24 August 2011

Tonight: my worst culinary experience in Italy

My friends/followers know we like to go out for dinner/lumch and enjoy a good meal with a good glass of wine. And it doesn't need to be fancy, we appreciate honest food prepared with joy and love whether it costs 10euros or 100euros.

After this afternoon's pastalunch I fancied a good piece of fish so we went to Rosetto's boulevard where we expected to find some restaurant. Well we found some lido's and this particular place (no names, one could check my Foursquare postings if you really want to know) seemed pretty popular and had an inviting look.

The girls insisted on having pizza (it was a ristorante pizzeria) and Maddy and I choose some simple antipasti (affettato and bruschette) and a "sogliola (sole) mugnaia" for her and "spiedini di pesce griliati" for me. After OVER ONE HOUR waiting we finally got a plate of sliced ham and salami and 5 bruschette with that same ham and tomato slices. It would have taken me less then 5 minutes to prepare, so why did we had to wait over an hour for this?! The ham and salami were badly cut (too thick), the bruschette were not prepared (with oil and garlic) but just roasted and had a (too) thick slice of ham and tomato on them, impossible to eat with you hands as you should. But okay, maybe this is normal in Abruzzo, everything a bit more "rustico". 

In the meantime the girls received their pizzas, which were maybe okay to Dutch/German standards but any Italian pizzeria should be ashamed of itself serving these pizze.

And still I was hoping the fish would save the evening. That hope vaporised once the main courses arrived (30secs after we finished the ham) the sole was not even close to the one I had 3 evenings before.It was tough (maybe kept warm for over an hour) and I wondered if it was a reanimated frozen one. My fish skewers were prepared without any fantasy, just pieces of squid (tough, lousy quality) and shrimps (even mealy), no other fish, nor vegetables.

This was by far our worst culinary experience in Italy ever!