Delicious Meals in Italy 2013

Arufa and M vacationed in Italy in October.  They drove west from Florence to Santa Margherita and Portofino, zigzag across the country to Venice and finally Rome.  Besides sightseeing and shopping, they indulged in the traditional Italian food – a lot of pasta, seafood and funghi.  

Some of the dishes they enjoyed in Florence included a salad of burrata and crispy zucchini and tagliatelle with cherry tomato and basil.

On their way to Portofino, they stopped at Lucca for fritto misto, ravioli, and pasta with squid.

 

To celebrate the porcini season, they ate pasta with porcini in Santa Margherita.

In Venice, they feasted on gamberi (large shrimps), scampi, and spaghetti with clams.

Arufa and M visited Eatery Roma, the humongous branch of the giant international high-end supermarket chain (it has locations in Tokyo and NYC).  They had dinners at various restaurants there.  The pan of fried calamari, shrimps and anchovies was wonderful, 

but not as much as the tartufo bianco dishes, such as the eggs with a generous amount of shaved white truffle, 

or a “menu tartufo” consisted of three items on a plate – tajarin (a Piedmonte egg pasta), egg and polenta, and a fondue of Raschera cheese, milk, butter and egg, all of which were topped with white truffle.  The latter two were served in aperitif glasses.

Arufa and M’s meals in Italy were rustic and simple but deliziosa!

Seafood in Croatia

We tried squid in three different Croatian towns, Hvar, Split and Dubrovnik - Hvar came out on top with the sweetest tasting.  We did not have an actual meal in Hvar, it was more like an afternoon snack, so it could have some bearing on our tastebuds.  The squid was grilled with very little oil and the tentacles were very crispy.  

Squid and risotto in Hvar

The lunch in Split was very interesting.  We were browsing menus along the waterfront tourist strip when we were approached by the waiter at one of the restaurants.  He proposed a custom menu for us and negotiated a price for the two fishes and squid that the four of us would like to try.  The emphasis was on "fresh" fish versus "frozen" - they were both on the menu and differently priced.  I have to give bonus points to the Croatian restauranteurs for their honesty.   Obviously we went for the "fresh" although these days with the expert fresh freeze techniques on fishing boats, could one really tell the difference?  It was also difficult to tell whether we got a good deal or not but we rather liked the waiter's personality, we were tired and hungry, so we sat down.   The fish and squid both turned out to be excellent.  

"Fresh" fish and squid in Split

In Dubrovnik, we were even more tired and hungry and practically sat down at the first place that we could - a narrow alley in the tourist strip.  Dubrovnik is so crowded with tourists these days that I'm sure anyone with a hole in the wall could make some money cooking fish for hungry tourists.  This particular hole seemed to be a family-run business but it didn't charge any less than the hotel-run restaurant in Split.  The food had a little more grease but still fresh and quite tasty.  I guess the proximity to the sea really helped.  While the food on board our cruise ship Azamara was excellent, you could count on anything we had to be frozen, well, "fresh" frozen.  We most certainly didn't have fish like this.

A week later in a Tuscany street market, the fishmonger identified for us the difference between the squid, calamari and octopus.  From that lesson, I would say that we had squid at all three Croatian towns.  We also had small fried fish in Dubrovnik - when we got to Cinque Terre in Tuscany, we found that they were anchovies - clearly quite different and tasted much better than the anchovies I tasted here in Canada, usually of the soggy variety and usually on pizza!