Cherry Soup!
Dinning at Antico Ristorante agli Schioppi,
this creature just had to try the angel hair with black truffle from
the mountains surrounding Vicenza (Monte Berici). I hesitated to order
them not sure when black truffle season was
(a fanatic about white truffles from Alba, season Oct – Jan), but
had a hankering for them and thus, threw all thoughts of doubt to the
wind. This dish of heaven was the best pasta I had had in such a long
time in fact, my partner just about fell over telling me how
outstanding the flavor of the truffle really was. This restaurant served
lots of polenta with the
various dishes, not in quantity but just the fact that it accompanied
many of the dishes (no kidding, polenta is synonymous with Vicenza)!
They
brought an antipasto of baccalĂ mousse with white grilled polenta that
was incredible, sort of reminded her of the fish mousse served on the
terrace on the lake at Isola Madre. There was the classic Vincentian veal liver with glazed onions on a bed of polenta and
sauce that was worth every bite particularly for liver lovers and for
those who are not (moi), it was fantastic; so sure I would
have hated it, ha! Veal liver is divine; tender and light in flavor and
not as dense as beef liver and definitely lacking the heady heavy liver
flavor. If anyone hates the taste of beef liver, then you should give
this a try just to put your taste buds right with the world. ;-)
Finishing
off the meal with a dessert, which truly no one had room for, was
definitely one of the smarter choices made in my life one I would not
soon forget. This simple and light little offering was called “cherry soup.” These we
re
hand-pitted local grown cherries (Marostica, and Vicenza are famous for
their cherries) swimming in their own cherry juice with a dash of a
secret spice topped with a tiny ball of spearmint green gelato and
cherry liqueur. The soup was served cold with giant soup spoons to
ensure you did not miss a drop of the luscious juice. I had visions of
picking some cherries from those trees in the garden or buying some in
Marostica and making up my own batch of this mix to save and serve on those hot lazy summer evenings…guess I need to figure out how they made the mint gelato; did they mash and “Cuisinart” the leaves or did they make a very concentrated tisane?A
bottle of Amarone, one of the other famous wines from the Veneto region
accompanied this meal and, never having tasted a good glass of it, this
little angel was impressed even with 15% alcohol.
After a bottle I was far from tipsy because good wine (not that cheap 2-buck Chuck) does not give you headaches,
does not turn you tipsy even after a bottle and it is usually consumed
over a longer period of time and slowly (slow meals, slow eating).
Unfortunately, the Amarone expert will have to fill you in on the beauty of this wine, this is truly out of Snow White’s league
July 21, 2008
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