The Dalmation part of Croatia rely heavily on tourism, so it was a challenge! Even though we ate in the back alleys and low key restaurants sometimes, we were ripped to shreds with the poor quality and badly made food. Despite eating out 3 times a day, we only found a handful of wonderful places recommended to us by locals as well as the ones we gambled on. It gave us such inspiration and we bought it back to the supper club over three nights.

Here is the menu we devised:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“…and in the corner, there was {so and so}, they came from Texas, and loved the risotto; she had a friend she called her lover and in the garden, they made whoppee!”

HOW NOT TO SURVIVE THE HOLIDAY BLUES

After queuing for an hour behind a woman talking about how she’s worried her bunions might actually burst, the baggy-eyed passport man looked up at me with grizzly disdain, like I’d just stabbed his mum or beat up his dog then spat on it…as the insistent tapping rain pillocked spitefully onto the airport windows and smeared down into puddles of grubby protest on the grey concrete. I can smell it, wet paving.

We waited like mugs for another hour while the baggage blokes manhandled our precious things at their leisure, and grimacing like a smacked turtle, I started to wonder whether I should just buy another ticket and get the by-jiggedy out of this dump and zoom off to any old miles-away.

There’s nothing much more depressing than arriving at Gatwick on a rainy Monday morning. Nothing. I would rather be mugged, have my lips cut off and then made to do a karaoke version of ‘Anyone Can Fall In Love’, naked, than have to walk into the ordeal of Gatwick’s unavoidable, forced traipse through Duty Free and then past the crowd of baying taxi drivers salivating over imminent extortion as they hold up the name cards of their victims.

After going through the wanton savagery of a dreary Monday tube journey – in which someone broke the Jubilee Line, I called two people ‘prat’ and one person ‘Dave’ (it was his name) – I eventually arrived at my chilly, empty, paused flat: the stench of old cold air, undisturbed breakfast stuff caked in concreted yoke strewn from the morning of departure, bed unmade and an electricity bill stalking the hallway like an obstinate sex pest.

This, my friends, is what they call the holiday blues. It mings.

I jumped on the computer – not literally, that would invalidate the warranty – and got on onthebeach.co.uk…scoured short breaks, long breaks, any breaks, flights and deals. But my bank account is sulking. Ibiza raped it. And left it for dead.

So…in desperation, I decided to try and bring a bit of holiday back into the flat. I did this through a number of steps:

* Spanish music: downloaded. A brief salsa jig? Oh, go on then.
* Receive call from police: neighbours have seen mysterious shadows that look like a gangly cod suffering an epileptic fit that lacks any sort of rhythm. Tell police I’m OK.
* Make a jug of of homemade sangria.
* Get twatted on it.
* Receive another call from police: Neighbours have seen mysterious shadows of a hopeless staggering drunk paired with the muffled sobs of ‘Why, why, why?” Tell offisher I’m nearly OK.
* Make an attempt at Andalucian Gazpacho. Accidentally try to blend own hand.
* Relax with drink and soup, as the clouds relieve themselves all over my washing like a rude domination sex film.
* Embark on self-indulgent bout of flacid self pity.

This is why we need to go on holidays (and not EVER come back from them).

What’s that you say? Sounds like I need another break? That I shouldn’t have actually come back? Maybe you’re right…

Perhaps you could VOTE FOR ME!!! …and get me the hell out of the country again before I spend any more time in my living room mugging to a home video camera on my own. It’s like a form of self-harm. It’s ridiculous, and it must stop.

Thank you Qype. Thank you On the Beach. Thank you Kodak. Thank you Big Dave.

It’s been four long weeks since we’ve come back from our amazing little break to Egypt and I’m onto the last phase of Qype’s Word on the Beach competition (have you voted for me?!). We’re supposed to talk about what we brought back from the trip and aside from a couple of gallons of the Red Sea (I blame my snorkel. It had holes in it) I didn’t really bring anything else back. But like, you can vote for me anywayz!

Although, having said that, this portion of the competition is called “return to relaxation”, appropriate given that on my last steamy evening in Egypt, I booked myself in for a massage and honey, I think it was more about what I didn’t bring back because that masseuse of mine? She rubbed my troubles away…

“… I arrive promptly for my 5pm slot and am ready to be playdoughed into oblivion. My masseuse is introduced to me. She’s about four feet tall and two centimeters wide, I shit you not, and I’m wondering if I’m even going to feel a purr. I’m not allowed a camera in the spa, mainly because women of all shapes and sizes and ages are wandering around topless and I’d say all (except for the orange-tanned fake-breasted bottle-blonde stripper girl) would object violently to my taking of photographs.

I’m led into a room which I’m guessing to be about 8 x 12 feet (like LiLo’s cell!) and it’s pitch black save for the strip of light creeping in under the door. Why? I don’t know. Maybe to eliminate the unnecessary sense of sight so that I can better indulge in the senses of touch and smell and sound.

I lay on the table face down, peeping through the “face hole” (really, is there a more elegant way to put this?) and realise that for the first time ever, I won’t spend the duration of the massage analysing the paint job on the legs of the massage table. Music comes on and I start to relax immediately, the tune a hypnotic opera number reminiscent of the Gregorian chant meets Fragma, arguably the best (or at least my favourite) electro-pop girl group of the 90′s.

So it turns out the tiny four foot tall masseuse has hands the strength of Thor. She kneads powerfully and poetically up and down the full length of my body back and front and for the first time in my life, I receive a stomach massage. Note that me rubbing my belly after a hefty meal does not constitute a massage. At first, I’m not 100% sure if I like the stomach massage, the deep kneading feeling much like a rearrangement of my innards. But somewhere between wondering if my lunch would reappear and if perhaps she’d stimulate some bowel movement (sorry guys!) I start to drift off into a dream where I’m in a magical desert land the scent of musky rose and there’s a gorgeous Egyptian Prince who’s ru-…

I snap out of the luscious dream as my little masseuse works her way up to my face – my face! another first – and moves her powerful little fingers in perfect circular motions, stimulating my neglected nerves and damn it feels good.

After an hour of blind pampering, I emerge from the spa into the scorching 6pm heat and meander somehow back to my room. I plop myself onto the bed and just lie. And think. And breathe. And live. Ok, now I’m ready to go home…”

Ok so I was going to just write that little rendition of my massage above and pretty much submit that as my final piece but then you would have been left wondering why the heck is there a photo of some courgette looking dish right up the top of this post?

Well. Things are not always as random as they may appear.

Really, as if I’d let a post slip by sans food. Y’all know me better than that. I did honestly think I was coming back from Egypt empty handed but spending two hours rummaging around the one shop in Sharm eh Sheikh Airport with my stray Egyptian pounds proved fruitful. I managed to pick up the cheapest (circa £2.50), nastiest Egyptian cookbook available…

… and voilà! Introducing my Egyptian courgette and chick pea salad, and a tahini hummus (just for good measure), which I served with a lightly seared tuna steak.

If all that made you hungry, then pop over to thecattylife and lift the recipes!

ps. the cookbook isn’t actually all that bad. It’s thin and flimsy and probably has food in it that Pharoahs would have never heard of, but there are some interesting recipes like honey and cardamom ice cream which I can’t wait to try!

 
Croatia By Fernandez & Leluu from Uyen Luu on Vimeo.

In Hvar Town, there are people – tourists everywhere – there for the good life, there for the glory of summer and of the sun melting into their faces, tanning their skin. Summer… the word sizzles into our imagination like a pleasure tool; like The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air lazing on the deck of some Knight Rider boat with a cocktail in his hand around dancing girls in bikinis to “My Name Is Rio…” – perhaps not – maybe “…Let Me See That Thong… Thong Thong Thong Thong!”

We love summer. The sun undoubtedly brings a smile to all our faces. In Hvar, (mainly) European – Italian tourists flock together to celebrate the parade of summer – the boats belonging to some of the richest people in the world having no choice but to be standing ostentatiously on the crowed harbor gianting even the mountains that cradles the harbour in. It’s a fantastic sight of awe and astonishment by all who see it come into dock like it’s a prize from outer space.

It took a while to get the best deal for a scooter – there are stands everywhere exposed to the blazing heat soaked up by the stone and cobble pavements of Hvar Town. But when we did, we sped off around Hvar Island – trying to seek out beautiful and secretive places.

The air of Hvar is the most unique and beautiful you could ever be lucky enough to breathe in. The lavender that grows wildly there covers the rocks and grows like fresh grass everywhere leaving the fragrance lingering in mid air, hovering like a blanket of invisible scented mist, dancing like a whisper of perfume you crave to inhale…in…

Along the way, we would see some of the most breath taking landscapes, roads, mountains and seascapes existing whether someone is there or not. There are abandoned houses – solitaire in the middle of nowhere in between valleys and on top of mountains and nearby roadsides. The skeleton of stone walls bare evidence to the romantic thoughts and stories of the past; of love, lost and found; of ghosts who once lived or still live within the hollow dark windows, among the lavender, under the moon, next to the sea. The sound of wind and crashing waves howling and creasing… chilling your spine with its deafening echo of silence.

Laying bare to the sun, on a beach, next to the crystal clear blue water is one of the most heavenly grand prize after a year’s hard work in concrete, wet, cold London. We went to Dabovica and Zavala. In Part One of this post, we mentioned eating the best grilled seabass in Dabovica  – the stony beach is one beauty. If we could spend at least 7 days here, our lives would be just that much richer.

The owner of the beach café, a granddad still prime and youthful has a basic shell of a house, some electricity to maintain his ingredients and his grandson whom he hired for the summer to help him wait his customers. He brews his own wine and prossek – which is like a plum wine/ digestive for dessert. We sit under his cool roof shack for hours ordering as we finish; reading our novels and occasionally bellowing to each other about the stories we are in.

Zavala is farther away and probably took an hour to get there on our scooter who just had enough power to push us less than 45 degrees uphill. What was the most exciting thing about getting there was not that we had just witnessed a bush fire along the way, but going through a one lane tunnel (where scooters are not allowed – but it was the only way to get there) that’s probably about 3 metres high, with no lighting inside.

The whole journey took about six minutes at about 20 miles per hour but we went into complete darkness, the round light behind us disappeared and we could only see as far as the headlights reached; the sound of the engine noise bounced around the stone walls like hurricane of  bullets to our ears and small little stones had fallen along the concrete road. But the chill that came bore tightly on our skin. You can feel the goose pimples on your arm like stiff little nipples. We were in the middle of a mountain and there was no escaping – it was like driving through to the core of the earth, deeper and deeper, colder and colder – the raw cold of the mountain, the inside of the earth – a place never seen the light of day had a cold that penetrated straight to the bone.

The light at the end of the tunnel was certainly a welcoming sight and a true metaphor for such a thrilling experience. The beach at Zavala is like a spice that brings flavour to the whole dish. Let me please spend a month there and I will go away and come back every summer for the rest of my life.

It was such a pity we couldn’t stay there for weeks and weeks. There are small resorts/ private self catering apartments along the beach that seem very ‘untouristy’, local and ever charming.

How funny are we all when we are at the beach – forever, fussing about our appearances and image on a daily basis – but go to the beach – all is let loose. We become so primal and unprovoked by society just on a sunny day, laying on a towel, dipping in the sea, reading a fabulous book. Its no wonder so many of us loves it so much.

We hung out there – all primal, when we saw an octopus washed to shore. Octopus is what this part of Croatia eats regularly – it’s on every menu and each restaurant that we went to served octopus differently than the next. But we all felt so sorry for this little creature that looked so terrified, an Italian man swam it back to the sea.

The other typical Dalmatian dish is black risotto or seafood risotto which is delish!

In Hvar town, we saw a display of a tuna fish – just caught that morning; it lay on a metal table, 2 metres long, like on public autopsy. It was a clever marketing tool from a competitive restaurateur. Neither of us had ever seen a tuna fish, as a whole before and it was so beautiful. The grand size of it, the shinny surface of its skin and still the glowing, sparkley eyes laid there dead to the world bought it home to us about how precious all life is. If we are going to eat tuna or any animal/ fish of this size, we must not waste it – we must make the best of it and we have to be more conscious about where it all comes from, how sustainable it is and how us eating it would effect the ecosystems it lives in.

There are certainly not plenty of fish in the sea any more.

In Stari Grad, we found the charming Croatia that was so lacking in Hvar Town. It was like stepping into an old Italian movie, where there are plenty of nooks and crannies for the little girls to play hide and seek in and the boys are flying their kites along the harbour. The restaurant owners are sitting outside on their wonderfully adorable and delightful eateries – Eremitaz & Antika – of which Jones from the blog ‘I Couldn’t Possibly Eat A Whole One’ has recommended.

We could only go to one so we chose ‘Antika’ which was really wonderful. We sat on the balcony under the stars, drinking a fine bottle of Croatian red wine, eating octopus salad, pate, and mussels. Simon’s main of monk fish was really delicious but I ordered ‘Steak – Slap Slap’ thinking it was steak, slap, slap on the pan but it tasted like a very strange meat, like camel or donkey!? We asked the waiter but he was not too pleased and said he bought it from the butcher that morning, asking for beefsteak – but then he also said, they all look the same, raw!

O well, my steak experience in Croatia was somehow very unlucky. Simon ordered one at Split Airport of all places and it was ruddy wonderful!! Lucky bastard!!

It was great to meet the local Artist, Goran Tadic who was telling us about his life as an artist, moving back to Stari Grad and being a bit obscure. He collects found objects such as stones and pebbles, fallen twigs, fish bones and horns off dead animals and re creates imaginary creatures that look like that are prehistoric or even futuristic.

We invited him to stay with us in London should he wish to exhibit and hoping eagerly that this will one day happen.

One night – we took ‘the scenic route’ (There are only 2 roads on Hvar Island) in hope to find some obscure restaurant. We rode for so long in the cold and found nothing so we stopped at the first one – and yes – we had icicles hanging off our noses, but thankfully, there was not a poll nearby for Simon to lick.

The people of this island depend on the tourist season to keep afloat for the entire year. Nothing really happens there 9 months of the year – except the lavender keeps growing.

We found out that no matter where you go on Hvar, all the prices of food is more or less the same. One fancy restaurant’s price may not be much different from one that is not so fancy and still stuck in the 70s – just like our hotel – one of many that boomed when tourism really started for Croatia back then still remain, untouched and un-refurbished since.

Our hotel in Hvar and Korcula were certainly retro. It felt exactly like we were our parents, with the exception of digital equipment. The food they served there was also from the 70s – it was all strange but at the same time delightful to be a grown up in an era when we were children and couldn’t really “be” in it at the time.

On the last day, as we are waiting for planes, trains, ferries, buses and automobiles – we ate at one of the best restaurants in Croatia– ‘Dalmatino’ in Hvar – the waiter there – called Mike, has a second family, this family owns this great restaurant and Mike sells the food to his customers in perfect English like its his own business. He must be about 25 years old or even younger, he flirts with the group of Spanish babes as well as informing all his diners where the fish is from, how fresh it is, how they cook it to which wine to have with anything ordered. A perfect waiter – I wanted to take him back to London with us for the supper club so that he can explain about our efforts.

The food here is wonderful! For a start, we were given some chocolate what looked like bits of bark, a lovely aperitif, and then we had fish soup and octopus salad and granny’s cake. Yum! The best find! We will definitely come to this town again just to eat here – where you will find our names signed – ‘Fernandez & Leluu was here 7/2010’ you can leave messages on their wall.

We left Croatia –‘traveled’ in 7 days, we only had a little 2 days of resting on the beach – my favourite part as well as hiring a boat and touring the islands of Korcula, which were beautiful! And eating on Stupe Island– the wonderful Korcula Macaroni with grated courgettes and pancetta.

It is worthwhile working hard, just so that you can discover these wonderful countries with islands and beautiful beaches and ghosts that mesmerize and alter every way that you see, hear, smell and touch.

We had won this trip, thanks to Qype – Word On The Beach and www.onthebeach.co.uk but the competition doesn’t just end there. One of the three winners gets the grand prize to win another holiday.

It doesn’t look good on the voting front on our end. There is no way we can get as many votes as the others but we really appreciate every vote we already have and all the support that we have received. 

You can still vote though, here – you never know!
: )

If by some lucky star, we get to win – we will use that opportunity to travel to countries that we have never been to, such as Nepal, Japan, Bali and even Lebanon to discover its food, its people, some secrets and how best to live and eat sustainably and of course, to go to the beach!

After weeks of flitting daydreams about my impending sun-drenched malarkeys in foreign climes…finally…it’s here.

I’m going on a big stoopid plane to Ibiza, and leaving it all behind for a few days. Everything. Even much of myself, because on holiday, nobody knows who you are.

A little beer to start us off on our journey? Don’t mind if I do, Big Dave…

The sixth San Miguel was probably a mistake. The seventh a travesty. The eight may or may not have happened; I don’t know. I was hanging like a reluctant paraglider. Drunk, sorrowful eyes, all squinty and gone off, like a couple of expired gooseberries in a bloodshot jus. We’d got ourselves just a little bit overexcited.

After I finished serenading the air stewardess with the theme tune to Home and Away – as Big Dave pretended to play bongos on the heads of two bald blokes in the seats in front – I drifted off into an airborne stupor of dehydrated dreams and a stiff neck. But isn’t this what English holidaymakers are supposed to do when they climb aboard the EasyJest EZ153 to Ibiza?

The problem is that I don’t feel like an archetypal English holidaymaker: I don’t want bars that show Only Fools and Horses while I chuck a full English Breakfast as much down my string singlet as down my throat. So, my challenge was to find an Ibiza that cut across the stereotypes and carved out a different story. That’s why we chose to avoid the hullabaloo of the big booming major resorts on the island – and let’s face it, most of us know what’s there anyway – and head for a hotel in a quieter suburb on the edge of old Ibiza Town…

The Hotel

Lido Apartmentos (click for Qype review) by night looks like the entrance to a Soviet hospital block, amid the relatively desolate, restaurant-dominated chill-out zone of Figueretas on the southeast edge of Ibiza – a calm, if not tired and lumbering respite from the chavesty that is San Antonio et al.

We were greeted by a sweaty, defeated-looking receptionist – a bloke with a face baked into fault line cracks of public service despair. Some of the Spanish in this resort aren’t so fond of the English. This one wasn’t so fond of me. ‘Spencer Austin?’ he asked with suspicion, as though I was the only one to check-in since the fall of the wall. At that moment, the sound of a packet of Haribo being dropped down to the service bin of the lonely vending machine echoed around a dark, characterless reception – and at exactly that point my spirit plundered below expectation. ‘This looks a right S***hole’, I thought.

But despite the corridors looking like a prison hulk ship, with rows and rows of identical doors (each of which doubtlessly harboring similar stories within – of alcoholic ruin and chemical mash-up bound in a fog of fart), the self-catering apartment we discovered was surprisingly airy, bright and comfortable. If you particularly enjoy the 1990s style of pastel-shaded zig-zag print on your furniture and watercolour paintings of Victorian ladies perpetually either getting on or off a boat, then this is the number for you. With a balcony big enough for table and chairs and a small, practical kitchen with a fridge and freezer section, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t while away the late afternoon with a home made vodka- limon while pointing out German tourists in the twilight below donning hilariously tight Speedo swimming trunks regardless of the prowess or paltry state of their package.

The pool is a typical affair, with balconies looming over it, strewn with beach towels emblazoned with hilarious comic motifs (such as ‘Official Female Body Inspector’) and containing spaced-out voyeurs using their ledge to edge themselves with a paranoid grimace back into the real world after another epic night on the Ibizan tiles.

And it’s these very disco monsters that you’ll need to beware of at hotels around here. All is well until around 5am; when the clubbers, off their noodle on ecstasy pipes, coke tablets and acid cakes, return to continue their nocturnal knockings. They make noise. And not just doors shutting and exuberant, flirty goodnights… I’m talking guttural, gurning chatter of the volume and intensity I’d only ever imagined possible at a Women’s Institute sherry tasting event.

Overall, Lido is a perfectly fine, typical Ibiza hotel. No cockroaches, nothing stolen and clean enough to eat off. Just expect to be awake early (or late, depending on your orientation).

DAY 2: ON THE BEACHES

Fuguretas – The Quiet Beach

With its broad pavements and shiny restaurants adorned with signs sponsored by Coca Cola, there’s nothing rustic or especially Spanish about Figueretas (click here for Qype review). But there’s good food to be had…Andalucian Gazpacho (at ‘ALL Restaurant’ on the beach front) is my pick of the bunch, with it’s fresh twang of the ripest tomatoes packed with a vitamin left hook…although Big Dave assured me the grilled fish is as close to Omega 3 heaven as you can get without burgling a Holland and Barrett warehouse.

As hi-octane it gets is a lazy-assed, flouncey volleyball game played by people who are quite possible still asleep, which makes the beach a good chill out option for getting away from the parched bustle of Ibiza town and notching up some decent, undisturbed flopping time in the powdery sand. Although for some, ‘flopping time’ is a bit too literal for comfort…

3.08pm. I’m sitting on the beach, minding everyone’s business, engaged in a slumbering bout of people watching – when something catches the corner of my eye. Please don’t do it. Please don’t do it. Please. Don’t. Do. It. Oh blimey, oh for the love of sweet baby…oh no, oh cripes, she’s done it. The lady must be in her seventies. It’s a sight that could be equated to being jabbed in the eyeballs with grissini. When she un-pops the fastener on that bra, out tumble two disparately proportioned piles of wrinkled leathery bosom matter; like a couple of those slinky things that go down the stairs, but made of elderly flesh – unraveling in rice puddingy lumps, down towards her knees.

On Figueretas beach, there are nudes. Antique nudes.

I’m sure for them and their over-burdened underwear, it’s delightfully liberating – to feel the wind aerating the innards and outards of their nethers – but for me it’s perturbing enough to put me off my ice cream. What you don’t want on a beach holiday is to be worried that your Solero is about to reappear all over the place. Poor Big Dave had to go up to the room to have a lay down, it affected him so badly. He said it’s his ‘Nam. (Or did he say it’s his Nan?)

If you can overt your eyes from Leather World, and think of anything but England, you’ll be just fine, squinting a relaxed eye on that yacht over there, or watching the gentle waves claw at the beach’s edge with a hissy drawl as gulls swoop and swoon in friendly gusts in a fresh blue backdrop of glorious summer sky. Breathe deeply, this is the life…

Sa Caleta – The Secret Beach

Determined to change the scenery from holidaymakersville to natural born Ibiza, we hired a car and got away, to somewhere, anywhere, much more secluded.

With Big Dave unstoppable at the wheel of the hire car, we wound our way up the dusty hills, to peak at views across the island that make you feel like you’re the first to ever find this spot. From atop, in the shimmering distance, a millionaire’s boat twinkles in the bay of a special looking cove…

Sa Caleta beach (click for Qype review) is different to the main Ibiza beaches, who’s stretch is blotted by white plastic loungers, perfectly placed in regimented rows for the sun-worshipping battalions; systematically, cynically turning young skin into baked biltong and converting otherwise healthy moles into putrid cancer lumps. No wonder Judith Charmers had a face like an ironed Peperami, if all she did for years was cover herself in cooking fat and drape across loungers all over the world.

No no no, Sa Caleta’s different to that. Just a short drive from Playa d’en Bossa’s bedlam and at the end of a windy, dusty track through hilly Ibizan scrub where cacti stand furious, crickets conspire to cacophony and lizards slink thirstily, you’ll find a rugged basin of relative seclusion; a divot melon-balled out of the crumbling red cliffs to form an idyllic coved beach that thankfully, the Burberry- clad brigade have thus far failed to locate and turn into a topless tequila party with baggy white-flesh and Celine Dion karaoke travesties…nope, not a single teenager from Southend with a mouth stained blue from WKD in sight.

Here, entire generations of Spanish families camp out for the day, in blessed relief of the incessant San Antonio San Miguel-athon. It’s a dusty, rocky oasis, a hiding place with slithers of beach to cozily lounge in; a restaurant to order fish from and the gentle lapping of shallow waves to lull into the rhythm of.
For as long as Nando’s and Burger King keep away, Sa Caleto will remain our little secret. So shhhh, don’t tell Thomsons…

Sunset at the beach

Me and Big Dave decided ‘doing a sunset’ was a must. It just seems to be the thing to do here – watch day turn to night and celebrate it. But we didn’t want to hit an over-trodden cliché like Café Del Mar, where sophisticated clubbers dressed in white linen applaud with hippy pretence as the sun hoists over the horizon. Leave it out. Not my cup of tea. I can’t imagine clapping a sunset as it sinks below the dog track sign in Walthamstow, and I’m not about to start doing it here now.

So, we drove across to the West End of the island – the side which geography dictates that sunsets like. To keep away from San Antonio’s endless happy hours and sports bars, we found ourselves hobbling across rocks to reach an outside shack in the distance, just as the sun started showing signs of deflating for the night.

Kumharas Bar (click for Qype Review) is what I imagine when I hear one of those Ibiza Chill Out albums. Day beds, embarrassingly good looking waiting staff and a bamboo hut style bar waiting to throw Corona down our necks. We duly settled down to a DJ caressing tunes as the ensuing end of day carved him into an angelic silhouette glow in front of the horizon’s bruising. We sat in relative silence as that orangey blob hazed its way behind him through lazy cloud wisps, until the rocks out at sea blocked all the fairy light twinkles on the ocean’s ruffles, and foretold a warm dusk.

As we walked away, two Coronas to the wind, one of the waitresses gave me a tube of lip balm. I don’t know why.

NEXT TIME: VIDEO BLOG #2 + AFTER DARK REVELATIONS.

We had the most amazing time – firstly because we didn’t expect to suddenly take off on holidays – I mean – that’s something what would make you really really happy! How lucky are we?!

We flew to Split in Croatia and spend a day and a night there. Not enough to learn any secrets of the place but then we took the ferry to Hvar – the Monte Carlo of Croatia – where there were boats the size of our street plus all the houses in it. Bling! Bling! Parties were everywhere!

In Hvar Island we hired a scooter and went around the island and found the most amazing beaches – all stone with pure clean turquoise crystal clear waters. It was all such a heavenly sight. We found a one of the best meals ever on a beach called Dabovica – it’s a steep climb rocky trip down (and even a harder way up) but well worth it – the beach is beautiful and they did the best grilled seabass we have had in a long time – so fresh – so simple and basic – the way fish should be.

In Korcula – we hired a boat and ate at an island called Stupe– that’s the size of about 20 metres long – there we discovered hand made macaroni and then traced the woman who makes these Korcula Macaronis back in town to ask her how we can make these great tubes of pasta by hand which she and a handful of other women in this town does.

We ate in the middle of nowhere in a car parts yard! Once we found the good places where the locals eat, the food was amazing!

Back in Hvar town, – we had the greatest octopus carpaccio in a place called ‘Dalmatino’ – it was totally inspired and we will reveal this at the supper club!

In Stari Grad, we met an amazing artist whom we talked to about his sculptures of creatures he invented with found objects from nature. Goran Tadic

We ate so much but we also had a hard time looking for non – tourist traps – as you do. In the end we found a few treasures though and some great inspiration. We will be doing a Croatian/ Mediterranean event very soon to show what we have discovered.

We will be posting videos once edited and tips from our journey.
In the meantime, we would really need to get your help to vote us through to the finals. We already won a holiday so we are ever so pleased – thank you Qype and www.onthebeach.co.uk. However, there is another stage to win a £2000 trip and we need your votes to win.

As they started the competition whilst we were away and had no internet access, we are lagging behind with only 1% of the votes so far. Please vote for us on every IP address you have and tell your friends to do so too. Many pleases – we ask you!

If we win – we would love to make a foodie trip – to learn and discover secrets like the Korcula Macaroni and bring it back to our supper club and share with all our guests.
In order to encourage you to vote, you can WIN a dinner for 4 people at our supper club – vote for us, let us know you did by joining the mailing list, LIKE our Facebook Page & Links, Twitter RTs… anything – as long as you let us know so we can add you to the raffle.

Email: uyen@fernandezandleluu.co.uk

PLEASE VOTE BY CLICKING HERE
Thank you to those who have already voted and thank you in advance for voting : )

E-to-the-effin’-G-Y-P-T people! It’s been 10 days since I’ve been back from chillaxing on the shores of the glorious Red Sea, and I’m still in complete awe of myself that I actually managed to win this ridiculously cool vacation! I know I know I need to snap myself out of it and shift my laser focus to the big fat main prize and to kick start that focus (and appease the Twitterati who’ve been hounding me for my post on Egypt), herewith lies my little itty bitty review of Reef Oasis Beach Resort, a 5-star all inclusive resort on the coast of the Red Sea in Egypt’s Sharm el Sheikh. (and holy crap, I shit you not, I just typed Beef Resort. Hello, my name is Catty and I am a food blogger.)

Good Vibrations

I have to say, the “vibe” of the holiday started like a monkey shot up on meth-amphetamine let loose with a set of bongo drums. It’s amazing how once you have children, your entire existence revolves around the way they eat and sleep and sh*t (because I have recently been enlightened by the mother of a new baby that the health of your baby lies 110% in the consistency of their poop, but hey, y’all didn’t really need to know that) and more importantly, your entire year revolves around when your children have school holidays.

Well. Given that we don’t have any children, Panu and I have not a clue when school holidays begin and end and so it was with such whizz bang genius accuracy that we planned our getaway for the first goddamn day of school holidays, on a plane which resembled something of a menagerie full of erratic, squawking birds. Un-fun.

5.5 hours later and my eyes are on stalks, my ears are bleeding and my nails, my nails are actually ok because I’m vain and it’s all about good nails, baby.

We land in Sharm el Sheikh and step off the plane into a veil of heat and humidity which smacks us in the face at 30 degrees Celcius, at TEN O’CLOCK AT NIGHT. It’s a welcome heat though because it’s been 10 long months since I last saw a beach and as we’re coached along the bustling streets of Sharm, I feel the vibe start to mellow and await the unfolding of my little beach vacation, which I can now sum up as:

… heavenly…

… mystical…

… and delicious…

Insider News Flash! Getting off the plane with every elementary school child in all of England, we thought we’d be swamped with nasty, stinky, noisy children but Reef Oasis is something of a wonder. Spread over 220,000 square meters, they may be housing hundreds of guests but it sure doesn’t feel like it. The peace and quiet astounded me and the relaxing vibe hits you as soon as you arrive to the moment you’re back at the airport and plunged back into reality. And the menagerie.

Makin’ a Splash!

Firstly, Egypt HAS A BEACH. I know this sounds ridiculous to explain but you would not believe the number of people (including me!) who until Google Maps explained that Egypt isn’t all pyramids and deserts thought that Egypt was well, all pyramids and deserts! But no sirree it ain’t.

Egypt has pyramids and deserts and beaches, and Sharm el Sheikh in particular is situated in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and has miles and miles of coastline which play footsies with none other than the Red Sea. For those visual people amongst us, you might want to check this out:

You might have also noticed that we had us a couple of Kodak Playsports to play with, courtesy of we-love-you-Qype! These babies are super resilient underwater video/still cams and are A Heap Of Fun. Pity we can’t aim good.

Anyway aside from stalking fishies, we took the Playsport to Reef Oasis’ 23 (TWENTY-THREE, two. three. For realz) pools scattered across its grounds. Between lazing by the pool, cooling off with a dip, snacking at the pool side bar and being provided with the most refreshing mint-chilled towelettes, we managed to have a little bit more fun. In case you never knew what it looked like to come down a slippery slide…

To say that I didn’t thrive in three straight days of sun soaking goodness would be an outright lie. Reef Oasis makes lazing in the sun insanely easy with their expansive private beach and billions of pools but people, be sun smart! I applied SPF 40+ constantly, because a wrinkly tan just ain’t cool. And wear sun glasses. And a hat.

And yes, I wore a different bikini every day.

You ask why? I ask why not?

Insider News Flash! The Red Sea is also known as Allah’s Aquarium, for its abundance of stunning ocean-life. Snorkel gear at Reef Oasis costs LE40 (about £4.50) a day so if you have it, bring your own! Also, instead of jumping into expensive pre-purchased diving tours, wait til you get there, there are dozens to choose from, including free 30 minute dives off the pontoon!

After the Sunset…

Now before I go on, if y’all are after a review of how the partying went down in Sharm, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to break it to you but the only partying I did was with the fireflies. Panu and I had all the intentions of a peanut to maybe if we’re bored we’ll go check out Na’ama Bay, Sharm’s party HQ, but we’d been so over worked and in need of relaxation and also… not to make you regurgitate your last meal or anything, but we wanted to be romantic.

That’s right, collective *awwwwww* and then – PUKE. Thanks.

Reef Oasis is absolutely magical by night. As the sun dips below the horizon, the resort becomes remarkably still and slowly, as the heat of the day dissipates and becomes a comfortable warmth, sun soaked revellers emerge from their air conditioned bungalows to take in the twilight.

And with the sun safely below the horizon, the resort truly becomes mystical and really, where is everyone? Ok don’t answer that, they’re probably out partying at Na’ama Bay where my geriatric butt could not go, but you know what? I didn’t really care. Panu and I had the run of our money in the enormous resort that was all ours, strolling through the moonlit grounds, stopping for iced tea and dipping our feet into the sun warmed pools…

I mean seriously, can you say tranquil?

Oh check it out, we managed to find everyone else! The resort puts on nightly “animation” shows and hey, they’re all watching Michael Jackson

Insider News Flash! Reef Oasis spray their ma-hooo-sive grounds with a non-intrusive mosquito repellent which you and I can’t see or smell but heck do they kill them pesky buggers good and proper! Luckily, they don’t kill the dragonflies because we do love our dragonflies.

Culinary Delights

Ok so Qype didn’t ask us to write about the food but really, did you think I was going to do a whole ginormous blog post without writing about food? Puh-lease.

Reef Oasis Beach Resort is the KING of all All Inclusive resorts. I’ve been to some resorts where you maybe get a couple of meals at the same buffet included and even then it’s pasta and pasta and potato and if you’re really lucky, rice. Reef Oasis’ all inclusive covers everything from numerous restaurants and cafés serving both buffet and a la carte and even snacks and drinks (soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, bottled water) around the clock. Yes, that’s 24 hours people. And it’s all free! (we do like us a bit of free over here).

And the food is good, with fresh seafood and tenderly cooked meats to perfect little burgers! I mean seriously, I’d totally pay for this food.

Situated overlooking the beach, La Citadel Grill Restaurant specialises in seafood and… seafood. The freshest, sweetest crabs, squid, fish, mussels, clams, oysters ~ all you can eat, all for the cost of nothing! God I love it. In order to maintain some level of normalcy, I decided against piling my plate to the brink and ate in “courses” instead, starting with crab and squid cooked in a chilli sauce, followed by whole baked fish with cous cous and vegetables.

And the desserts. Oh my LORD the desserts. Fruits, cake and sorbet, but look at my poor little sorbet all melted in this 30-degrees-at-10pm heat.

Towards the entrance of the resort is La Gioconda Italian Restaurant which, no prizes for guessing, served up Italian, buffet style. Granted that I’d been eating non-stop, I opted to go very very easy on this buffet and in light of the amazing food on offer, I managed to avoid the pasta bar all together.

Check out the generous serve of duck orange. They’d charge £15 for that here in London, and that’s a bargain. Desserts at La Gioconda were particularly impressive ~ a selection of delicious and suspiciously authentic Italian sweets and biscuits.

The Main Restaurant offers an outdoor BBQ as well as indoor buffet and doesn’t really have a theme, just a mish mash of all kinds of cuisines. Probably my least favourite of the three restaurants, but the grilled octopus was just a little bit to die for.

Scattered across Reef Oasis are also numerous bars and cafés which serve free food all day long. There’s even a café at the beach providing snacks like fried chicken – because anytime is fried chicken time!…

… but we were especially impressed with the Patio Snack Bar down by our favourite pool, which served a la carte snack food all day, including salads, burgers and toasted focaccias.

Of course, if you actually want to pay for your meals Reef Oasis also have two fine dining restaurants on site ~ Moonlight Restaurant and Senses Restaurant. But don’t ask me how they were because I was quite happy not paying a cent

Insider News Flash! Everyone who goes to Egypt prays to their new found God of Everything that they don’t get “Egypt belly”. There are a few things you can do to avoid the dreaded e-belly, including constantly sanitising your hands (the money apparently is inconceivably dirty) and only drinking bottled water. In fact, make sure you even brush your teeth with bottled water. The great thing about Reef Oasis though is that they offer mineral bottled water on demand and even make their ice with mineral water, so you should be a-ok. In the event that you aren’t a-ok, there’s a 24 hour pharmacy on site and hey, if you really struggle, Sinai hospital is just down the road!

ANYWAY, thank you for staying with me til the end of this very very long review! Just one more thing! I WANT TO WIN THIS COMPETITION and right now I’m losing to a fat guy in a mankini, so please, if you could… VOTE FOR ME!

Ta muchly!

And finally, a BIG thank you to Qype and On the Beach, and the excellent company I had in the form of my boyfriend. Who took photos of me when I was sleeping.

Gooooood Monday everyone! Right now I’m in my office, the air conditioning switched on to a very consistent 21 degrees Celsius. I’m staring outside at the traffic below and the ant-like folk of London weaving, dashing to get to… somewhere. Everything is a bleak shade of grey, a reflection of the thick clouds in the sky above but hey, who am I to complain? At least I have a window seat.

But alas, this time last week my seat was perched IN THE EGYPTIAN RED SEA. I had somehow become a finalist in Qype’s competition and won myself a short break to Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. It’s totally and utterly insane, I’ve never ever dreamed of winning anything this amazing and up until my feet stepped into the warm ocean and met with the delightfully friendly fish who quite literally swim right up and nibble on your toes, I didn’t believe it was real.

But it was real. And what’s more crazy real? Being a finalist in this competition, I now have the chance to win a HUGE beach holiday to the value of £2000! Now that would be insane!

I’m still yet to write up my Egyptian holiday but I need votes, guys. Votes votes votes. So if you’ve just dropped by my blog and you like it, or hey even if you don’t, please help a sister out and vote for me. You don’t need to register, you don’t need to give your email, it’s literally clicking one button and voilà, one more very much appreciated vote comes my way! It’s easy!

ps. Voting closes on the 5th of September which by the way is MY BIRTHDAY so omg, imagine what an awesome present this would be!

pps. If you’ve voted for me, THANK YOU A THOUSAND THANK YOUS. I appreciate it more than you can imagine!

ppps. In case you missed it, check out my little video of “getting ready for Egypt” in the youtube stream above

I’ve got that excited feeling, of sort of needing a wee but there’s not a single drop of wee to be weed out. And do I sleep? No. I’ve been up mailing people that I haven’t spoken to since I was foetal; I’ve been mailing people who’ve been dead these ten years (no reply); I’ve even been emailing people who are only just planning to be born (said they were too busy building an afterbirth). ‘VOTE ME!’ I’ve been spewing it everywhere like a teenage tit drunk on Strongbow and aggro. Without the power of mass Twitter-mates, I have to rely on more manual self-publicity (a bit like Chris Eubank), and that’s tiring…

But then in the small (wee) hours, when I finally get some sleep, a dream starts up. I have weird, stupid dreams. If my dreams were a film, they’d be something rubbish starring Sandra Bullock and Burt Reynolds. I lie there uncomfortably, like when you’re waiting for the film to start, you’ve already decimated the popcorn and you’ve only gone because some bird you’re with wants to see it.

Last night, I had one where Bernard Cribbins turned up naked at my work. Everyone was ever so embarrassed; even Bernard himself was surprised, because he said he’d only been at home watching ‘Doctors’ five minutes previously. Then we were suddenly in Ibiza dancing to Whigfield, and he was a bit concerned because he’d left a scotch egg back at the office. (And also because he was still naked). Oh jeez…I think it’s better to stay awake, there’s less madness.

And then morning arrives like an over-friendly uncle, and I think of what’s coming in two days – the sunshine, the cocktails, the fat smeary sunsets and the kabumph kabumph kabumph of a phat bassline tearing through my guts like a musical form of ecoli. And no Cribbins.

2 days to go. 2 days to go. VOTE ME.

Ola.