Insta Love #14: Hallo Frühling!

Ich finde ja, Instagram ist (zumindest bei mir) eine Mischung aus echtem Leben (also abseits des "Bloglebens") und total gestellten Momenten, wo extra für ein Foto ein kleines Set zusammengebaut wird, damit es möglichst gut in die Gallery passt. Ich bin da genauso, weil ich ein Mensch bin, der großen Wert auf Ästhetik legt und ich Instagram als eine Art Miniblog betrachte, den es zu kuratieren gilt. Nichts desto trotz stecken hinter den meisten Fotos doch echte Stories (es sei denn, es ist ein Foto von drei Nagellacken und Rosen, da fällt nicht mal mir etwas lustiges dazu ein) und die möchte ich euch heute erzählen. 

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The Vienna Experience. Shanghai Tan

pic via Shanghai Tan

Here we go, another round of the Vienna Experience. Shanghai Tan is an Asian restaurant in Vienna´s 6th district in the Gumpendorferstrasse. I wanted to go there for a long time now, since I love Asian food and eat sushi around 2-3 times a week and only heard great stuff about the place.

I really loved the cozy, dark and mystic atmosphere - there are hundreds of lamps hanging down the ceilings that flood the interior with dimmed, red light. Shanghai Tan has two floors, the ground level with tables that are of normal height, and a basement with lots of small lounges and lower teatables. This might not be the most comfortable position to eat in, especially for taller people, but it certainly is the cooler way to have your dinner. You can even get rid of your shoes and sit cross-legged on the benches.

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The Vienna Experience. Freiraum

It´s been a while since I wrote the last post about my "Vienna Experience" but last week I decided to make another attempt and brought my camera to "Freiraum", where I met up with my friends. I think blogs are a great resource when it comes to finding new restaurants and I´m always looking on the blogs from Vienna for tips on where to go. So, about Freiraum. 

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Reversed blogging - readers question!

pic via

I already mentioned before that I am not the best cook out there. Before I moved to Vienna, I always had my boyfriend, our flat mate (boys really are great cooks sometimes!) or of course my Mom or Dad cook for me (even my little brother was cooking for me - fried eggs on the weekends, btw he is 11 years younger than me). I know the basics of cooking but I feel that I always make the same meals and have no idea of what I could make for myself. The first few months of living alone, I tried to come up with the most creative dishes and recipes, but my ideas slowly decreased and now I´m at a point where I only cook and buy groceries from day to day again, without any planning and most of the times my dishes are instant meals (in form of asian noodles) or sushi to take away, to be honest.

Now, I think that a lot of you out there are more creative and talented when it comes to cooking and I want to know: what are your favorite, everyday recipes for more or less healthy dishes? Links to recipes would also help because I don´t even know what I have to google for...

(For one person or at most two persons, I never cook for anyone else than myself or Mr. Boyfriend)

Thanks for the input!

The perfect baked apple

After a long time, here comes another recipe - and it´super easy and super yummy!

I already tried this baked apple recipe before on my boyfriend and we both loved it, so I decided that it would make for a perfect dish on our pre-x-mas celebration with my friends.

Here is what you'll need:

- 75 g sugar

- 50 g powdered nuts

- 75 g butter

- big apples

- cinnamon, powdered and sticks

Melt the butter in a pan.

Peel the apples.

Mix sugar, nuts and cinnamon.

Cover the apples with butter.

Twist in the spicery until apples are covered all over with the mixture.

Bake apples in the oven at 180 - 200 °C for about 45-55 minutes.

Serve with vanilla or caramel icecream.

Weekend Plans

After commuting between Vienna and Salzburg almost every weekend since I live here, I´m very excited to spend the next two days in town. Me and my babe have lots of fun things planned, including a dinner at famous "Kim kocht" (we´ve been on the waitlist for 4 months until we got this table), 

a party at Kattus champagne producer, a shopping spree at the designer outlet in Parndorf and some drinks/dinner with our closest friends at Figls. Since Vicky is not only my friend but my bad conscious as well and has the self discipline of a soldier when it comes to doing sports (see her post about running outdoors in winter here), I´m planning to get some thermo sportswear at the Nike or Adidas outlet and maybe we´ll visit Michael Kors and Diesel as well :) What are your plans for this weekend? Looking forward to something as well?

Winter im MQ.

I met up with Vicky yesterday for some Punsch and chitchat at the wintermarket at Museums Quarter in Vienna, "Winter im MQ". I love the icepavillions that they have built up and the interior is lined with sheep skin - so cozy to sit there with a hot punsch! Every café has it´s own pavillion and serves pure deliciousness in form of punsch, hot wine and other goodies. There is also a curling track and some light installations as well as the "Winter Sounds" with live DJ´s for entertainment. I have to admit that the overall feeling was not very winterly because it is just too warm and there is no snow at all - but when we were sitting inside the pavillion, I felt like somewhere in the middle of iceland. If you are in Vienna before Christmas, you should definitely visit Winter im MQ!

staying in barcelona: where to eat, where to sleep

this will be the last post about our short city trip to barcelona. with millions of different options of where to eat the best tapas and fish or which hotel would be the best, i found it very useful to get some guidance of people who had already been to barcelona or were living/working there. now it´s my turn to share the best restaurants and hotel recommendations with you guys, just in case you´ll need some tips for your next city trip.

SLEEPING

we stayed at the k+k hotel picasso in the born area next to the barri gótic of barcelona.

the area is simply amazing, lots of cute little shops, tapas bars and cafés and just 10 minutes by foot to the "las ramblas" and to the harbour. the hotel itself is brand new, funny thing is that the facade looks very antique - but it´s not. i loved the rooftop!!! terrace (amazing view over barcelona) with the pool and the huuuuge buffet breakfast. another cool thing is that the bathrooms were integrated into the living space of the rooms with frosted glass. totally worth staying there.

K+K Hotel Picasso

Passeig de Picasso, 26-30

08003 Barcelona

SEAFOOD AND PAELLA

just 200 meters away from the hotel you find "la gambeta". the service is super fast, the ambience of the restaurant is very chic and cozy and the food is amazing. if you go there, you have to try the paella - it´s sooo delicious and typical for spain! 

Restaurante La Gambeta

Carrer de la Fusina

 3  08003 Barcelona

GETTING HOME DRINKS

another bar that´s located right behind the hotel: incógnito bar. shabby chic would be the right definition for this bar, perfect to just sip on delicious mojitos and letting the long days of sightseeing ease down.

Incógnito Bar

Carrer de la Fusina 6

08003 Barcelona

STEAKS

since we went to barcelona for my aunt´s 50th birthday, we were looking for a special location to celebrate her birthday in style. morelia restaurant was a recommendation by the resident manager of our hotel and it was a total hit! the restaurant offers a fusion of spanish/argentinian food and wonderful steaks.

we also decided to take a little bit of everything for starters and really everything that i tasted was phenomenal. they also serve some kind of baked cheese with herbs which was one of the best things i ever tried in my hole life. 

Morelia Restaurant and Cocktail Bar

Pl. Comercial, 7

08003 Barcelona

TAPAS

guys, i am so sorry but i don´t know anymore where this amazing tapas bar was - but it doesn´t really matter because in the area of el born you find thousands of amazing places to have tapas and really good spanish wine! but i will try to find out the name of the place and amend this blogpost once i have it!

recipe: feta with figs

today i want to share one of my alltime favorite recipes with you my dearest of all readers!

my auntie showed my another variation of this super easy meal during our last barbecue session and i´m hooked! here is what you´ll need for this delicious dish:

1. some feta cheese 

2. figs

3. pine nuts

4. olive oil

5. aluminium foil

should be real fun to cook a meal with that little ingredients, right?

take one piece of feta cheese, put it on top of the foil. cut the figs and spread them over the cheese.

wrap the package, take it into the stove for about 25-30 minutes at 180°C.

in the meantime, open a glass of wine and decorate your plate nicely because there is not much else to do.

when you feel like your cheese is almost ready, start roasting the pine nuts until they have a golden color. but be careful, if you roast them too long they´ll become bitter and dry - i left mine in the pan just a little too long (should have stopped at the middle picture).

if you used too much oil for the roasting process (like me), that´s no problem - dump the nuts on a bit of kitchen roll, this will soak up the spare oil.

take the cheese out of the stove, open the foil package, spread the nuts over everything and tadadadaaaa - easy, fun, creative and delicious dish is finished! you can try the same thing in many combinations like peppers and onions, olives and tomatoes...the list goes on - whatever you can think of!

start wrapping today!

the vienna experience. Kurt Frozen Yoghurt

today i want to continue with my posting series about cool locations in vienna. i think my readers who are from vienna are laughing everytime they see another "hotspot" that i present on my blog because most of these restaurants/bars are very well known around here - but for me, even after 3 months living here, more or less every single spot that i discover is new and exciting. what i love about this city is that everything seems so cool here, so different from what i was used to (i come from a small town originally) and the gastronomy scene has figured out very creative ways to stand out from the millions of bars, restaurants and fusion stores.

so far, so good.

KURT FROZEN YOGURT

as for kurt frozen yogurt - i love the concept of having something super super yummy but at the same time not too unhealthy, that´s if you make the choice to have some healthy toppings and not brownies and caramel sauce like me :) 

you can find kurt at three locations in vienna, at the schultergasse, krugerstrasse and ferstelpassage (that´s where i went).

i recommend taking a small portion, i had the medium one and it was the size of my normal dinners, especially with the sauce and brownie topping. you can choose from a wide range of toppings and pair them however you like. 

will definitely be a returning - this time more cosmopolitan and cool because i already know the place :)

this was our choice:

the vienna experience. mayerei im türkenschanzpark

as i already told you in the last post, i met up with my friend judith a while ago and we decided to go to a nice little bistro in the middle of the türkenschanzpark in the 18th district of vienna.

the restaurant is called "mayerei im türkenschanzpark" and it´s surrounded by flowers, palms and people who stroll through the park, play games and do sports. 

i love that they offer a wide range of juices that are being purchased from a local bio-farmer.

also, you can choose from a huge range of small dishes - we decided to mix two salads together and the outcome was pretty good - just look at the pics below.

so if you wanna grab a quick snack and combine it with a walk, the mayerei is the place to go.

the vienna experience. Tel Aviv.

another edition of the "vienna experience". bit by bit, my friends start to introduce me to the real hotspots of vienna and i love it! tel aviv beach is a pretty crowded place because people seem to really like it there, for obvious reasons. we got there around 7PM and already had to wait a while for a table, although the outdoor area is pretty big and offers a lot of seating possibilites. 

so far, one of the best places i´ve been to!

how to - the easy steak.

my babe is a real men´s man and very often craves a good portion of meat for dinner. 

i wanna show you a very easy, not too unhealthy, yummy and fast way of satisfiying your man´s needs.

TODAY I PRESENT TO YOU: THE EASY STEAK

simple as that - go to the supermarket, get some help of the ladies or gentlemen there who will help you pick out the best part of meat, take all vegetables that you have/want and follow those simple steps: