So I finally got my Italian Dinner. It's difficult to go out here because most places don't even open for dinner until 6:30 or 7! And if you know Emily at all, that girl likes her dinner at 5. Promptly at 5, sometimes a little before 5, but absolutely NO LATER THAN 5! Here she is eating french fires aka pape fritte at our Italian Dinner. They love french fries here. Every place we've been to (except the exclusively pizzaria) has had french fries on the menu. Their french fries are just the way I like them too. Big steak fries that are crispy on the outside and nice and potato-ey on the inside. They are also gluten free so a safe bet for the kids.
We ended up going to Citta Cooperativo, a local cooperative that gets local food and changes their menu regularly based on what is in season and what they can get. They also have local beer and wine which I love. Here is my "medium" sized beer, a local Belgium style ale that was very tasty. Nice and light and great for a summer evening. Aaron put Ryan's 6" Darth Vader action figure next to it for some perspective.
I decided to try and do a very "local" menu not just with food from around here, but choosing items that are from this region. First we started with the Antipasta. A selection of local meats and grilled polenta. Polenta, apparently, is a northern Italian speciality and one that Bergamo likes to claim. There is a "fast food" polenta place down the street where they will pull you a bowl of polenta out of a machine that looks a little like a soft serve ice cream maker and then they put your toppings of choice. Salsicca, funghi (mushrooms), cheese, chicken, beef, and lots of other stuff. This plate had three different kinds of meat (which of course I did not write down so I do not remember) a salami and two kinds of prosciutto. There are many different kinds of prosciutto here. I could do an entire blog post on just the different kinds of prosciutto.
Then we had some Casoncelli. This is also a very typical Bergamo food. It is a pasta kind of like a ravioli only it is folded over in half. It has cheese, meat, and vegetables inside but also something sweet that kind of pops in your mouth at the end. We've had two versions of it now and they were both good, but a little different. In this version it was served in butter with prosciutto, sage, and Parmesan cheese on top. The other one had fried basil on top that was AMAZING. Casoncelli is also found in just about every restaurant in Bergamo.
They also served us bread. Everything here comes with freshly baked bread. And they don't give you a slice or two per person. Here they gave us a heaping basket of freshly baked bread. And when we got close to finishing it? Replaced with another basket of freshly baked bread. I thought I didn't miss bread. All I can say is, Paleo is dead to me. Bread is delicious.
For the main course, I had rabbit and buckwheat polenta. I have never had rabbit before, but it was delicious. They are cute, but they are also tasty. It tasted like it had been slow cooked because the meat just fell off the bone. There was no gaminess to it at all, but it had a unique taste to it. Paired with the creamy, cheesy polenta brought out the meaty, savoriness of the meat. I would totally eat rabbit again.
Aaron had a pork loin sliced super thin with a balsamic vinegar reduction. He said it was incredibly tender and tasty. I was too busy with my rabbit to steal a bite.
Ryan stole the camera so that he could take a picture of his dinner. Peanut Butter and Jelly on gluten free bread and french fries. I have to say, as a culinary commentary on his meal, the jelly here is amazing. I don't think it is quite as sweet as our jelly and it has more of a fruity taste to it than a sugary taste. And the peanut butter isn't too shabby either. We'd been eating Trader Joe's unsalted, unsweetened peanut butter for a few years now, and to have peanut butter with both salt and sugar (not too much though) made my taste buds do a happy dance.
And what is the perfect finish to an Italian Dinner? Tiramisu of course. This version is not gluten free (we did find one that is and it was delicious too. I posted a picture of it half way through our dessert destruction) so Ryan had a big bowl of chocolate gelato. Emily and Aaron helped a bit, but Ryan was happy to dig in.I wish I had taken a picture of our server. He was probably 6 and a half feet tall with dark hair and a fantastic dark beard. He completely fell in love with Emily. She would bat her eyes at him and give him a coy smile and he would laugh and say adorable things in Italian to her. After dinner, as I was paying the check and Aaron was getting the kids ready to go, he came all the way out to the front of the restaurant to say "Ciao". It was really cute.
All in all, it was a successful night. They are doing a Paella night on Thursday and I'm hoping we can get the kids to behave again. I will bribe them with french fries.
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