We ate so much gelato and ice cream on this trip. It’s everywhere and we bought some at nearly every adventure because…well because ice cream. But also because sometimes the food options were not great looking but does ive cream ever fail you? No. It doesn’t.
Know what did fail us? Fried Ice cream 😂
We dined in a cafe in Slunj and ordered čevapi one more time and Reese was craving some nuggies and fries, so we ordered those too and figured we would share all the things.
Except after an hour of waiting, the cook came to tell us apologetically that their chicken machine was broken. We weren’t sure what that means until we saw someone taking apart a little counter top air fryer lol. We ate the cevapi and left pretty hungry. There was giant palace looking restaurant across the street labeled Chinese food. It was the only other option open for miles. We pulled into the empty lot and wondered if it was open and were greeted by a cat that tried to get us to pick it up (absolutely not.) and a tiny old Asian woman who ran outside and opened our car doors and ushered to the outdoor seating on the porch. Chinese food in Croatia? Well why not?
She frantically shooed away the cat and apologized that it belongs to her husband gesturing over her shoulder back toward the restaurant.
I reflected upon the “Mexican food” adventure I had with Carly and Kasey in Norway because everywhere else served seafood which is not Kasey’s jam. It was good and also hilariously not Mexican food. So we played it safe sweet and sour chicken, and steamed rice to share.
She wrote down our order, and added x3 and then 3 other menu items we did not say and said “you order these also. Ok.”
“Noooo, just one order. Thank you. Just one. To share. Not very hungry” lots of actions and gratitude.
Reese was mortified. When grandma left, Reese hissed, “Ok Listen up. I lived with Koreans for 9 months and imma ‘splain something to yall about Asian culture right now. You will eat everything she places in front of you. You don’t turn away food…especially not an Abuela, or whatever the Chinese word is for grandma. It’s crazy offensive and this palace is her income so we are gonna eat all of it.”
Quincy was like, oh heck yeah, this food bouta be bus, I can already tell. It’s like that scene from Coco, “I said, DO YOU WANT SOME MORE TAMALES?!”
Reese: exactly. Si, por favor. I ate a lot of weird stuff in LA. Quincy, lock in.
Quincy was locked. When Chinese Abuelita came back, she ordered the fried ice cream. Because Reese had never had fried ice cream before. And when she asked if we wanted dessert first it was as if she was Meg Willardsons spirit animal was speaking to us. We were delighted.
First: let me remind you that Chinese Abuelita was not actually a Mexican Abuelita, and this was absolutely not fried ice cream.
She returned with a deep fried muffin-texture item in a bowl. But the smell was so strong it burned our nostrils.
Uh oh. Alcohol? But she pulled out a lighter and we figured ok, it will burn off. It’s fine.
But it wouldn’t light and Grandmas laughed and said “ok you just eat with no fire.”
Oh umm..no alcohol for us…we need to light it please. She left and we heard some dude yelling inside in Croatian, and then her cranky British husband came outside wearing a cruise ship captain’s hat and apologize for his wife’s incompetence. We said, oh it’s fine! She’s great!” then he muttered a disagreeing opinion, asked where we are from. After hearing United States me made some comments about how American democrats are ruining the world. Abuelita returned and stood over her silently and nodded as she held up a huge bottle of alcohol, doused the “ice cream” so heavily it was now just a ball sitting in a bowl of pungent liquid. This time the lighter sparked a tiny blue flame on top of the muffin and then they left.
The fire was out immediately. Definitely not enough to cook ANY of the alcohol away. Reese said “ok let’s just make it look like we ate most of it and get the rest of our food to go and get the heck out of here! We cracked open the muffin and beneath a thick layer of bread there was raspberry sorbet inside. We ate that, but each of us got an accidental crumb of muffin that I can only describe as eating nail polish remover. Thats EXACTLY what it tasted like and our lips burned. Quincy, “dude that Captain tryna poison us!” We stifled giggles about the ridiculous of our day.
Grandma returned and nervously asked if we liked it.
I have birthed fat little liars.
“Mmmm! So delicious! Thank you thank you!” Reese assertively switched in to missionary mode and asked for our meal to be packaged for takeaway. The sun was setting and we did want to eat at home and arrive before dark, she said sweetly and effortlessly. (Too effortlessly? 🧐)
Grandma looked like she might cry but smiled sweetly and backed inside slowly. Quincy’s question about whether Chinese Abuelita is trapped in some kind of hostage situation with the Captain actually seemed legit. I paid for our food and wondered how we were gonna eat this thing so she doesn’t get yelled at. As soon as Abuelita made it inside to package our food for us, the cat jumped up onto our table.
Reese gasped, “bless up! A miracle!” And slid our bowl over toward it.
The cat ate that ice cream so fast and then jumped back onto the bannister and sprawled out to nap. It most certainly got drunk and I sincerely hope it’s ok. Ok maybe I’m a liar, too. It’s a cat. I do notcare too much about how it’s doing. But I am thankful it heard Captains voice and came to our rescue. Or Abuelita’s rescue anyway.
We opened our expensive to go containers when we arrived back at our apartment to find 1 cup of rice inside, one with a single container of sweet and sour, and one a 1 cup serving of tempura chicken.
The ticket was not in English and I have no idea what I purchased for 50 euros but was happy to get out of there. Hopefully it covers the cost of the bottle of alcohol we fed the Captain’s cat.
