Well what can I say, Luigia has pretty much been my favorite restaurant since it first opened its doors in 2010. They’ve recently added a few new dishes to their menu and they are certainly worth checking out - I would especially recommend the sausage and eggplant paccheri.
Pictured below: a four-cheese gnocchi dish, sausage and eggplant paccheri and a cheesecake.
Some restaurants look fairly nondescript from the outside, places you probably wouldn’t really think of visiting if someone didn’t take you or if you didn’t read a good review. Pasta d’Oro looks like a very ordinary Italian restaurant from the outside, but apparently it’s quite popular with a lot of Genevans. A friend of mine recently suggested we meet there for dinner, and I quite enjoyed my meal. It’s probably not one of those places I’d want to go to every other week, but I definitely thought it was worth checking out.
Pictured below: gnocchi gorgonzola
Bat Dat is a Vietnamese restaurant located in Plainpalais. I kept hearing good reviews and though I never really went out of my way to have a meal there, I knew I’d definitely want to give it a try when I got the chance. Such an opportunity recently arose and I immediately seized it! And though I went there for dinner and Plainpalais turns into something of an unsavory neighborhood at night, I would definitely recommend Bat Dat. However, lunch might be a wiser option.
Now, to be honest, I was not familiar with Vietnamese cuisine. I’ve certainly had my share of Japanese, Chinese and Thai food, but Vietnamese flavors would certainly be a new - if welcome - experience to my taste buds. And let me tell you, it was an experience that did not disappoint! The ingredients used were fresh and the food was amazing, in fact I can’t wait to go back and sample a few more of Bat Dat’s dishes!
Pictured below: Bo Luc Lac, a delicious beef dish that had strong lemon and cilantro flavors (I cannot overemphasize how much I love cilantro but I know a lot of people think it kind of tastes like soap) and a side of rice noodles. I think Bat Dat tends to serve Bo Luc Lac with steamed rice, but I just felt like having noodles.
Left to my own devices, I would probably mostly go out to have Italian, French and Chinese food and every now and then I’d throw some Middle Eastern, Thai and Japanese meals into the mix. But sometimes you want to try something slightly more exotic and I find it is often a pleasant surprise when you do!
That is probably the kind of mood I was in when I decided to enjoy a Korean meal with some of my friends recently. I asked around, and was told the best place to go in Geneva is Maison de Corée, located near Quai de Seujet… and I thought “pourquoi pas??”
Well, the food was good, the staff was friendly and we had a great evening!
Pictured below: Japchae, a noodle dish I had already tried and thoroughly enjoyed at Bamboo Garden, followed by Bibimbap, a traditional Korean dish, which includes rice, vegetables, an egg and beef.
Mamounia is a Moroccan restaurant located in Plainpalais, just as you cross the bridge. I hadn’t been to the restaurant in probably over a decade and we thought we would go check it out on a rainy Saturday evening - we’ve been experiencing a lot of those recently, haven’t we?
I don’t think much has changed over the years, Mamounia still makes a good couscous, which is what we wanted to have anyway.
Pictured below: couscous Mamounia, which includes semolina, merguez sausages, lamb, chicken, meatballs and various vegetables.
Café Universal is one of Geneva’s better known restaurants. Located in Plainpalais, it’s been around for a while, but I only recently had my first meal there, and though I had heard mixed reviews, I quite enjoyed it! My only complaint is that I asked for a medium rare ribeye steak and it came a little rare to my liking, but this is Geneva, and I think I’ve said this before, they hardly ever get the doneness right here. Oh well.
Pictured below: a ribeye steak with sides of vegetables and fries followed by a nutella crème brulée I would definitely recommend and if you like nutella!
Constantly finding new restaurantsyou actually want to tryin Geneva can be a bit of a challenge. But when I recently got my hands on some vouchers for the Mediterranean Grill, located in Plainpalais, I thought “Why not?” It turns out the Mediterranean Grill is actually a Turkish restaurant run by a very friendly gentleman.
The vouchers entitled us to a mixed appetizer platter and one of the specials as the main course. That day, the specials included lahmacun, a Turkish-style pizza, which we ordered mostly just because we wanted to taste it - but we were also drawn to some of the other items on the menu, so we ordered a couple of other dishes and paid the difference. The menu led me to believe there would be a few more veggies in my köfte dish, so that was a bit of a letdown but overall I enjoyed my meal at Mediterranean Grill and would definitely go back, though if a delicious Turkish meal in Geneva is what you’re looking for, Sofram certainly comes to mind as a worthy contender.
Pictured below: lavash, a Turkish flatbread, assorted appetizers, lahmacun, and finally, köfte served with bulgur, one of my favorite Turkish dishes. Oh and by the way, the zucchini fritter in the appetizer platter was absolutely amazing!
When it comes to chicken teriyaki, it doesn’t get much better than Shibata, but if sushi is what you’re craving, Takumi can definitely hold its own.
Pictured below: shrimp sushi and tamago.
In my previous post, I wrote about Geneva’s repeated failed attempts at producing a half decent doughnut. Of all the places that sell doughnuts here, only one is even worth trying, and not because their product tastes or feels like a real doughnut, not because anyone actually bothered to glaze it, but only because at least it meets one requirement: inside, it’s actually soft. And while it takes more than that to make a doughnut, it’s a whole lot more than anyone else can say about their attempts in this city.
So where does one get the round, soft pastry with a hole in the middle that isn’t quite a doughnut but comes closer than anything else in Geneva? Migros. Yep, yep, the supermarket chain operates boulangeries throughout the city and if you go to the one in Balexert you can get yourself a Swiss sugar doughnut. You can also get donuts that have vanilla or chocolate icing on them but I would skip those altogether.
