two meals in Lezzeno

On two different evenings in Lezzeno we had a dinner that was featured the warmest hospitality and a dinner that was the biggest meal we had while on vacation.  That isn't meant to be a backhanded compliment.  I'll get to it.  Let's start out with dinner at Osteria Il Governo.

It was about an eleven minute walk along that narrow road with only occasional sidewalks to get to the osteria.  The restaurant has been in the family for seven generations, which is pretty darn cool.  The building had multiple dining rooms, and we were in the first, not far from the entrance, able to watch the bar and the comings and goings.

I'll talk about the food and drink in a moment, but here is what I loved about the place:  the people who tended to us.  All men, one of them the owner and host, they provided service that felt genuine.  Polished?  No, not entirely.  Who cares?  They made us feel as if it was their very real pleasure to take care of us, to bring us the food and drinks they were proud of.  The bartender came over and asked if he might make a special drink for any of us - I told him I liked gin and out came this fizzy and refreshing cocktail. 

The owner consulted with us on wine and we found ourselves yet again enjoying a delicious Italian red. 

Better still, when we asked him about a local amaro, he poured us some then comped the servings and even produced a bottle for us to buy when we inquired. 

That amaro is one of my prize items I returned with, and I plan to share it with friends to return that feeling of care and hospitality.

I also liked the food.  Yes, we had fancier food on the trip, but again, who cares?  The cold smoked lake trout carpaccio was very good. 

The duck breast with sweet and sour pink onion was also very good. 

The desserts - pavlova and brownie - again, very good. 

And then they brought out a dessert sampler. 

Was it on them, or did we pay?  I don't recall.  We enjoyed it all.  The restaurant interior felt cozy but not close. 

The night was an utter pleasure.  We walked home, stopping at the lovely little cemetery to admire it,

then made it back to the hotel and to bed.

Our last night in Lezzeno we had dinner at our hotel, the Filario.  The restaurant dining room had a fantastic view of the lake,

and although I will complain that they almost never had tables for more than two people with views at the windows, we could still see it getting darker over Lake Como.

As always, we started with cocktails,

though we opted for the wine pairing option for me and Conrad through dinner (Van didn't want to drink that much, so he stuck to his cocktail and maybe one more).  The wine pairing gives the game away - we did a tasting menu rather than a la carte.  Chef's choice, but we asked for it to veer more to meat for a change on the trip.  The various amuses and small bites then followed, each one quite good. 

I'll try to remember, with the help of the online menu, what else we had.

There was the duck egg with duck.

A pasta with truffles.  One of the best things I ate the entire trip.  Simple, so good.

A filled pasta topped with shavings of raw porcini.

Quail filled with sausage.

A palate cleanser of two carob - I think - filled pasta with a little gelato and olive oil.  This was extraordinary.

Crispy bread with butter ice cream.  Loved it!

An assortment of sweet treats ended the meal,

and I am fairly certain I once again had an amaro.  I think I also had a decaf cappuccino.  I think.  It was all so so very good.  And it was all so very much.  That pasta with truffles was not a small serving.  None of them really were.  All of us had a rough night after that, clutching our bellies.  Our own fault - our own greed got the better of us.  But ah, how awesome to taste it all!

Buenos Aires tour

Unlike our visit to Santiago, our time in Buenos Aires did not entail us leaving the city to see other places.  As with our visit to Santiago, we did have the benefit of a city tour.  A good tour, though perhaps there was a little much political commentary included.  Our fault (well, not mine!) for asking, I guess.  And hey, it kept us grounded in an actual local perspective rather than just on a level of what tourists might enjoy.

The first stop on the tour was in the nearby Recoleta neighbourhood.  En route there, we passed a park where, at a little after 9 in the morning, stalls were being set up for a market.  Artisans and craftspeople, local goods and wares.  I had to chuckle when the guide, Romina, told us that if we show up early for the market, there will be nothing there save for vendors asking us to pitch in to set up.  Buenos Aires, she said, is not an early morning city.  Nor was Santiago, we noticed, judging by what time Starbucks opened.  We drove past and parked near the Recoleta Cemetery.

I'm not a cemetery person.  Yes, they can be peaceful and lovely, and there is a lot of history contained within them, but I don't find them especially interesting.  No, I'm not creeped out, I just don't find them exciting to visit.  So I was a little skeptical of visiting the cemetery, especially since the focal point for many is the tomb in which Eva Peron is interred. 

And sure enough, there were plenty of tourists around it.

That said, looking at the tombs from the perspective of art and architecture, through the lens of the histories of local communities (we noticed a lot of Armenian names, for example), even as insight into real estate was all quite interesting.  Romina did an excellent job of fielding questions, and I came away from that visit happy enough to know a little more of Buenos Aires.

Next up, a quick stop at the opera house.  We had driven past, and Natasha - an opera fan - wanted to see it close up.  So we did!  What was cool was the corridor that had once been the passageway through which carriages passed as they dropped off opera attendees. 

We paused for a moment in the cool interior and relished that break from the summer heat.

Onward!  The Plaza de Mayo was where we then went to. 

Romina pointed out the Casa Rosada to us

(think of the Don't Cry for Me, Argentina balcony - that's the building) and the diapers painted on the plaza tile. 

It's here that the Mothers of the Disappeared staged their protests, growing and splintering and never yet forgotten.  A dark part of the country's more recent history.

An arguably brighter spot was across the street.  The Metropolitan Cathedral was home to the current Pope, Francis.  The building doesn't dominate the plaza - from up close, it's not entirely easy to guess that it's a house of worship at all - but inside it's grand and fine. 

We caught the changing of the guard at the Mausoleum of General San Martin,

which had a stream of people flowing past the tomb, but some of the smaller pieces in the building also caught my eye. 

Of note (and I took no photo) was the space devoted to memorializing Jews lost to the Holocaust.

Next up:  a short stop in San Telmo, the oldest neighbourhood of the city, and one with grand old homes that were carved up into tenements and now house apartments, shops, and other businesses. 

We poked in a store or two before heading to La Boca.  Once in that neighbourhood, we paused for a light bite and some shopping (well, the others shopped), and then wandered along the Caminito. 

Natasha commented to me that the colourful street (the buildings were historically painted with a mishmash of leftover ship paints) was the most Latin American we had seen, which struck me as an odd comment.  I mean, everything that we saw in South American was essentially Latin American.  The Caminito is, frankly, a tourist site.  Yes, there are people who live there, but the businesses were all geared toward tourist dollars, and I felt it was authentic to Latin America as Bourbon Street is to New Orleans - offering one perspective but only one and not an every day one.  I didn't mind leaving that part of the city behind.

We drove past some fine buildings and sights on our way back to Palermo, and I was sorry we didn't see some more.  I was sorrier that the weather was so warm - in milder weather I would have wanted to get on the subway and go to other parts of the city.  Just the same, though, we did get to see at least some different neighbourhoods and get out on foot a few times.  I wish I had had a similar experience in Santiago.