Darwin, Australia

Darwin is the biggest city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory. The Top End, like other tropical regions, has a dry season and a wet season and sees its population grow in Australia’s winter months from June to August, as it is their Dry when tourists come. The climate changes from very hot, in the winter months, to very very hot, humid, wet and sticky, during the summer months. I only tend to travel up north in the winter months as getting out of Darwin and into the bush proves to be much more difficult in the Wet. My father comes from a little town 9 hours drive from Darwin, so I have been fortunate to visit Darwin on a number of occasions.

This trip has been a three week tennis tour starting in Cairns, then Darwin in the middle week and Alice Springs in the third week. The sleepy feel and hot climate are a couple of the many reminders that I’m back in one of my favourite places in Australia. It is the markets that encapsulate the charm of this little treasure. I plan my eating schedule around the markets; Thursday Mindil Beach, Friday Nightcliff, Saturday morning Parap (my favourite) and Sunday night a smaller market at Mindil Beach again. My biggest problem of the week is deciding what to eat on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Mindil Beach is known for its markets and the beautiful sunsets over the water. A good meal is a great way to unwind on a Thursday night. The locals bring their own picnic rugs and chairs as they sit amongst the stalls. The market food is like a mini Asia. The best produce, always fresh, and great curries. I’m one of those people who tend to find something they like and stick to it till I can’t look at it anymore. My choice was the Thai green curry. Very similar to the curry I had at the Bangkok markets, it's spice and taste are definitely worth going to Darwin for. Another great dish I tried was the green paw paw salad which is made fresh while you wait and is one of the freshest tastiest things you can have, with its chilli, crushed peanuts and dressing. Impossible to miss is the Malaysian stall with its roti, its like a hot croissant in the shape of a flat bread. Its flaky and so fresh, it's on my cooking list to try and learn how to make. 

Parap village is a few minutes drive from Mindil Beach and it’s the place to be on a Saturday morning. Parap’s specialty is laksa, a creamy coconut soup with spices and meat or prawns. But there is so much more. One of my favourites is the Thai sweets stall that serves one of the best desserts ever created : sticky rice and mango. My green curry is served here as well and it's never too early for one of those. There are fresh Vietnamese spring rolls served with BBQ pork, duck or prawns, noodle dishes, all sorts of curries and lots of freshly squeezed juice stalls. Now I tend to go to these places for the food but there are souvenirs and all sorts of things to buy from bags, to art to clothes to Jewellery. Darwin is a great place. I'll certainly be going back for years to come!     
          

       

Gurgaon, India

I see this place as a land of bright evocative colour and spices. India is a treat for the senses and my experience there left me wanting more. Asia in itself is amazingly complex and different with its cuisines even within the countries themselves, and particular dishes and staples are specific to the different areas. In the South of India rice is mostly used whereas in the North of India bread is mostly used due to wheat being prominently grown in these parts.

India was, though I thought not possible, the hottest climate I had ever played in. It was the type of heat that makes you feel physically sick without doing anything. Running around was bad enough but stopping felt even worse, the heat would just burn, I was shivering from the heat. The heat was the toughest opponent out there and unfortunately I had had a cold the week before and I was still pretty clogged up which wasn’t helping my cause. Australia’s hot but India is in a whole new category. Ordinarily when it’s this scorching you’re hoping for a light wind to temporarily cool you down, not here, the wind was hot. But a few days in, you learn to cope. India in itself is a whole different experience. We were playing in Gurgaon, a rural town outside of Delhi. We were staying in Delhi and we took just under an hour car ride out to the courts each day. Driving in India was an experience in itself. We were given a driver who looked no older than sixteen years old. Without a whole lot of confidence in him he drove us out to the courts during peak hour traffic in Delhi. Because of the congestion it was apparently a common knowledge that during heavy traffic, one would have to drive on the wrong side of the road, into and mostly around (hopefully) opposing traffic. Now this was bad enough, putting complete trust in the horn that substituted use of mirrors, indicators and in some instances brakes. In actual fact, our car didn’t have side mirrors, so it could squeeze in between cars. This drive provoked quite a lot of tension for my mother, and the few days of rain that caused flooding in the street didn’t help our little road trips, if we got stuck I made it very clear I wasn’t getting out to push. I’ll tell you this though, every day we saw something new. From a man trying to get a monkey off his roof to men on their front porches smoking from a hookah. Cows roaming the highways and cars with no inclination to move them on, just driving around them, women with pre-marriage cloaks covering their faces balancing pots on their heads, not allowed to show their faces in public as unmarried women, donkeys pulling carts of grass onto the next town, women and children in the streets dancing to music. India was alive and we were fortunate to see these things that we wouldn’t have been able to see had we not been travelling to the country towns outside Delhi.

The tennis courts themselves were a rundown academy of sorts with a pool that no one would dare jump into, a dark murky green that either had never been cleaned or hadn’t been cleaned in a very long time. There was accommodation at the courts but only some of the rooms had air conditioners. The other rooms had fans that would only blow around hot air. Now the highlight for me during this trip to India was the food that was put on for the players to eat for breakfast lunch and dinner. The Breakfast I would eat if I had a match and needed something extra before I went to play, the lunch we ate everyday and the dinner we had back at our hotel in Delhi. The Lunch put on at the club was a buffet with six or seven different curries to choose from (I tried to pile on as many curries as would fit on the plate), there was yogurt to have with the curries, rice and fresh bread (chapatti) being made during lunch, so you could always be sure of a hot fresh one, or four. There were a lot of vegetarian curries (potatoes, beans and lentils). The black eyed bean curry was my favourite. There was always meat as well, mostly chicken, but never beef because cows in India are sacred. There was always a beautiful cheese curry as well that was in a triangular form with a red curry sauce which was my mum’s favourite. These curries were great for the first week, there was a great turnover as there were a lot of people eating and the food wasn’t hanging around. By halfway through the second week, people were leaving to go home and the food was being recycled to be used for the next day. It was at this point we cut our losses and stuck to two minute noodles just in case, but I haven’t tasted Indian food as good as this since I was in India. Some of the Indian girls at the tournament said that the cooking at the club was like home style cooking which they said was very good, so we were really lucky to get this type of food. The buffet lunch at the courts cost $2.50 per person.

India’s a great place which enlightens and opens your eyes. I saw the impoverished tents and tarpaulins set up amongst the litter, I saw shepherds all dressed in white except the turbans which were a burst of red. Other shepherds behind keeping sixty or so bulls and cows inline who ruled the road, some with necklaces around their horns, and extraordinarily, a shepherd at the back of the line with a new born calf around his neck, unable to walk by itself. India is something you never forget, though at times confronting, India is unique and such a special place. I cannot wait to go back, hopefully with my whole family and I would love to visit the small towns and regions, if just for the food!

Bangkok, Thailand

Thailand is one of the best countries in the world to visit, whether it's for food, travelling on a budget or just basking in the great weather. Flying from Sydney to London can be a long flight and there is a stop off in either Bangkok or Singapore. I try and engineer my flight so I go through Bangkok because I always visit a particular restaurant which serves an amazing chicken green curry followed by sticky rice and mango. I love to eat a home cooked meal in Sydney before I go so that I can last till I have my curry in Bangkok, it is very important to have a plan! (Obviously I have far too much time on my hands).

Now this trip to Thailand was not just a stop over, I played there in 2007, although it was a while a go I have it firmly imprinted in my memory! It was so humid and sticky there. Thailand for food holds a very special place in my heart. My softest spot I would have to say is the sticky rice with fresh mango. I also find it hard to say no to a good curry. The spicier the better. I have to admit one of the best things about Thailand is the price of everything, especially the food. Near the tennis courts for the second tournament, there was a whole string of outdoor restaurants serving all different types of Thai food. My favourite was the restaurant that served pad thai for a little over 1 Australian dollar. Walking to and from the courts was always a highly anticipated journey, whether we stopped on the first corner for a milkshake or smoothie, or we picked out a thai dessert or snack from the carts parked on the foot path, or made our way into one of the small restaurants overlooking the street. Thailand for me is such a friendly place with warm hard-working people. A place I believe everybody should visit if they have a love for food.

You can find good food everywhere in Thailand, that’s why its so great, but the best curry I have ever had was in the Bangkok markets, a small area with a couple of stalls and tables around it with a huge pot of curry and another pot of rice, hot and ready to eat. We were walking through the markets and we had eaten breakfast not long before, but I could smell the curry. I followed the smell, like a moth to a flame, which took a good five minutes weaving in and out of little shops and stalls. But the effort was well worth it. It was a green chicken curry with cherry eggplants, thai eggplants, thai basil and chili. For those who range from dabbling in the kitchen to full blown chefs here is the closest thing I’ve got to the curry I ate at the Bangkok markets. It only takes about 30 minutes to cook and it is great for serving a lot of people, you can just double or triple the mixture.

So please try it and enjoy and I hope you love this dish as much as I do.

Recipe Thai green curry

Ingredients

400 grams chicken breast (a little less then 1lb.)

3 tbsp green of a good thai curry paste

2 1/2 cups coconut milk or coconut cream with some water which will give it more texture

5 small fresh Thai eggplants, quartered

2 handfuls of cherry eggplants or what you think will be well balanced

2-3 fresh red spur chilies, sliced diagonally

2 kaffir lime leaves, torn

1/4 cup sweet basil leaf

1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce

1 1/2 tsp palm sugar

1 tbsp cooking oil (not olive oil, but corn, safflower or peanut oil)

Sweet basil leaves and red chili slices for garnish

Preparation

1. Slice the chicken into thin pieces, about about 1/3" (3 cm) thick.

2. Saute the green curry paste in oil over medium heat until fragrant, reduce the heat, gradually add 1 1/2 cups of the coconut milk or coconut cream and water, a little at a time, stir until a film of green oil surfaces.

3. Add the chicken and kaffir lime leaves, continue cooking for 3 minutes until fragrant and the chicken is cooked through. Transfer to a pot, place over medium heat and cook until boiling. Add the remaining coconut milk, season with palm sugar and fish sauce. When the mixture returns to the boil add both types of eggplants. Cook until the eggplants are done, sprinkle sweet basil leaves and red chilies over, then turn off the heat.

4. Arrange on a serving dish and garnish with sweet basil leaves and red chillies before serving.

I have changed the recipe slightly but the original recipe can be found at http://www.templeofthai.com/recipes/thai_green_curry.php

If you can find the cherry eggplants, they are a great addition to the curry and really enhance the dish.

Darmstadt, Germany

Have you ever starved yourself during the day so you can justify a pig-out in the evening and to much disappointment only moments into your much awaited meal you find that you are full, all too soon? Now luckily for my sake I learnt this little fact quite early on in life and when it comes to food I am rarely disappointed by my own doings, however how the food tastes and how it is cooked is out of my control unless of course I’ve cooked it, and then I can only blame myself. Being able to eat regularly and to have an appetite most of the day is one of the best things about being a tennis player. There’s nothing better (though there are many things that are just as good) than being hungry and eating a great meal. Now I was recently in Germany and the best food is always the fresh local food. I was lucky enough to be staying with our really good family friends the Ganssmann’s and you can’t get much better than home-cooked, especially when you are constantly on the road eating out with a smaller budget. German food for me is amongst the best. All types of sausage, schnitzel (although it’s from Austria it’s still readily available in Germany and just as good), spetzler, German handmade pasta which is basically a dough hand made into squiggly shaped pasta, which comes from the Stuttgart area of Germany. It can be served plain with a bit of parmesan or with fresh herbs and sausage, pretty much anything can be put through it just like regular pasta.

It’s the Mediterranean vegetables oven baked with olive oil, sprinkled with rosemary with a hint of garlic. Europe has a different way of doing things when it comes to food, it just seems civilized, not rushed. One of my little pleasures in Deutschland is the pretzels whether they are for breakfast, accompanied with lunch or dinner or a snack anytime during the day. I was there in the summer month of July, a very hot summer, over 30 degrees celsius everyday and on the last day it had called down about 10 degrees, ironically as we were leaving. I don’t mind the heat but even this weather was a little excessive.

Winter food is different altogether and the food can be quite different from the summer. My favourite treat which the little vendor in Darmstadt serves is called kartoffelpuffer, its fried potato that’s served with apple sauce, not bad on a freezing cold day in a warm coat.

I can’t wait to go back to eat my favorites, I could eat schnitzel everyday!

Ningbo, China 2010

The air is surprisingly cold. Unprepared for the weather that I have entered into. I buy a cheap coat in the country where everything is made. This year I have made it to a few countries I have never visited before and this is one I have been waiting to go to for as long as I can remember. I have arrived in China with much anticipation but I stress to you with the upmost importance the emphasis I place and will continue to place on food. This place has been boasted to me on many occasions by my brother James and his girlfriend Alex about how great this place actually is. Not only can you eat breakfast for a few cents a day on the side of the road, whether you order the pork buns, or meat that is always chicken regardless of what it actually is. James had pictures of eating a BBQ snake on a skewer in Shanghai but I’m not here to describe their trip, I am here to describe mine. Being a tennis player I am in the country for that purpose but I try and do something local each week for each city and country I visit. Each tournament lasts a week and depending on how you do in that tournament you’re there for that week or part thereof and onto the next tournament, so there’s no hanging around once you’re out. So it’s important I experience the food when I can and try and fit it in. Often the tournaments I play are in the smaller cities and towns but I think it can often take me off the beaten track so I can experience a different kind of place rather than the typical tourist route. But when I can visit the bigger cities there are definitely local gems tucked away, well worth being found. So how do you experience the local food when you’re not actually a local? Well I can tell you how I did just that in Ningbo in China. One of the smaller cities in China, population: 2,218,000, Ok, not the smallest mind you but certainly nowhere near the biggest. Ningbo is known for its seafood and I was lucky enough to taste some of the market food that cannot be described by the English language, or any language for that matter. This market on a Monday night was buzzing. Open entrance and a low covering. The ground filthy, but I wasn’t going to let this get in the way of the aromatic smells of hoisin sauce and chili that was weaving in and out of the stalls that sizzled relentlessly.


So how did I find this place when pretty much nobody speaks English and directing a taxi driver could only end in misery? Rule 1: Find a local buddy. Rule 2: Once you’ve found your local buddy, tag along to where they eat dinner and do not lose your local buddy. The urge for local food had come on rather quickly, particularly during the last 20 minutes of my training session. So I hadn’t organized anything and it was almost 6pm. I was traveling with a fellow tennis player and we made our way down to sit in reception hopefully finding someone who would let us tag along. 15 minutes later Chun-Yan came through the front doors back from tennis. She told us to call her Cynthia, which is the name she gives herself for people not from China. My mind boggles at this. All the tennis players give themselves western names. One of the organisers at the previous tournament had called herself Serena because it was her favourite character in Gossip Girl. I have to admit I did need to use her western name as I found it hard to remember but I’m ok with remembering the names of most of the tennis players.

So we bundle into the taxi and Cynthia takes care of everything. She describes to us that we are heading to the famous local markets in Ningbo. McDonalds on every second corner, when we stop in the city centre we make our way past the 5th McDonalds we’ve passed since the hotel. To my delight the smell has hit me before I could see the markets and bustling people heading every which way creates an exciting atmosphere. We turn right and are directly in front of the entrance to the markets. I look straight in front and I see everything on skewers. Bok choy and Chinese broccoli drizzled with sauce, being cooked on hot plates. To my right, whole prawns in soft shells, skewered, covered in spices and chilies, dunked in a deep fryer for a few minutes, lightly battered with a crispy outside. Along with all types of different seafood, crab, prawns and fish all different sizes. I can only begin to imagine how many spices and ingredients are used to create this taste, cooked to perfection. As I turn to Cynthia with complete satisfaction written all over my face, holding as many skewers that could fit in my hand, she asks me if I’m ready to go to dinner. I would have been happy with just this but another meal sounded only too appealing. We made our way through the square about a 10 minute walk from the market. Ningbo is very modern in its architecture, particularly in this square with public artwork and soft lighting overlooking the water features that shape the square. People all around were enjoying this cold night that had become dark without me realising. We made our way over to the restaurant which was one of many in a row, all restaurants packed with people, which is always a good sign. We shared a noodle hotpot with pork and mushrooms, tofu with dried shrimp and sauce, rice and dumplings. I was officially stuffed and was very lucky to have experienced the market of Ningbo which goes down as one of my favourite experiences of cuisine outside of Australia. China is truly a spectacular place for food and culture and I plan to return to experience Shanghai and Beijing, maybe when I play one of the bigger tournaments.