My Lovely Blogaki

In Birmingham, there are many Asian fast food shops and sweet centres selling falooda.

Falooda is a sweet mixture of noodles, sour cream, and fruit/flower syrup. It can be a drink or something more solid than drink dipending on how liquid/solid the cream is and how much noodle there is.

I have seen it for a long time now, but never had chance to try... until last Saturday. I decided buy one cup from a Pakistani fast food shop.



When I ordered a cup, the guy at the counter put noodles, cream, basil seeds, and red syrup in a plastic cup, then he mixed them together with a spoon. Then he closed the cup with a cover and put a thick straw.

£2 for that.




Now taste. It was pretty particular because of the strange cream. It was something between sour cream and fresh cheese. Noodles were not as smooth as I would have liked. And I would have preferred it cold of chilled, but it was only lukewarm.

I finished about 90% of it, and at this point I felt slightly ill because of saturation.

I don't know if I liked it or not. It wasn't traumatic, but next time I will try from another shop.

One of the things that has surprised me most about England is that there is no cake shops, patisserie, as such. You can find patisserie or pasticceria in London, but these are foreign imports, it is a new culture.

There are sweet shops, but they sell only candies. If you want cakes, you have to go to bakery, yup, bread shop.

At the beginning, I thought it was because the British people do not really have sweets culture, but then, I found out the British sweets, which they call "puddings", are very good! It is no doubt partly down to the excellent quality of dairy here (i.e. milk, butter and cream, but cheese is probably not as good as in France or Italy), but not only that. The English people do make very nice cakes!

Some examples, although probably not the best ones. I bought these from a chain bakery shop called Bakers Oven near our house.

This oblong cake is called "Custard Slice".



The icing is super-sweet, but the custard isn't and make a good combination. I love custard, and although it wasn't the best example (I don't expect so much for the price I paid), it goes very well with white tea (meaning "tea with milk" here).

And these are custard tarts.



The eggy thing inside the casing is not custard cream, but custard pudding. The moisture of the pudding infiltrates into the case and it is pretty soft. Probably I have never told you but I LOVE custard pudding, so I loved these too. They were not very sweet. It costs 50p (US$1) for one.

They were so nice and made me happy

Have you ever seen this stuff?

It is called sfogliatella, a Neapolitan speciality.

The crust is made of very long ribbon coiled up to make a case, stuffed with ricotta (Italian sweet cheese) and baked in oven.

It has a distinct shell shape.



This piece I ate in Marina di Pisa.

It was sooooooooooooooooo nice. I have eaten some also in Naples, but they were not always good. This one was as good as the nicest one I ate in Naples, and cost only 1 euro.

Next time I go Pisa, I will visit the pastry shop again. Worth it.

I arrived at around 3 o'clock in the afternoon at Pisa Airport, 12 June.

Pisa airport was a bit different from what I remember. It was not as colourful as it is now and there were fewer sculptures in the yard. I found ugly the huge pigeon sculpture in front of the building (you can see its behind in the photo). Pigeons are not really loved in Pisa, as they are slow and dirty. I remember some of my friends compared them to rats.




Although I did not have lunch, I was not really hungry. So my friend (who offered me hospitality) took me to a Sicilian pastry shop & bar. ("Bar" in Italy is coffee shop that sells also booze).

She offered me this cannolo siciliano. Cannolo is deep fried pastry tube filled with sugared ricotta cheese. Nice, but not quite as I expected.




These are their showcases. Sheer paradise

(Larger photos available in my photo album "Pisa")

Close to the University of Birmingham where I work there is a small Middle-Eastern grocery. I go there from time to time, as I like Middle Eastern food and they have also some Greek stuff.

Among the sweets section I found this box.



It is unusually in a sense that it was not glossy factory package; it is kind of a box that you get from pastry shop. I don’t read Arabic, but it is probably Iranian, as the shop is Iranian. (If someone know the language, please let me know what is written). A box costs 1.89 pounds and contains quite a lot.

This is what I found inside.



They are so beautiful! Egg-yolky yellow pastry decorated with white coconuts and green pistachio; just a kind of colour combination appeal to my appetite.

This is a single piece. The thin and crispy pastry is rolled with confectionary sugar.



Now, taste. The predominant flavour is that of egg. It is quite sweet, but not so sticky sweet as many of the Middle Eastern sweets. I felt also some spice, probably ginger powder. They go really well with coffee and tea.