two Bologna dinners

Last Bologna post.  That feels a bit sad somehow.  A small sense of melancholy that mirrored how I felt knowing that we were done with one of our holiday destinations.  Ah well.

But cheer up, Peter:  we're going to talk about food!  YAY!

We had two nicer meals booked for Bologna.  Unlike on Ischia (and later in the trip), neither was a tasting menu.  Both were, happily, a la carte.  I say that only because we actually ate moderately, all things considered and did NOT spend a night clutching our bellies, overly full.  No, instead these were simpler meals.  Fancy enough food, but simpler.

And speaking of fancy and simple....

First up was at our hotel, I Conoscenti.  We had a nice little nook of sorts in the dining room and ordered cocktails.  The Tribute to Jerbis for me. 

We later moved to a bottle of luscious red wine. 

Oh, so good.  You know those wines that you can just sit and breathe in and enjoy the bouquet for so long,

not wanting to let it go and actually drink it?  And then it's so good when you do drink it?  Yeah, that was this.  Heaven.

We received our breads

and gazpacho amuse

and then the first course.  The panzanella with shrimp carpaccio for me. 

Delicate and lovely.  My main was the roasted octopus,

and it was tasty, but I admit, I had my heart set on the pigeon for dinner.  Alas, it was not available.  Darn it.  These two handsome guys, meanwhile, had steak, and it was super tender and good.  What lovely company they are!

No dessert for us, though I dimly recall that I ordered an amaro.  And that was the first of our two fine meals in Bologna.

Meal two:  dinner at Ahimè.  But first, aperitivos!  The restaurant was just the other side of the market from the hotel, so when we headed past the market entrance, we stopped into a bar across from it, Bar Mercato. 

I may have had two drinks, a Clover Club

and then a Negroni. 

Cool little place aside from the smoke wafting in from the smoker parked outside the open door.  Ah well.  Drinks done, we popped around the corner and into the restaurant.

It was in an article that Van sent me that I learned of the restaurant, and I was intrigued.  Oh, I should say that we got a lot of suggestions from friends as to where to dine in Bologna, and we were grateful, but I already had this one booked by that point.  We sat at the kitchen counter with a great view in,

and - typical us - we were among the first in the restaurant. 

A small crew of guys ran a tight ship - that kitchen was CLEAN - but they weren't the warmest, at least not until we asked one if he was watching the big soccer game going on in the city that night.  That cracked the ice a little.  We perused the menu and ordered a wine that similar to and almost as good as the night before. 

As for the food...

Bread service.  I always love a good bread service.

A nice, light starter made from cucumber but with tapioca.  Really interesting.  Yes, I lusted after some of the other starters, but I was glad to get something not as rich and heavy in me.

Duck breast, cooked right.  I get wary of duck at restaurants because all too often it is chewy.  No, every time I had duck in Italy, I was in good hands.

Peaches with wine sauce and vanilla pastry cream.  I liked the idea, but I was surprised that the peaches were not as ripe as I would expect, nor was there anything done to them to mitigate that.

Figs and fig leaf gelato.  Figs were everywhere in Italy, and I couldn't be happier about it.  The better of the two desserts.

Ahimè was a good meal, a modern meal, and I was glad we went, but it was not the warmest experience we had in Italy.  I'd recommend it, and I would want to try some more of their menu myself,

but of the two fine meals in Bologna, the first was the more enjoyable for how completely we enjoyed service, setting, food, and drink.

Italy recap: other Bologna sightseeing

Hey y'all, I know that there has been a barrage of posts.  Thanks for bearing with me.  Almost done Bologna - one more after this one - and then we're basically halfway through the trip.  Yay!

Also, I head out of the country on Saturday, and I want to make space in my blog for posts from that trip....

So, let's barrel through with Bologna.  A post to sum up what other sightseeing and the like that we did, and another later to highlight the two nice dinners we had in the city.  And then it will be on to Lake Como!

The day after the tasting tour, the skies were gloomier.  No rain, not yet when we went out, but gloomier.  We actually stopped in a few stores that day to find a warmer layer, a jacket for each of us, because it had cooled off so much.  But otherwise, our first destination was lunch over near where we had ended the tour the day before.  051 Osteria Santo Stefano was our goal.  Tigelle, a local bread recommended by Sarah, was my goal. 

Oh, we had other food as well.  I ended up with fried tortellini, which were tasty. 

I also had an amarena spritz

or some such concoction which ended up being a mildly boozy sour cherry soft drink.  I say that with appreciation!

Lunch in our bellies, we wandered to a nearby building that we knew we could get roof access from to see the city.  Alas, the city on a grey day was not stunning. 

The building was pretty cool, however.  Those stairs! 

That Jesus! 

Fantastic.  The rest of the afternoon consisted of poking in a few stores and - more than likely, I cannot fully recall - a nap.

We had dinner plans at the hotel that night - see the next blog entry when it posts - but we still went out in search of an aperitivo.  We made ourselves pretty

and headed along the portico to the bar at the Grand Hotel Majestic già Baglioni for drinks at the bar.  A beautiful bar,

and we perched at it rather than at a table.  The bartender, from what we gathered, was missing a colleague because of traffic or something, and he was harried.  We felt for him.  But we enjoyed our drinks and snacks. 

A breakfast martini for me, and:  yum!

The next day it rained.  A lot.  We did squeeze in a wee bit of shopping, but the day was otherwise our only other museum day in Italy. 

I've posted a bit already, but for your enjoyment, some further works from La Quadreria

and the Museo Civico Medievale. 

In between the two we headed back to the Mercato delle Erbe and once again enjoyed piadine and Lambrusco for lunch.

And, finally, a library.  I don't actually visit libraries much on my travels (that will change next week!), but Conrad and I did quickly check out the Biblioteca Salaborsa while Van was relaxing in the room.  Pretty impressive!

The weather conspired against us somewhat, alas.  Ah well.  You get the weather you get while on vacation, and you make the most of it, right?!

the ten tastings of Bologna

No, I didn't count.  Hmmm...  No, Not going to.  We tasted plenty that day.

We didn't do too many organized activities whilst in Italy.  No particular objection to doing them, but we wanted a lot of freedom to do or not do things while on the trip.  Still, it's good not to leave everything to chance - we made some restaurant bookings before leaving the US as well - and so it was that I booked us a walking tour of Bologna:  the Ten Tastings of Bologna, booked through the WithLocals site.

It was a beautiful sunny day in Bologna, though we knew the porticoes would provide us protection from the sun.  The three of us set out

the few blocks west to the Mercato delle Erbe to meet Sarah, who took us inside and had the tastings begin.  We actually spent a goodly amount of time in the small market, admiring the produce and such,

but also tasting things.  Tortellini en brodo

from a shop where the tortellini was made by hand according to strict rules - Bologna has a lot of official rules about size and shape and more for its signature dishes, it seems - accompanied by a Lambrusco. 

Piadine from another shop

- this was already shaping up to be a more than sufficient lunchtime-ish activity.  A tasting of cheeses from another shop. 

No, we didn't try the horse meat,

though I've had it before and would be game for it again.  We also sampled (and bought) some of the really syrupy good, aged balsamic vinegar.  Leaving the market, we scooted around the corner and tasted olive oils and chocolate, again resulting in purchases.

Sarah took us east toward the university at that point, indicating to us interesting features of the city.  Some of the buildings and porticoes we had already seen came into more vivid detail for us, and that was a great complement to the tastings.  We ended up at Camera A Sud,

sitting outside,

devouring a platter of mortadella (or, as we know it here, baloney)

and drinking an effervescent pignorello wine, a regional specialty. 

That was a great stop, the three of us leaning in as Sarah notated a map for us for future reference.  And how funny to find, when I had to use the restroom, a sticker on the toilet tank from Conrad's neck of the woods!

But Sarah wasn't done, and I have to say, I really appreciate how she gave us extra time (and I hope we tipped suitably) because she didn't otherwise have a busy day after the tour.  She next took us to a bakery to try the local rice cake, really a rice pudding/cake hybrid. 

We bought some other pastry from there and then headed to the Fabbri shop. 

We love the cherries for our cocktails (and the syrup is delicious drizzled on ice cream), but I was tickled to find an array of other products. 

So, of course, I shopped!

And still there was a stop to go.  I think Van

was the most thrilled that we had a gelato stop because he had wanted gelato at each destination in Italy (and we sort of reached that goal, I think).  Cremeria La Vecchia Stalla had a line out the door

but handled things briskly.  I got a simple cream gelato with amerena cherry and the marsala-flavour, a small scoop of each. 

We devoured them outside the shop along with so many others, and then Sarah took her leave.  We wandered back to the hotel, delighted by the tour, grateful that we had booked it.  In fact, we enjoyed it so much, I sought out and booked another such tour in Como for later in the trip!

The day made for quite the lunch, truly.  And we weren't all that hungry, but eventually we needed dinner.  We decided to check out the cocktail bar at the hotel

and grab some food there.  We had a booking for a dinner in the dining room the next night, so it was a nice preview of the menu.  I had the Jack's Road,

a sloe gin and tonic cocktail, and then the table began filling with food. 

My dinner was simple, a vegetarian dish of zucchini, ricotta cheese, and a pea and mint sauce. 

Gorgeous, right?  That made us excited for the next night.  And even though we had had a filling day, we squeezed in a craquelin puff pastry to share

and an amaro for me.

The weather deteriorated in the next couple of days, but no matter.  We had had a beautiful day on foot seeing the city and sampling its dishes.  Bologna, though, still had treats to offer!