Latest Posts – TravelGal's Notes

July 31, 2023August 11, 2023

Haludovo Palace Hotel

Malinska, Krk/Croatia

Named after a nearby beach on the island of Krk in Croatia, Haludovo Palace Hotel was built in 1971 under the supervision of architect Boris Magaš. Designed in a mix of space age and monolithic Communist architecture style, it showed off modular shapes, concrete columns and beams and wood paneled interior.

A year after the opening, Bob Guccione, the founder of the “Penthouse” magazine, invested 45 million US dollar of hard-earned porn money into the hotel and opened the Penthose Adriatic Club casino. Officially, the Hotel and Casino project was supposed to improve the relations between the US and the then time Yugoslavia. Unofficially, it was a playground for the rich and famous. Haludovo Palace included the hotel and casino, several high-end cuisine restaurants, a number of cocktail bars, indoor and outdoor pools, saunas, tennis courts, and all sorts of entertainment imaginable.

“Penthouse” article about Haludovo Palace Hotel

Although the casino went bankrupt in 1973, the hotel, located near the village of Malinska in one of the most beautiful areas of Krk with turquoise blue waters and gorgeous sunset views, continued to flourish and attract celebrities of all kinds from around the world. The locals could not go anywhere near it, but the foreign dignitaries, actors, athletes and wealthy tourists were given a pass and allowed to soak up the sun, gamble in the casino and enjoy everything the premises had to offer.

Lobby bar back in the day and now. (*Vintage postcard via Donald Niebyl Spomenik Database*)

When the wars broke out in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the hotel first served as a shelter for refugees, and then was abandoned, remaining in a state of decay it is in today.

Outdoor pool area back in the day – Turistkommerc archive, CCN 221 0120, Zagreb, Croatia

Bulldozing it down would be tough, as all concrete structures of the huge hotel complex have only gotten harder and strongerwith time. Many investors were interested in buying the hotel, but only on condition of privatizing the beach and closing access to the public, which is not allowed by Croatian law. To this day it remains empty, decaying with time, but easily accessible to public, both from the upper road (well signposted), and the beach promenade.

April 12, 2022April 13, 2022

Spicy Salmon Bowl

I stumbled upon this gem by pure chance on Pinterest, or TikTok, or some other equally irrelevant site, and became an immediate convert! If you like fish, spicy sushi, japanese food, or anything connected with raw fucking salmon – I bet you will enjoy this dish as well! It is perfect for lazy fuckers whose culnary skills did not progress further than boiling rice (which, truth be told, is not as simpe as it seems…) or chopping fish.

Ingredients

All ingredients here are given for 1 portion that would do for a medium-hungry salmon-loving individual. My other half hates fish in general and salmon in particular with a passion, and believes that together with tomatoes it should be banned (don’t ask!), so I enjoy this deliciousness all by myself. And I do NOT feel guilty about it.

100 gr fresh raw salmon
50-60 gr of sushi rice (If you want your dish to be fucking amazing – use proper rice. If you can’t be arsed to find the sushi rice – any other would do, but don’t say I did not warn you! Pro-tip – it’s very fucking hard to pick up Basmati or Jasmine rice with chopsticks!…)
for the sauce:
- 1 tbsp of Japanese mayonnaise (you can use the regular mayo, but Japanese one is sold in all Asian shops and is richer, thicker and just tastes fucking better!)
- 1tsp of sesame oil
- 1 tsp of Sriracha spicy sauce
- 1 tsp of regular soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp of sugar
1/2 or 1/3 of avocado
1/2 cucumber (a regular-size garden variety, NOT the scary dildo-looking greenhouse cucumbers)
scallions to garnish

Preparation

Boil the rice. The easiest and most non-stressy way of doing this is to cover the rice with about 100 gr of water (or about twice as much water as you have rice). Bring it to the boil, turn the heat down to the minimum, cover the pot with a lid, leaving just a tiny slit for the air to escape, and leave it the fuck alone for about 10-15 min. By the time you are done, there should not be any water left in the pot. If some stubborn liquid still remains, cover the pot with the lid completely, and leave on low heat for another 3-5 minutes.

Chop the salmon into bite-size cubes.

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a small bowl, make sure they are stirred through, and fuck the salmon into the sauce. Mix well, so that the salmon is well coated. Sprinkle with chopped scallions.

Chop the fresh cucumber into tiny cubes. Slice the avocado into thin slices.

Put the hot rice into the bowl, and arrange all other ingredients on top of it. Salmon with sauce on one side, cucumber on the other, avocado on top or on the side – whichever your fucking like.

You can eat it with chopsticks in a proper and posh way, picking up a bit of each ingredient and savouring the taste. Or mix the shit out of everything and devour the mix with a table spoon making undignified but happy noises as you eat. Either way – you WILL enjoy it!