Turkish Coffee and Pancake (Istanbul)

We tried The Han when we were in Istanbul, Turkey. It is located near the Topkapi Palace and the things that attracted us to The Han were that there was a woman making gözleme (turkish pancakes) by the entrance, its Turkish seating area and its decorations (haha, of course we knew that all of these gimmicks were just to attract tourists like us, but we went in anyway :p ).

We ordered Turkish coffee and the gözleme. I liked the coffee because it was super strong but the gözleme was very plain (not sure how to judge it since it was the first and only time that I have tried it but it was not very tasteful).

Overall, the experience and the food was average (nothing to complain nor rave about).

For more photos of The Han, please visit here.
For more photos of Istanbul, Turkey, please visit here.

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La Dama Restaurant (Barcelona)

We wanted to have a nicer dinner during our last night stay in Barcelona (we stayed 4 days/3 nights in Barcelona prior to our Mediterranean curise) and since we did not do much research before the trip, we chose La Dama Restaurant because it is close to our hotel (maybe 15 min - 20 min walk) and it has a good rating in the 2009 Frommers.

La Dama Restaurant is an upscale restaurant in the heart of Barcelona in an elegant 1918 building designed by Manuel Sayrach. Its hall is decorated in a Art Nouveau style with a beautiful classic old world type of dining room and excellent service. The restaurant serves Catalan and French cuisine and we chose the 98,00 € p.p. tasting menu.  I loved the delicate plating of each dish, as for the taste, it was good but did not give me a wow factor.  The dessert was only average, we did not enjoy the dessert as much as we enjoyed the other dishes.  One thing to mention, the service was impeccable from the minute we entered the building to the minute we left the building.  From the fact that we only found this place when we reached Barcelona, I have no complains and we enjoyed the night.  =^U^=

Check out more pics on flickr.

La Dama Restaurant
Diagonal 423, Barcelona

TEL: 93-202-06-86
Website: http://www.ladama-restaurant.com/

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Citrus Restaurant (Barcelona)

The first stop of our honeymoon trip last year was Barcelona, Spain.  After a long day of sightseeing, we ended up on Passeig de Gracia and were trying to find a restaurant to relax and to have dinner.  By chance, we chose Citrus Restaurantus (Mediterranean cuisine)  because it started to rain when we were right outside of its entrance.  It was around 7:30pm when we arrived, I guess it just started the dinner hours and we had to wait a while before we got seated.  However,  we are still glad that we found this restaurant because:

1. Quality, quantity, and presentation of the food was good
2. Not expensive (we found that it is actually cheaper than the tapas we had the night before) ... the entire meal (1 appetizer, 2 starters, 2 entrées, 2 latte, 1 dessert) was only 54Euro!!
3. Server was polite, efficient, and provided good suggestions
4. Decoration of the place is modern, with huge windows of views of Passeig de Gracia

We loved this place so much that I recommended it to my in-laws when they traveled to Barcelona earlier this year.  They too said that it was a nice place.  However, I found out recently that Citrus got a mixed reviews from Tripadvisor, some people complained the service was poor and small dishes ... luckily, our enjoyed our experience. =)

After our dinner, the rain stopped and we were able to take a good shot of Casa Batlló at night that is nearly by the restaurant.

Citrus Restaruant
Passeig de Gràcia, 44 (Barcelona).
With Consell de Cent. (Eixample Dret.)

TEL: 93 487 23 45

OPEN
Mon to Sun 13-16:30hr and 19:30-24:30hr.
Sunday and bank holidays until 24 hr. Friday and Saturday until 1 hr.

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