My birthday seasoned with European flavors

Yesterday it was my birthday and I spent with a small group of  friends and obviously with my two men of life, 3 if you count the little one to be born :)

Food-wise, yesterday everything came down to the European flavors.  In the morning, we explored this biological market which I had been to only once and very briefly. There´s a strong Amsterdam or Barcelona feel to it created by a combination of old bricks, dark colors and long wooden tables everywhere. This is a type of ambiance I love, not to mention the delicious and diverse food and products I was able to find there: a great Dutch coffee shop (I even allowed myself 3 sips of their delicious hot chocolate), French crepes & bakery, Spanish paella & tapas, biological noodles or fruits. Everything looked so appetizing and I need to go back there again for a meal, as my birthday lunch took place at another restaurant.

Here are some photos of the market.

For lunch, we went to a Greek restaurant called Blu Kouzina that I´d been wanting to try for quite some time.

There are many resemblances between the Greek and the Portuguese cuisine and I wanted to taste an octopus dish they prepare that is very similar to a Portuguese one called "polvo à lagareiro". Apparently I wasn´t the only one craving it, because that´s all everybody had: the grilled octopus served with roasted potatoes and a very flavorful green salad. This type of food is extremely hard to find in Singapore, so it made my day!

The only downside of the octopus was that it was a bit too hard, so I have to say I still prefer the Portuguese way. We cook the octopus first in a pressure cooker precisely to make it softer and only then we grill it. Besides that, we serve the octopus with tons of fried garlic in an equally large quantity of olive oil. It´s super delicious!

I´m definitely going back to Blu Kouzina to taste some other tempting dishes, like the meat and the sardines - did you know sardines are very prominent in the Portuguese cuisine in summertime?

No cake for me but I got to end my day with this amazing view from the Singapore Flyer... I´m a very lucky girl!