When I first made this blog, I never intended to write about my travel. However, I’ve recently started to challenge this thinking on two grounds:

• One of my favorite things about travel is the food that I eat, and in many trips I end up cooking meals using local ingredients
• “tsunamishungry” very much applies to travel as well… as I am hungry for trying out food from different cultures, and for travel and adventure!

For now, I want to only post about trips where I can talk extensively about the food that I ate or cooked. So with that in mind, I think it’s appropriate for my first travel post to be about sailing through Croatia!

Croatia is Stunning

Croatia is a beautiful country, with amazingly kind people and excellent food (so much so that one of their national dishes, Blitva, is an all-time favorite of mine). However, as I’ve always been a land person, the first time I went to Croatia, I didn’t even bother seeing any of the beaches. That’s how little interest I had in the sea…

It just so happened that exactly a year after my first trip to Croatia, a close friend of mine told me about a sailing trip she was organizing with her boyfriend: He’d just gotten his sailing license and wanted to put his skills to the test. Intrigued by this opportunity, I thought to myself what’s to lose?

I want to credit myself for taking that decision, but truly it was luck that gave me one of the best trips of my life. So if you can, I highly recommend that you experience Croatia through the sea as well¹.

Absent the luck of knowing a seafaring boyfriend, I’d recommend finding a sailboat that you can work in as a crew member. This will give you a flavor of these kinds of trips, which may even prompt you to consider learning how to sail yourself. I’m planning to get a license in the next year, because I want to have many more trips like this in my lifetime!

Food on Croatian Islands

The group I was with were quite keen on having dinner onshore. This proved to be excellent in some places, and mediocre in others. Prices were always extremely high².

Primošten

Our first night out was in Primošten, where we dined at Konoba Torkul. Here we got the fish platter.

The food was OK, but not mind-blowing. One of the fish was excellent in my opinion, but sadly I didn’t catch the name! I thought the blitva (bottom left – potatoes with Swiss chard) was nicely seasoned, and I enjoyed the potatoes with cabbage (bottom right).

Šolta

Later on in the trip, we docked at the island of Šolta (on the west side). We dined at Restaurant Šakajet, each getting a different dish.

The prices here were absolutely monstrous, and the food was good, but bordering on OK. The seabass was tasty, but the portion tiny. The calamari was good, but not very different to what you can get elsewhere. I didn’t try the ćevapi, but it appears to have been the best option from what we ordered.

Palmižana

We made two more stops onshore: Palmižana just off Hvar, and Vis. At the former, we dined at a fairly fancy restaurant called Bacchus Palmižana. I got a seafood pasta, and blitva on the side, and they gave us some prosciutto filled with a jam (fig if my memory serves me right?) on the house.

This was the most disappointing meal of the entire trip. The pasta was overcooked, and I didn’t find It particularly flavorful (plus the shrimp didn’t taste fresh). The bltiva was OK, but as you can see the ratio was way off. It was also not as garlicky as I’ve usually had it. The bacon starter was excellent. The bread was borderline stale. On top of all this, it was really expensive.

I would not recommend this restaurant, but this island had very limited options (in fact it was the only one available to us where we had docked!).

Vis

On our last day sailing, we made an active choice to go to a fancy restaurant. So on Vis, we went to Lola Konoba and Bar.

This was by far the best food we had on this trip. I was a massive fan of the starters. The roast pumpkin was exquisite: the spice on the tahini was just perfect. The cuttlefish croquettes and the gnudi were good. The paté (whose main ingredient I don’t recall) was really really good.

The mains were nice, but I found mine a bit disappointing, mostly because the almonds served on top of the beef cheek were very bitter. I tried a bit of the duck from my friend – it was excellent.

The desserts were average, and I would recommend skipping them.

Split

On the final day of the trip, after we’d returned the boat, we decided to go to Split by car. Here we dined at Konoba Hvaranin.

At first we were a bit hesitant at eating here, because compared to the other restos around, it was the least busy and the most dodgy looking. It was empty when we entered it. However, it proved to be excellent. The food tasted very “homemade”. I was a massive fan of the goulash in particular.

Cheffed Up Offshore

We spent a good amount of time cooking as well. This was mostly for breakfast, and for some dinners. We usually skipped lunch. This was one aspect of the trip I really cherished: all 8 of us around a reasonably sized table having a nice meal together.

Breakfast 1

The porridge turned out surprisingly well with just boiling water and cold milk/oat milk. Lacked a bit of flavor as ratios were off.

Lunch 1

Feta salad with EVO and balsamico. Basic but hit the spot, especially with the croutons which we made using stale bread.

Breakfast 2

In my opinion, the best porridge we had this trip. Adding bananas worked like a charm, and the crushed hazelnuts took it to a next level.

Lunch 2

We made caprese/bruschetta. Our mozzarella had a funny texture as unfortunately our fridge was not cold enough and the weather was really hot. We sliced the tomatoes fairly badly (thin and oddly shaped). The guac and topping for the bruschetta (tomatoes, EVO and salt + (onions)) saved the meal imo. A* for presentation.

Breakfast 3

Phenomenal egg texture here. Slightly tricky to scale for 8 people but with patience and a tired forearm it worked! I messed up with a bit too much salt. The fruit salad and yogurt made for a lovely fresh start to the day. The pastries and muffins came from a small sailing boat going around selling food to people.

Dinner 1

We made pasta, but hit a scaling problem… 2 kilos of pasta is a LOT. Our zucchini-lemon sauce turned out to be stunning but was not enough. It was a nice and fresh meal after a long and tiring day though.

Breakfast 4

The yoghurt fruit bowl may not look great, but trust me when I say that the grapes in it were perfect for a hot summer day.

Snack Time

A bite that makes you fall in love with life. Only regret is not having feta for a watermelon salad.

Dinner 2

Much better prepared for the scaling. 3 pasta sauces for 2 kilos of pasta: 1) simply tomato, 2) avocado, lemon and tomato, 3) veggies and tomato. All were great, but the freshness of the avo pasta salad took the cake.

Last Breakfast Together

Out of ingredients so we had to use used dry bread. We separated the fruits from the porridge this time: it worked well! The porridge was too dry for my taste so I mixed in some milk in my bowl for a nice comfort meal. That Camembert violated my nose.

Last Lunch Together

Thicker mozarrella and tomato slices made for an excellent caprese. The bruschetta topping and guac were seasoned to perfection.

1. I love the cities in Croatia as well (particularly Zagreb). So don’t miss out on them! ↩︎
2. Almost always exceeding prices in mainland Europe and the UK. ↩︎