Ciao down

So sorry for the minor blogging hiatus, I was in Milan for the long weekend sans internet access. And honestly, I did not do as much eating as I wanted to. I think I spent more money on subway tickets than anything else.

Street eats

Here's the lowdown:

1. Apertivo is genius
2. I did not like the Italian pizza I tried
3. I had the best pomodoro of my life at our hotel restaurant
4. Spanish coffee > Italian coffee
5. Italian pastries are otherworldly
6. HOLY SHIT GELATO





So apertivo is this fantastic thing where you buy one (supremely overpriced) drink and then you have access to an all-you-can-eat bar of delicacies. We went to this one bar twice it was so good. They had everything from foccacia and raw salmon to hard boiled eggs to spicy sausage and vegetables and chocolate croissants. And the drinks were seriously strong.

Italian pizza has great crust, very light and flaky, but I prefer very saucy pizza and this was heavier on the cheese than the tomato. That's fine for them, I'll stick to the classic Chicago Lou Malnati's.

When Tommy and I finally got to our hotel (which was family owned and no one spoke a word of English), we were starving so we decided to eat at the restaurant attached. We ordered plain pomodoro, which is basically spaghetti with tomato sauce. Seriously the best pomodoro I've ever experienced. I know hunger is the best condiment but this sauce was velvety and so tomato-y and garlicky and the pasta was perfectly cooked and I could have eaten a gallon of it. Damn.







Italian coffee is really not all that strong and it's impossible to get more than a drop of it wherever you go. We had some dope cappuccinos at the Duomo but once you got past the foam you were ready for another. Or like, 6 more. Why doesn't Europe understand the concept of a large coffee? WHY???





Italian pastries...good god. I could write an entire blog post about them. We only got one we didn't like which was this cherry-jam covered square that looked unreal and sort of just tasted salty and like anchovies or something. Not poppin'.

Everything else was fantastic. We had your basic apple/pear strudel with unbelievably flaky pastry crust but it needed more filling. Twice we got this bread thing with sugar clumps on it that tasted sort of like challah with some orange extract. Super fluffy and perfect for dipping in tea/coffee/hot chocolate. I want more right now. We also had these little twisty pastry sticks with chocolate or orange marmalade in them which were this unbelievably light and crunchy texture and covered in powdered sugar. Messy, delicious, totally worth the calories. My only request is more flavors.

And last but certainly not least...gelato. Man. Gelato. I can't really eat it because it has too much fat and it would make me puke but Tommy and my boy Bernie who is studying abroad in Milan both let me sample theirs. Cruel, cruel world. It's so much better than ice cream because there's almost no air in there so it's a lot richer and smoother. We stopped at this one little place after a picnic in the park and I got a tiny scoop of pistachio covered in dark chocolate and it was (almost) all I needed to be happy. An enormous scoop on top of a cone filled with dark chocolate would've been better but one can't have everything.

Delicious.

So now that we're back, Tommy and I are going to try out the Paleo diet: no grains, no dairy and technically no legumes but I'm not sure how that'll go over because I need peanut butter to live. So stay tuned for Paleo recipes and probably a whole lot of whining on my part.

Chestnuts roasted on an open fire...literally.