Tuesday 16 October 2012

Pescara - Italy

I guess some people would say that I’m fairly lucky when it comes to my job. Take last week for example, I spent almost the whole working week in Pescara, one of the (many) seafood meccas of Italy. In-between the meetings, training sessions and more meetings, I managed to sneak in quite a bit of decent scran.
Squid and octopus are always high on the menu here, so warm salads piled with the stuff just seemed to materialise out of the kitchen with alarming regularity. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good bit of baby octopus, but at every single freaking meal?
We ate on the sea front, in the mountains and round the bay at restaurants with names I cannot remember through the haze of red wine. But they all had something in common; a lot of food. And by ‘a lot’ I mean stomach bulging, will breaking amounts. Seven courses seemed to be minimum and did not include coffee or aperitif so we often didn’t get back to the hotel before 12:30am. Tough, I know you will agree.
But on to the food! Menu construction was classic Italian and if you have already had the pleasure of such things then I welcome you as a culinary brother or sister. If not, then let me explain. Drinks come with various nibbles; bruschetta or olives. You know, something to just start you off.
Then starters come in two forms; cold followed by warm. If you are lucky and in a good restaurant, there are sometimes several dishes of both. 

Cold starters - top left was a sardine, monk fish, octopus (again) and stuffed mussels




Swordfish and pickled veg

Scampi - Italiano style
Cold starters - ham carpaccio with orange, langoustine, two types of fish and my personal favourite: fresh anchovy

 Pasta, or sometimes risotto, can depend on the number of guests at the table. Usually only one choice in a posh place or up to three if you are going native.

Secondi follows and it is only now that you get what we would hesitantly call a main course. This is the dish which is probably the most complicated in terms of ingredients. I much prefer simple Italian cooking to the more fancy so for me, by the time we get here I am usually already done in!

The chard was an interesting addition but most diners left theirs!











Posh nosh? Well, you can't have it every day...


















Dessert, of course, and then sorbet. Again, you can tell how posh you are eating by the presentation but rest assured, the taste is usually fantastic  if you are eating out of a champagne flute or plastic cup!

The custard creme inside was mmmmm

Finally coffee and digestif.  If I can remember through the copious amounts of local wine I would have consumed by this point, I always ask for Lemoncello. Good Lemoncello should be served straight from the freezer with the glasses only seconds behind. Warm Lemoncello should be sent away with a look of disgust and a warning to the waiter that his mother would be ashamed of him.
Genuine, authentic Italian food is one of my absolute favourite ways to waste an afternoon and possibly even an evening too. But be warned, just because you are in Italy, on the coast and starting to wind down with a bottle or three of very reasonably priced local wine, does not mean that you can relax. Chewy, unpleasantly overcooked langoustines are still being unwittingly coaxed onto plates by chefs who think foreigners won’t notice, exactly when you least expect it. Still, the sauce was nice.

Thought I wouldn't notice eh? But the pasta was cooked perfectly and the reduced sauce was delicious


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