Czech please!

So Israel, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Malta, Turkey, Romania and Finland go through. Which means we say goodbye to Montenegro, Czech Republic, Belgium, Belarus, Andorra, Switzerland, Bulgaria and FYR Macedonia.

The Czech Ali G looks gutted

Sadly this means we’ll never know what delights were to be had in the Czechoslovak Restaurant, West Hampstead for example, never raising to our lips Zabijačková polívka & chléb (Black pudding soup & bread sounds intriguing doesn’t it?). On the plus side with Switzerland and Belgium going out the chocolate and whaffle count drops, and no one will panic and end up in Belgo’s.

The loss of Bulgaria means we won’t be searching London for a bowl of hearty Bob chorba. And finding some Belorussians who could tell us about their cuisine and how the communists tried to completely reinvent it would have made a good read.

Anyhow, one semi final down, and one to go. Roll on Thursday…  And if you want to take part, I need your full name, your phone number and your blog details asap.

One continent under a groove

But what about the food?

The premise of this project is simple. 25 food bloggers will try to eat the cuisine of all 25 finalists in 25 hours within the confindes of the M25!

Of course the idea of a ‘national cuisine’ is a bit fanciful, with most countries in Europe having many regional specialities. So to make it a little more interesting we’ll try and get as near as we can to the area each artist is from, just for extra kudos.

This project was dreamt up by food journalist Andrew Webb, who woke up one morning and thought it would be a bit of a wheeze. Also on board are top food bloggers, Cheese and biscuits, Helen Graves, and Eat Like a Girl. If you want to get involved email/twitter DM him.

It all kicks off on Friday 15th May, where this blog will act as a hub for the 25 bloggers (or teams of bloggers if we get more), they’ll also be a flickr group for images from each of the restaurants or eateries… stay tuned.