’ve learned that California is, in fact, the place to go if your looking to get a killer sushi meal!

If you are near Carmel, CA, make sure you stop by Sushi Heaven on any day but Sunday!

I woke up that first morning in Carmel to a kitchen full of grocery bags. All the counters had disappeared and it was overwhelming. I found myself quickly moving towards the doorway leading to the living room where I stopped and turned. There, out in the open, on the counter was the yellow and purple package with the words “Fig Newtons” printed expectantly on the top. Still, I moved into the living room, trying my best to resist the urge to grab it and go.

Sometime later, Mom walked in wielding the same yellow and purple package. I felt the corners of my mouth tugging up and I couldn’t stop the smile that had already taken center stage. I all but inhaled half of its contents. But it was inevitable that my high would come to its climax and I would be left with only the feeling of dissatisfaction, however intuitive. Almost as if I was searching for some lost item. But why; what? The same feeling was felt at the towns local candy shop. I stood, unsure of what to get. There was so many different kinds of candies. It seemed like a hard decision, yet was it also something else, something—

Ah! I know.

Alchemy’s raw peanut butter cups in Ubud, Bali. They completely, thoroughly, wrecked me  And now, no matter what, they will always be better—a bit above the rest—superior to any pre-packaged food.

I  guess it’s just the way things are now and I’ll always be itching to go back.

Doesn’t get better than this!

Italy: Can’t go wrong here. We quickly managed to find all the best stores so we could go grocery shopping to the super cool local bakery, fruit stand, and cheese / meat shop every day on the way home. The first breakfasts of the trip consisted of bread, butter, jam, salami, cheese, fresh melon, pears, yoghurt, Nutella (of course), and a good cup of  Italian coffee.

Nutella was a constant for every meal. We never got to go to the Nutelleria but we have put it on our list for the next Trip Around the World !

Greece: Breakfast with a view, that’s for sure. Greek yoghurt and honey in Greece is everything you could imagine and more. Amazing. We also brought some Italy with us, dining on bread, cheese, fresh fruit, salami, and other pastries we accumulated on our visit to probably the best bakery ever. You have to be there super early to get the best loaf of bread, which, thanks to Wescott, we successfully accomplished each morning.

It doesn’t get better than this!

Spain: I’ll never be able to get the taste of Iberian ham out of my mouth. With complete luck we thankfully found a great breakfast joint. Croissant sandwiches with ham in the middle and covered with tomato paste proved to be simple yet so delicious. And only five giant steps away from our apartment you’d be sure to see us there every morning! What could be better than a glass of orange juice and iberico jamon to start off the day?

Otto, Tuck and Wescott dining on Iberian Ham mini sandwiches for breakfast at our favorite neighborhood hangout.

Portugal: Though the food is to die for, I have to say that the morning walks were just as fulfilling. Up the hilly streets to go and fetch breakfast for everyone before our daily surfing, I would lead Wescott and his poor sense of direction to the part of town that held all the little cafes, fruit stands, bakeries, and what not. There he would take over, scouting out the best stores worth going to. So, in the end, like every good European breakfast we had tons of fruit and bread, along with fresh squeezed carrot and ginger juice that we bought at this hip juice / breakfast place

Wescott and his juice

.

Morocco: Carb overload. But, oh it’s so good. Thin, spongy pancakes? Okay. French baguettes? Yes. Pita bread? Maybe, though it tastes good whatever it is. Muffins? Why not. And of course you need to have something to put on your breads so our amazing cook, Raja, also put out different types of jam, butter, and honey. But, need I not forget, the super delicious yoghurt fresh every morning and straight from the goat, that I still wish for on most mornings.

We also had our favorite orange juice vendor that we stopped by most days for a glass of fresh squeezed juice!

Tanzania: With pure white sand beneath your feet and a view of the bluest water, breakfast was sure to be a good one. Luckily we arrived in Zanzibar when all the fruits were in season, so that had to mean only one thing….bananas, watermelon, pineapples, mangos, papayas, passion fruit and a side of what had to be crepes… we think. Also, your choice between Africafé or tea and to top it off, malaria pills.

PopPop and Otto hanging out in the sand floor breakfast area at Crazy Mzungos!

Vietnam: It is good to be back! Phó is essential in Vietnam when it comes to the most important meal of the day. But, if you’re not quite up to having the big bowl of fresh veggies, rice noodles, and outstanding broth, then our wonderful hosts can be sure to jump right to your needs. Scrambled eggs or omelette coming right up. Also, thank you to the French for coming and bringing your baguettes because, along with Morocco, you can be sure to find a good loaf in your breakfast setup.

Tuck and Jones enjoying morning Pho at Finnegan’s!

Myanmar: Love the country… not so sure about the food. We never truly got a sense of what the Burmese diet consisted of. It seemed to be a mix of everything, from curry, to beans and rice, to all other sorts of Asian dishes. So, you could predict that this buffet was going to be quite large considering the wide variety. And it was exactly that, but I can definitely say that breakfast wasn’t one of things we will forever remember about Myanmar.

Fried rice is a staple at every meal in Southeast Asia, especially breakfast!

Thailand: If you haven’t already heard, Chiang Mai is all about the nightlife, which doesn’t really help when it comes to your morning meal. And our hotel didn’t include breakfast, so we were left to our own devices trying to find good places to eat. Luckily, with the help of TripAdvisor we found some very yummy restaurants and cafe’s to pig out at.

Lemongrass tea was one of our favorite things to order on every menu.

China: We weren’t sure what to expect at Fun Sam’s. I mean, who could guess that Sam’s Mom would make the best noddles, probably in all of Yangshuo? Though she tried to give us the whole carb only breakfast (because it seems that’s what most westerners prefer when they come) we insisted that we absolutely love what the locals ate –noodles—thicker than phó noodles—with beef, egg, mushrooms, veggies, and choice toppings such as peanuts, pickled green beans, and some spicy sauce. And you could always count on Sam’s Dad to pour you tea each morning as well.

Typical breakfast noodles in China…YUM!

Bali: We’ve all learned quickly that you have to try very hard to eat unhealthily here. And just like Barcelona, we are located in central coolness so which ever direction we choose to walk, we’ll undoubtedly come across an amazing café. On mornings where we feel like not going out, we strategically bought a blender so we could try all kinds of crazy tasty smoothies and test out new recipes.

One of our favorite smoothies in Ubud (that we have not only for breakfast): the peppermint kiss

Raw-vegan food is wildly casual here. That might sound kind of annoying, but because of the vast number of raw food restaurants, all of them need to up their game in taste, if they want to attract more than a bunch of hipsters wearing leather that insist on drinking coconut water or fermented beverages only (although they still attract those people.)

Alchemy.  Even by the name you can tell this place is cool. This restaurant has morphed modern, medieval and Balinese design into something awesome.  They tend to use the word sexy in various signs around the store like “don’t steal, it’s not sexy” and “tipping is sexy” on their tip jar, which is pretty weird but I guess people like feeling seductive after dropping a coin in a jar. All and all, Alchemy’s design is sublime.

But its not the design that reels us in to Alchemy almost every meal, it’s the food. Alchemy is strictly raw and vegan. They maintain three different bars. A breakfast bar that serves yogurt parfaits; a lunch/ dinner bar that serves salad; and a smoothie and juice bar. I know what you are thinking, “salad, how good can salad really get?”, but many of us have confirmed that this is the best salad we’ve ever tasted. Having said that, let me walk you through my first bite of an Alchemy salad.

Twas a dark starry night in Ubud. The frogs were barking. The obnoxious crickets and other unknown insects were chattering and the moon was glowing while turning the sky to an infinity blue. Wescott, with his persuasive ways, somehow convinced Yve and me to go with him to Alchemy. At the time, I had no idea what was waiting at this salad bar, but Wescott had already been wowed and knew I would be too.  So we walked briskly threw the narrow walkways of Penestanan keeping caution for frogs and toads not to become flat, from the tread of our shoes. We finally reach Alchemy. We walked in and Wescott lead me to the salad bar. There was only about three people in the restaurant, mostly on their computers. I wasn’t that hungry, for I had diarrhea at the time (sorry for mentioning that in a restaurant blog post,) but Wescott chose his 4 toppings and his salad dressing all in a colorful assortment and headed to the smoothie bar. He ordered a smoothie called the PB&J which I thought sounded pretty gross at the time.  The three of us sat down outside, hooded by a grass roof. Wescott clenched his fork and stabbed at his greens. He had gathered a mushroom, a tomato slice, and a couple of leaves of lettuce all smothered with sesame dressing. He inserted the vegetables into his mouth, closed his lips, and the fork came out naked of greens. He took his first chew. Wescott nodded his head as he usually does when his taste buds approve. “Mmmmm”.  I wanted to know what all the hullabaloo was about with these salads, so I grabbed a fork and skewered as many veggies as I could. I quickly shoved the fork into my mouth. My jaw eagerly flexed. The crunch of the lettuce shook my ear drums and all the flavor released. My taste buds couldn’t believe what they were tasting as the flavors were too complex to comprehend. Isn’t this a salad? I swallowed with an aggressive gulp.

Dessert at Alchemy has its own stand as well. I never expected raw-vegan desserts to be my favorite, but they are. Everything from cakes to chocolate bars to peanut butter cups.  I have to say, their raw peanut butter cup is to die for.  Dessert is served all day so peanut butter cups are consumed all day, even after breakfast

Drinks. Beverages are the key ingredient to health, and Alchemy has them all. Fermenting is all the rage here in Ubud, kombucha especially. But Alchemy seams to be the most obsessed with cocobiotic (fermented coconut water). This isn’t one of those things that sounds gross but is actually really good….it is just revolting. Since I had diarrhea, I got a bottle of it because it supposedly helps with your digestion, but it actually made it worse because I felt like barfing. They tend to mix cocobiotic with their fresh juices but most of the time it can’t mask the taste. They also have this drink called kangen water that’s not fermented and supposedly restores your ph levels.  They actually bathe their vegetables in kangen water because they are against bottled and tap water.  I am not sure about the kangen water but I am sure that Alchemy will go down as one of my favorite restaurants in Ubud!

Best way to start a day is with breakfast from the Alchemy yogurt bar!

Salad from the Alchemy salad bar.

This is the “to go” container if you get your salad for take out!

Spiralina yogurt and fruit from the breakfast yogurt bar

One of our favorite smoothies called “The Peppermint Kiss”….spinach, banana and peppermint

We go through a 5-gallon container a water almost every day… here’s Jones brining back the empty to Ketut’s house.

After a few weeks in Ubud, we’ve realized a whole new nutrition and taste cornucopia all centered on different water options, and tap water will just never be the same. For instance, did you know that the glass of water that is potentially sitting next to you as you read this post most likely is not balanced, which may wreak havoc with your alkaline levels within your body? You need Kangen water! At Alchemy, the family-favorite raw, vegan breakfast and lunch mecca located a short stroll from our villa, they sell it in beautiful, tall glass bottles. Like an Amex-double-secret-black-diamond-onyx-clear-card, just holding the bottle elicits knowing, accepting nods from the impossibly hip and cool “feathers and leathers” crowd. Indeed, you’re comforted in knowing that all vegetables and fruits are hand-washed in Kangen water before Alchemy will serve it to you on banana-leaf woven plates (also washed by said water). What is it? Well, supposedly it’s alkaline-balanced H₂O, where the positive and negative electrons have been balanced in harmonious rows, thus bringing peace, love and understanding between the various intestinal organs that keep your engine purring.

Kangen Water at Alchemy

Of course, sometimes you need your water to do more for you than just hydrate in an alkaline-balanced way. Enter coconut water, loaded with nutrients and fiber to sustain your next 2-hour yoga session. It is also purported to help cure  hangover, facilitate digestion, boost hydration and reduce blood pressure! Wescott’s prefers his daily drink of choice, served in chilled, raw coconuts, with the top hand-machete’d off. In case a natural coconut vessel proves elusive, however, there are several brands of organic, freshly bottled versions to be found throughout Ubud as well. For the true connoisseur who wants to take things to the next level, try Alchemy’s Cocobiotic Water, which infuses food culturing, or probiotics, into the mix of healthy goodness.

Wescott and his beloved fresh coconut water

At another organic, vegetarian restaurant called Five Elements, we had a couple of aquatic options to choose from. Under an architectural temple of bamboo, the waiter started us off with common pitcher water, but luckily it had been infused with apple, lemon and mint, so we could actually drink it. The menu featured other options such as Sparkling Rose Water and Young Coconut Water. To add to the celebration and art of water, the restrooms featured the coolest faucet, fashioned from a long bamboo pole dangling magically above a natural boulder with a polished sink carved from its top. Holding your hands under the bamboo caused a beam of ethereal light to illuminate your hands as pure water tumbled naturally from the long bamboo pipe, reminding you that you are indeed in Oz.

Cool sink at Five Elements

Like so many aspects of daily life and ritual here on Bali, art is infused in the simplest things, including water. Ancient irrigation channels move water everywhere in our village of Penestanan, the town of Ubud and the surrounding rice terraces, originally built over 1,000 years ago. The state of zen realized by the almost constant vision of bubbling, running water serves as an inspiration for health and sustenance, in which water is at the root for us humans, especially the health-crazed enlightened of Ubud. All of the choices, flavors and forms of what used to be plain old water are certainly fun, but also serve as a reminder for me of just how precious and savored water needs to be as humans not-so-slowly squander this life-giving resource.

At this local hangout, not only is the water filtered and UV rayed, the water is blessed by the staff with a Balinese offering each day!

Ever since Mood Food, we have all dove deeply into the healthy ways of eating. Organic, raw, vegan, vegetarian, fresh, slo, you name it. It has all suddenly piqued our interests and coincidentally, right in time for Bali…the epicenter of raw craziness.

So, with our new found curiosity and, not to mention, being in a place where it’s probably the most practiced, we decided that we had to get more knowledge on the subject at hand. We were then found eagerly signing up for a class on all things raw. And accompanied by friends from Mercer Island, Janet and David, we set out to learn what exactly is the deal with, not only a way of cooking, but a way of life.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE IN THE RAW?
To be raw, your food has had to have been cooked at 116 degrees fahrenheit or less. In other words, you don’t won’t to scorch the living enzymes inhabiting your food by heating it too high. And now that we’ve learned what it really means when someone says raw, we can get into the tools you need. The main appliances we used consisted of a blender and food processor, and though we didn’t need to use it during the class, there is the “oven” of raw cooking (a.k.a the dehydrator.) There wasn’t much needed other than a good level of patience. Not much time is devoted to chopping and slicing, but to soaking, dehydrating, and freezing. Some recipes you can just blend and eat right after, but for other meals you have to plan beforehand and in the long run I’d say the kitchen time is about the same as if you were regularly cooking. It was actually pretty surprising how amazingly easy this whole raw food making thing is. I expected it to be a little more challenging considering the fact you couldn’t cook anything. Though with that said, you have to know quite a bit about food and what would make for a good, healthy substitute with flavor.

WHAT WE THINK
We went home that day feeling a lot more educated. Albeit, I wouldn’t say we are ready to go full raw. We still love our meat (cooked) and other tasty grilled, marinated, baked, boiled, simmered, etc. foods. Yet, we’ve all expressed that we would love to incorporate some raw dishes into our weekly diet when we get back to the States because they’re obviously pretty good for you and can certainly be very tasty. Especially the desserts. I could go raw for desserts… maybe.

WHAT WE MADE
• Chocolate cake
• Pad thai
• Coconut macaroons
• Pumpkin milk & granola
• Sushi rolls

WHAT WAS THE FOOD LIKE?
Everything was incredible and by the end we were all filled to the brim. Because there wasn’t a need for so much prepping of the ingredients, we were seated around a long table watching our teacher blend the food and occasionally someone would go up to help slice a vanilla bean.  In the end, we all rolled our own raw sushi. It might’ve been boring otherwise if the teacher wasn’t such a, I would say, interesting guy.

WHAT WAS THE TEACHER LIKE?
On the course of the trip, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to do a cooking class in each country we have traveled to. All of them have been considerably different, each one with  a few things that seems to stand out and make it something to remember. From having a burner or wok all to ourselves, to being invited into a restaurant so we could cook with the owner personally, to taking a class where we were limited to only two or so words in means of communication, to going to the market in advance and eating worm cakes, to simply just cooking something super delicious. But nobody could’ve guessed what Bali’s stand out thing was. Or maybe they could’ve. The teacher and guide that would take us on our journey into raw cooking was named Jonny Freesh.  And yes, that is a chosen last name, or should I say that’s his stage name. At the end of the class,  he disclosed with us his true passion…rapping!  By serenading everyone a song on raw food we were stunned into silence; in awe of the raw… chef? Believe it or not, he’s said to be touring in the U.S. early 2015, well he hopes at least.

Jonny Freesh: rapper extraordinaire, raw chef, health guy, wears toe shoes. Seems about right.  Though whether or not we’ll see Jonny rapping on tour through Seattle, it was definitely a class I’ll remember for a long time to come. Here’s his latest rap video about durian!

Jonny doing a demonstration!

Otto rolling his raw sushi rolls.

This is how my rolls came out. We used chopped jicama to replace the rice!

This is a picture of our raw chocolate cake…it was REALLY good!

David, Janet and all of us with Jonny! When he becomes a famous rap star when can say we took a cooking class from him way back when….

Well, if you are thinking that then you’ll forgive me when I tell you about this place. If you’re from Seattle, then you might have experienced the powerful awe that this place carries with it. Now you’re probably thinking – wait this chain is in Seattle also?! What is this place Starbucks? And now you’re probably thinking – when the heck is this guy gonna get to the point and stop predicting what I’m thinking? Well then I’ll just shoot the name out….Din Tai Fung!

This might already ring a bell to you if you’re from Seattle or Bellevue; the dumpling place that has a 30-60 minute wait to get a table, even on week nights. If it doesn’t ring a bell then I’ll just give you a quick briefing….amazingly awesome, stupendous and to die for. That statement wasn’t just to get me more comments on my blog post, I can honestly say that I could live off Din Tai Fung for the rest of my life.  Din Tai Fung in China is just about as common as TGI Fridays is in the US, so there’s not any wait to get in.  At this point it might be a little ambiguous as to what Din Tai Fung actually is, so I’ll take you through your basic night at Din Tai Fung.

Your waiter brings you to your table and lays out some menus. You flip to the first page of the menu, and what you see will change your life and alter your future forever. The juicy pork dumpling. You go through the menu trying to find something worth taking space in your stomach other than the juicy pork dumpling, but you can’t. You order your drinks, juicy pork dumplings and something else to cover up the fact that you are only ordering juicy pork dumplings. You have a conversation with your friends, let’s say you are talking about politics. After you begin talking about politics, your tower of dumpling steamers arrives in a jiffy. You make your dumpling sauce with the proper proportions of soy sauce and vinegar on a small plate of fresh shredded ginger. You will clench the soft outer shell of the dumpling vigorously in between your chop sticks, trying very hard not to splatter the delicate drop of wonder onto the table along with your hopes and dreams. If you are an amateur than you will read the dumpling eating manual and place the dumpling onto your spoon and poke a hole in the side of your dumpling and watch the juiciness flow into the spoon, and then you will eat it. If you are an experienced  Din Tai Funger, you’ll know the poking and prodding will ruin the popping sensation that happens in your mouth when your teeth puncture the skin of the dumpling.  Next you will be amazed. You will start to think of what job you need to have to eat at Din Tai Fung every day. You will begin shoving the dumplings in your mouth as if they were popcorn. After you eat about 12 dumplings and  gulp down your drink, you start to fade into the I-really-wish-I-didn’t-eat-that-many-dumplings phase.  After you finish discussing your I-really-wish-I-didn’t-eat-that-many-dumplings phase you will start to head out and plan your return.

You will have learned a valuable lesson: Din Tai Fung is amazingly awesome, stupendous and to die for.

Wescott and I eating just one more!

The steamers of dumplings!

Mom likes to create a “sauce bath” for her dumplings

All of us posing with the Din Tai Fung mascot