Bread and Wine

Luckily enough, we have amazing bread in Vienna! There is nothing better than a Brettljausn (or simply bread and cold cuts)!
Joseph makes my favorite bread, but Mauracher and Kasses have fabulous breads for every dietary restriction under the sun. A simple and easy meal with prosciutto, olives and tomato salad is fun for guests that come by on short notice, or just for a quick dinner with my family. For the sake of the vegetable lover in our little group – me,  I salted and set aside some eggplant in olive oil for 15 min, which I then quickly grilled and made into a great open faced sandwich with the Serrano ham and parmesan shavings. My sweetheart loves simple food and good quality products and I agree: it does not have to be fancy and complicated, just look at the pictures and stop by next time for a quick Brettljausn!

Tartinery

April seems to be the month of birthdays in my friend group. For my room mate Diya's birthday we went to Tartinery in Nolita. Their menu is based on the French concept of Tartines, or open faced sandwiches. You choose your type of bread and then order a massive amount of different tartines. They were all delcious, but I think my favorite was probably the Croque Monsieur, because let's be honest, a melted cheese sandwich is always a winner.

Avocado, asparagus, arugula, pumpkin seeds, Parmigiano, lemon juice.

Labne, cucumber, za’atar, olive oil 

Cooked ham, brie cheese, Dijon mustard 

Fresh mozzarella, vine tomato, fresh basil, garlic, olive oil and Ham chiffonade, Gruyere cheese, bechamel (the Croque Monsieur).

Fresh burrata, grape tomatoes, basil.

Turkey, brie cheese, bacon, tomato, romaine, herb mayo.

Fresh ricotta, prosciutto, olive oil, fresh pepper.

Seasoned minced raw ground beef, potato chips.

Filet steak, caramelized onion, old style mustard.

And last, but definitely not least: Smoked salmon, crème fraiche, lemon, fresh dill. Check them out, they're right here:

 

California Part 2

While I was staying in San Diego I also went to LA for one day and tried to do as many purely tourist things as possible, because I had never seen LA. We went on a bus trip of Beverly Hills, walked Hollywood Boulevard and had In n Out burgers and Coldstone ice cream to top it all off. I love the burgers at In n Out, but I wasn't entirely convinced of the fries, I'm guessing they had an off day or something like that.

It was such a cool experience to see such a different side of the US and I loved exploring the different parts of LA. One of my highlights was finding Grace Kelly's star on the walk of fame (as you can tell I was very excited to find my favorite Old Hollywood star!). 

---

Hat: J Crew Sweater: J Crew Skirt (old) Sunglasses: Tom Ford Bag: Prada Necklace: J Crew 

Sunday Snapshots V

Life Lately through my instagram @sophiesvob

California Part 1

Before Easter weekend I had never been to California, let alone the west coast of the US. I had been dying to go for such a long time and I couldn't have had a better weekend with my friend Aya and her sweet family. I realized how much I missed the ocean after being away from Bermuda for such a long time. I apologize for the bad quality photos on some of these pictures, but as you already know I lost a lot of my pictures recently. So here's my photo diary of our first day:

On our first day we tried going surfing, failed miserably and tried a whole bunch of new food. Here are a few of the things we had: Eggs benedict with avocado and bacon and Acai Bowls (who knew it was acceptable to have ice cream for breakfast) at 101 Diner in Encinitas. We had the most incredible Salted Caramel Lattes at Lofty that I already miss having. 

We also went to a basbell game in downtown San Diego: San Diego Padres vs San Francisco Giants. Naturally we had to have peanut butter milkshakes and fries with bacon infused ketchup at Slaters 50/50 after the baseball game, it was only right. Everything they serve there is in some way related to bacon and they even make bacon cocktails, how unusual is that?

The last picture is one of the craziest things I've ever eaten: cookie pizza at BJ's steakhouse. They ask you to choose 4 different types of cookies and then serve them warm in the same dish with a crazy amount of ice cream (very low calorie obviously). In case you were wondering we opted for salted caramel, peanut butter, white chocolate macadamia and chocolate chunk cookie. 

Brunch and Lunch

A couple Weeks ago Aya and I set up shop at Lafayette, one of our favorite brunching spots. We stayed there for about 5 hours (no shame) and people kept coming to visit us while we finished some work, hence the odd variety in food, as the menu kept changing every so often.

Lafayette has some of the best coffee with my favorite croissants in all of New York, but I recently lost all the pictures on my camera, so I only have the ones I was able to recover:

Soft scrambled eggs vol-au-vent with leeks.

Scrambled eggs and toast.

A scrumptious Lamb Sandwich.

And of course a cheese platter with the most incredible warm nut and raisin toast, that I would have as my main course with butter any day.

Find them here: