Just a short thing today because I wanna get more into posting things here - now to those that know me, it may surprise you that I have not had all that many bowls of Ramen in my life, I'm more of a dry rice, salad and simple protein kinda girl, but I do love soup so I always was a big fan of the idea of Ramen. Yet for whatever reason, possibly massive time blindness and an easily distracted brain, I have never been able to track down a decent Ramen place, let alone one I can order from - however, now I am living in a coastal city and realise I need to get living a significantly healthier lifestyle, I am determined to find a place that serves/delivers good chicken/beef Ramen and eventually learn to make it myself. This year has been really rough and I'm so glad I am looking forward to making positive changes.
So onto the kicker, I was discussing food things with my girl late last night and telling her that there was lots of foods that I like, but I couldn't really put a finger on what my absolute favorite food was - like favourite, favourite food - until a memory passed my brain during the conversation. I remember when I was doing research during my PhD and I'd just done an all-nighter on the Neutron Powder diffractometer after a late night in Auckland and early morning flight back to Sydney the day before - I was exhausted and hungry and like there was a tonne of data we had no idea what it meant, it was a lot but like I'd really done a solid 2 days worth of super-productive work. So, before I went back to the hotel to pass out in bed, I popped into the onsite Cafe and got a toasted sandwich and cup of coffee. Now I was a vegetarian at the time, so I got a vegetarian version, lots of salad, little bit of vegan cheese and this chewy thing that I assumed was the protein. AND it was delicious, it was the best toasted sandwich I'd ever had, even better than the cubans in Brunswick, better than the tomato bread cheese and ham dipping sandwiches in Wellington and better than the toasted German breakfast sandwiches in Hamburg! (I like sandwiches, what can I say?)
So that small cafe at a science institute in the middle of nowhere makes my favourite food - a vegetarian toasted breakfast sandwich. Sadly I don't work in scientific research anymore, so I can't visit the place. As an alternative, I have made several attempts to try and replicate the food myself, but the crazy thing is I can't remember what the protein was - now this was back in 2014/2015 and it was a staff/visitor cafe in a government research place so it couldn't have been anything too fantastical or complex and I don't think it was one of those 'meat imitation' things we've been getting recently, but it was chewy, slightly salty, kinda pale and I have just never been able to work out what it is. So next year, in addition to making amazing Ramen, I am going to find out what this meat substitute is and I am going to remake my favourite breakfast sandwich!
If anyone sees this post - have a think, what is your absolute favourite food and have you made it for yourself recently? If not, maybe you should try, you've been working hard this year and you definitely deserve a treat :3
