Susan & Arnie Travel

I’ve become addicted to these bomboloni-cream filled doughnuts from Cucciolo, Via del Corso 25r. Arnie doesn’t think they are the breakfast of champions. I say they have 3 major food groups: protein and dairy (eggs and cream in the filling) and simple carbohydrates. He made me go cold turkey today. So, since I was deprived this morning, having only high fiber cereal and yogurt with a delicious pear, I’m thinking a lot about food. I know I’m violating all manner of blogger rules by doing a retrospective report of our activity. Let the blogger police come after me. I also know that most of my friends and family don’t really care that much about where we are staying or our daily activity. You want to see the food! So here it is. You can skip the blah blah blah and scroll to the bottom to the link for the pictures, I’ll never know.

Let me start by stating some general observations then I will give you an outline of our last 2 weeks of eating in March. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, just the highlights. Please forgive me if I misspell a food name or two, I’ve had a big lunch with wine.

Some general observations. I can’t remember if I mentioned this already, but there is a trend we have seen in our lunch travels of Men Doing Lunch. Unlike the Women Who Lunch in the States, these are usually men in their later years that gather in groups of 4-5; at rustic Trattorias generally enjoy their food and friends. We have not seen Women Who Lunch. At one restaurant the men came in waves and didn’t wait for the rest of the party to arrive before ordering. They were all in different phases of their meal, giving advice about what the newest person should order and, to a man, complaining about the quality of their pears. That’s something else we saw: fruit for dessert. Just a piece of fruit on a plate. Most of the men peel and then slice their pears and apples and eat them with some pecorino cheese. It is usually the tourists who order a sweet. The one exception is Vin Santo with biscotti. You dip the hard biscotti into the sweet wine. Very yummy.

I love Freebies, especially the food or drink kind. In many restaurants we get freebies of either dessert or after lunch (we rarely go to dinner) drinks of limoncello (lemon liquor) or grappa. Now, I don’t accept the grappa, Arnie does, because I thought it tasted like lighter fluid. However, I have grown to like the really good stuff. At the Taste celebration that I’ve shared with you and the next day at the Slow Food Celebration (that I haven’t shared yet) we learned that Grappa and dark chocolate make a beautiful marriage. In fact, one vendor was serving Grappa in little chocolate cups. That was a bit messy for me, even though the taste was good. We met a delightful young woman (above) at the Slow Food event who is part of the Nonino family of Grappa makers. I told her I didn’t drink grappa and she told me I just haven’t had good grappa. She was correct. She gave us a taste of their grappa made with chardonnay grapes aged in oak. Wow. We bought the tiniest of bottles and I have had a tiny sip with dark chocolate a few times.



Another observation is stickers on restaurant doors. The stickers are usually those of guide books that one presumes mention the restaurant. The more stickers the better; or so we thought. We went into one restaurant based on the number and quality of the door stickers: Gambero Rosso (the Italian equivalent of the red Michelin guide); Slow Food; Faith Willinger’s Food Guide, etc. While we were waiting I recognized the tiles on the walls from an episode over 10 years ago with our friends Deb & Mitch. We went to the restaurant La Baraonda and waited for over an hour after having our pasta course. The horrified owner admitted that he forgot about us and brought our second course along with more wine. I usually don’t remember wall tiles but in this particular case I spent a lot of hungry minutes studying the tiles! Anyway, the new restaurant took over the La Baraonda space, and apparently, the door stickers. The food was excellent, the ravioli among the best. The waiter confirmed that the restaurant was previously La Baraonda, then brought us freebies of limoncello (me) and grappa (Arnie). When I told him how I remembered, he too was horrified and brought a second round of limoncello and grappa. Needless to say, we were through for the day. This was Arnie’s view on both occasions and why he remembered the restaurant.




Personally, I think this is bad art for a restaurant and am glad I had my back to her.

So, here is the rest of our restaurant list for March:

3/10/ Zio Gigi, Via F. Portinari 7r. Zio Gigi is 1 block from the back of the Duomo, off of our last apartment street Via Oriuolo. We thought we should eat local so we went in for lunch during our second week. The place was packed. We were the only English speakers. Zio Gigi would periodically burst into song. Arnie had the Pasta Carretiera (tuna, tomato, mushroom) and it was very spicy and delicious followed by the veal tonnato ( thin slices of cooked veal topped with a sauce made of pureed tuna and lemon and a little mayo.) I had the Spaghetti with cauliflower, again very flavorful and Rabbit with olives and potatoes, really good. For 10 euro a piece this was one of our most economical meals. We returned twice.


3/12 Trattoria Marione; Via della Spada, 27r, near Tournabouni, is another rustic Trattoria with the cold cuts hanging at the entrance. We started with a plate of Pecorino cheese with mostrado (a spicy condiment made with fruit and fire). I had the ravioli with butter & sage followed by the chicken cacciatore. Both were great. Arnie had the Pici Sogofinto. That translates into “false gravy” but it was a nice tomato sauce. He followed that with the pork shin, which was more tender than our first pork shin at Frescobaldi. We didn’t hear much English here either. There were tables of men doing lunch.


3/13 Trattoria Casalinga: Via dei Michelozzi 9r, near Chisea Santa Croce.
We love Casalinga, there is always a crowd, a mix of tourists and locals and everyone gets treated equally, not well, but equally. The food is good and basic and well priced. Arnie had the Baked Polenta that was like lasagna with polenta instead of the noodles and then the beef stew. I started with the Pasta with tomato sauce and the roasted rabbit, simple but tasty.



I love this picture


3/14 Olio e Convivium: Via Santo Spirito 4, up the steps and into the deli.

This is a lovely place, a bit fancier than our usual. They have wonderful salumi and cheese; great wines; and good food. We had the antipasti with cold cuts and cheese; Arnie had the tagliatelle with duck sauce and I had the risotto with mushrooms. This isn’t cheap but it is well priced.


3/15 Zio Gigi; Via F. Portinari 7r. Back to Zio Gigi for a Saturday night supper after stuffing ourselves at the Tastes event. We started with the appetizers of Crostoni (bread with stuff on top); Arnie had the Penne with bacon, porcini mushrooms and tomato sauce followed by the thinly sliced pork & arugula. I had a really good and well priced filet. The value per taste couldn’t be beat.


3/16 Il Barroccio, Via della Vigna Vecchia 31r. It was raining so we started to go to one restaurant but stopped here and we weren’t sorry. We were in a room with an Italian family and saw the salumi appetizer so we had to have that. It had great grilled vegetables as well as meats and was really good. Arnie had the gnudi, (ricotta balls) in a beautiful sauce and the bacallà (salt cod) that was very tasty. I had the ribolito (tuscan cabbage & bean soup) and a really nice chicken breast grilled with lemon and oil. We were very happy that we stopped. The rain stopped so we went for a walk and stumbled on a Slow Food Movement lecture with a free wine and food tasting. We didn’t stay for the lecture but we did drink great wine and eat great cheese and prosciutto. This is where I met a grappa I could love.


3/18 Ristorante Mama Gina, Borgo San Jacopo 37r. Mama Gina’s has a restaurant in Palm Dessert, California as well as the mother ship in Florence. This is a more upscale experience for us. I don’t always like upscale. We were seated in the front room, the English speaker’s room. It’s kind of like the kids table at family events. I had the ribolito again because it was still cold out and this is a stick-to-your-ribs soup and the fried lamb chops with fried artichokes. I had never seen fried lamb chops and now I know why. When they are breaded and fried it hides the gnarly bits. Arnie had the gnocchi with tomato sauce;; sliced steak with porcini mushrooms. He was happy.


3/20 Osteria Giovanni, Via del Moro 22, in the Santa Maria Novella neighborhood. Now this was up-scaleish but very fun. The owner was about 4’tall and he kept coming to the table looking like he wanted to make comments but he didn’t have much English and he figured out that I had limited Italian so he would stop by and smile and I would smile back, or, we would have “phrase” conversations: “Good.”; “We like it.”; “We ate well.” Anyway, this is worth a repeat visit. We started with a freebie of tomato soup with faro, delicious. Arnie had the ravioli with potato & mushroom stuffing and cream sauce with black truffles. There was an abundance of black truffles and the flavors were wonderful. I started with the spaghetti with cherry tomatoes and pesto; simple but very flavorful. Arnie had the veal scallopini with Porcinni mushrooms. The veal was very tender and the mushroom sauce great. I had the rabbit cooked in white wine with olives. Giovanni admitted to me that he prefers rabbit and really doesn’t like meat. This is shocking since he is part of the I Latini family who specialize in large portions of burnt protein. We qualified for our free Limoncello and had a great time.


3/21 Vini Vecchi Sapori:, via dei Magazzini 3. We returned here for Good Friday and I had the Ribolito, and Arnie had the penne with peas. We both had the Baccalà. I can’t remember the theater around us but there always is something.


3/23 Belcore, Via del’Albero 28/30r. We went to Belcore for Easter lunch and you’ve already read about that but the pictures are in this lot.


3/24 Trattoria ZaZa, Piazza Mercato Centrale 26r. This is one of the more touristy restaurants but the food was good. We sat downstairs in a colorful room. I started with the Tagliatelle with walnut sauce, just a bit rich and the rabbit stuffed with ground rabbit and pistachio. Arnie had the spaghetti carbonara and the sliced steak with arugula. There was a big group (12) of Italian 2- somethings who all ordered the Florentine bisteca (steak)


3/28 Trattoria 13 Gobbi :Via del Porcellana 9r. This is where we saw the Men Who Lunch. There was a equal mix of tourists and locals. Arnie had the Tagliatelle with duck sauce and the Baccalà. I had the taglierini with asparagus and the swordfish. Both our meals were very good.


3/30 Zio Gigi, Via F. Portinari 7r. We ended the month back at Zio Gigi for our last day in the neighborhood. I had the pasta with tomato sauce and ricotta, penne with spicy tomato sauce, veal chop, mixed grill of meats.



Here's the link to all of the pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/25519767@N06/8k21J8