Croatia, Final Days

There was no post for yesterday as I had spent a long day in Montenegro, and was too tired to write anything worth reading. We didn't really eat out anyway. I also couldn't bring myself to break the nice continuity of the titles for eating out in Croatia.
We were recommended to try a specific restaurant in Kotor, a town in Montenegro, by the guide. I fact we were recommended it so many times that I was certain there was some sort of deal between tour company and restaurant, that I decided I wanted to choose my own place to eat. The restaurants/ cafes were much the same as you can find it Dubrovnik, a nod towards local dishes mixed with pizza and pasta. We gave this a miss and headed for a busy bakery that you could smell before you saw. I had a panzeroti- for those of you that know your Italian baked goods you'll no doubt have realised that this is very much the same as panzerotti. For those of you that don't know, it's basically a calzone made with a softer, thicker dough. Like Croatia, Montenegro has a lot of Italian influence- it was ruled by the Venetian Republic in the middle ages. I sought shade on the side steps of an orthodox church to eat my snack before heading to the market, a small stretch of stalls by the walls of the city. I picked up a jar of honey, and a bottle of kruškovača, pear liqueur. It was a far cry from the beautiful food markets that I've been to in Spain and Italy- everything bottled comes in reused containers, and the produce is constantly swarmed with bees. But I tried both my purchases before buying and was happy with my choices.
Today, our final full day, we did what you shouldn't- returned to eateries we had already tried. For lunch we just picked up some more pastries from a bakery to eat as and when we wanted. In the evening, we returned to Klarisa, the lovely, if pretentious, courtyard restaurant. I've has rather a lot of seafood this week, so I countered it with a rib-eye steak with a cognac sauce.

To follow, I had what the menu called chocolate cube ("more of a tetrahedron", as remarked by my Dad), with ice cream, and English Sauce (a not too bad attempt at translating crème anglaise). 

Having eaten a very decadent meal out, I do feel a twinge of guilt at my opinion of it. It was nice, certainly. But not brilliant. Perhaps there was too much effort devoted to stacking the meal into turrets and swirls. I suppose it was lacking it flavour,- the steak not quite meaty enough, the pudding not dark and intense enough, everything slightly muted. This meal in particular summerises my feelings towards the food experiences I have had in Croatia- it's all overshadowed by the setting.