Mangia!

Food, food, food. Is that all you people ever think about?

Allyson: "Post more food pictures!"
Dick: "More pictures of food!"
Travis: "OMG!"
Carol: "What did you eat today?"

Well, I guess somebody's got to do it. How I suffer for my readers.
But it sure is fun getting hungry in Italy.

What??

I know, I know. Sushi? Give me a break, Candice. You're in Italy! But I had to give myself a break. This Italian eating is not normal for me. I was beginning to feel like a canoli and I'm not even in Sicily yet. I wanted something light and...light. So I had a day of fruit and yes, sushi.

How was it? you wonder. Good. Good as Seattle sushi. It was a nice enough restaurant, next to my hotel, recommended by some. Slick. Plain walls. Sushi bar as you enter. Skinny gay Japanese waiters in pointy shoes speaking Italian. That was weird. Frazzled manager type out front. The name of the place is Koko's.

Did I have fun? No, I did not.

It was the worst dining experience I've had in Italy. Here's the thing: traveling alone, dining alone, doesn't bother me in the slightest. I enjoy it. Every now and then, however, there is a distinct reaction by the people working in a restaurant to a solitary woman. This was one of those times. I was seated at a crappy little dark table near the kitchen. I told the waiter I wanted a table with light. He went and asked the manager if that was okay. He moved me. No eye contact. Ever. People were coming in behind me: couples mostly. Every table of two or more (with a man) had their orders taken before me. They were also served before me. I noticed that two young women seated together were served almost grudgingly.

I waited. I steamed a bit. I finally got my sushi and ate it. I wanted something more, but instead I got up from my table, went to the cashier's desk where the smarmy little manager began to take my money without looking at me.

"You know," I said, partly in Italian and not at all in Japanese, "I write a blog about travel and food and restaurants, and I also post reviews on Trip Advisor. I'm going to write about this place and tell them what terrible service you have."

Mr. Manager-type turned fourteen colors of white. One of his waiters helped translate. The sushi chef, who was Brazilian, watched from behind the sushi bar and nodded at me encouragingly. I made my position clear. The manager stuttered and cringed and apologized, but he took my money. Then he followed me outside, whining.

"But what did we do?" he asked plaintively. I made my position clearer. I explained what I'd witnessed, that I had been disrespected and that a woman alone deserves at least equal treatment to anyone else dining in his establishment and that I sure as hell hadn't received it. I'm paraphrasing, but not much. Then I turned on my heel and walked back to the hotel where I ate some chocolate.

The following night's meal was the perfect opposite.

Walk into Trattoria Gigi, on the south side of the Arno (there are a "left bank" and a "right bank" in Florence, but I can't figure out which is which: I suppose it depends on which way you're looking), and you're in a family dining room. Gigi seats about twenty, although I'm sure they'd find a way to squeeze in a few more if necessary. I walked in immediately after a British family of four, who mamma was showing to a table when she saw me. "Cinque?" she asked (five?), for Viviana speaks not a word of English. When I smiled and shook my head, she beamed back and nodded. "Ah, sola," she said, and showed me to a fine little table with a view of everything.

The menu at Gigi is not long, but it's long enough. It took me two seconds to settle on osso buco and an insalata mista, a half liter of mineral water (frizzante--that's with bubbles. I love bubbles), and a quarter liter of the house red wine. Viviana herself took my order. A few minutes later she came back. The osso buco comes with spinach. Would I like the salad instead or would I prefer the spinach? Oh, no, say I (Popeye being a distant relative), I'd like the spinach. Then no salad, says Viviana, more a statement than a question.

She was right, of course. By the time I finished every last speck on my plate except the round bone, I had no room whatsoever for a salad.

She and her son Francesco stopped at the table every now and then to check on my progress, or smiled from across the room as they tended their other customers. Of course Viviana did talk me into a dessert, promising it was small and not too sweet, also true.

The ricotta filling was lightly sweetened, the darker part made of sweet-tart cherries, the cake a thin layer of something just denser than a sponge cake. Perfect with the last few sips of wine.

I'm loving these house wines. In Tuscany, they are invariably sangiovese, but they differ one from the next. Gigi's was deeper than many I've tried. Most house wines here are a local version of chianti, a minimum of 80% sangiovese with a variable amount of canaiolo and Malvasia biancha, a white grape. The housemade wine at La Bruciata, the agriturismo in Montepulciano, was 100% sangiovese, young and light but entirely drinkable as a table wine. These are happy wines, meant to accompany a good meal, a bite then a swallow of wine, a bite then a swallow of wine. They are unassuming and friendly wines, drunk sometimes from plain little unstemmed glasses.

Which brings me to "fancy". This food ain't. It's not composed. It's not fusion. It's just real food made from fresh ingredients. My osso buco was cooked by Viviana's son Riccardo. Before him, it was cooked by Viviana's husband Gigi, or by grandma Bruna. Francesco speaks English and is both waiter and translator. It's a family affair.

I have some more restaurant stories to share, about other people I've met and connected with. Except for the sushi place, eating out alone in Italy has been wonderful. I have names and faces and yes, more food pictures to prove it.

Not to mention the other places and stories to tell. Stay tuned!

Comments

[Char]

Love it!! Boop would be proud!

[Jeanne]

Great food photos - which I love! (As you probably may remember from our Bucerias trip a long time ago!). And I agree with Char - those raspberries look wonderfully delicious!

That sushi place should go out of business!!! That's the nicest thing I could say without a lot of 4 letter words!

[Candice]

Oddly enough--and I'm sure you'll appreciate this, Char--that dessert was actually breakfast. When I saw it in the case in the restaurant and ordered it at 11 a.m., it was just a big bowl of giant raspberries. When the waiter brought it out, it was festooned with whipped cream and cookies. Hey, what could I do? I ate it.
xo
C

[Char]

Good for you for not leaving until you told them! I like the looks of the dessert just before the sushi pic....which I think must be the raspberries at the end too. Keep on eating!