Restaurant Culture Part 2: a Mystery Solved
We finally found where they’ve been hiding the restaurants.
We took a long walk our first night here and ended up in the
Brera district. It was getting dark and we thought it would be best to head
back in the direction of our apartment, so we turned off the street we were on
without investigating what appeared to be a block of outside cafes. We filed
the thought away for another night.
Well, tonight was the other night. Having done a bit of research,
and discovering an alternate, shorter route back to the place, off we went
around 7 PM. I forgot my camera, so iPhone photos would have to do.
This is business-like neighborhood. Lots of traffic and no
charm. But as big cities go, it’s not too bad. We passed many interesting stores,
the only remaining gate to the 12th century city, the most amazing
kitchen store I’d ever scene (Officine Gullo Firenze) and some other interesting
things.
Half-hour later and we found ourselves in Milan’s street-side café district.
Stopping at the first place we found, we decided to give it a whirl. It was
nice, sitting inside to avoid the smokers was like being in a neighborhood
joint in the North End of Boston. Italian pop on the radio, checkered tablecloths,
grandpa filling the wine glasses. MLW had Pennetta al Salmon and I had risotto Milanese
with Oso Bucco. Mine was excellent, hers was not as good as the previous
restaurants. A couple of glasses of wine, some bread and acqua frazante (bubbly water) and it was a nice evening. I paid the
45 € tab with a 100€ and the waiter asked me (jokingly) if it was all set.
We decided to check out the remaining restaurants as we were
leaving, filing them away for future choices. I had a friendly conversation with
the maître d’ at the next place up the street who complimented me on my
Italian, saying that he could understand me. I rattled off some Chinese and he
declared himself incapable of judging me in that language. We wandered around for
a bit, and found many more places on the side streets. Not Sevilla or Madrid “many,”
but enough to keep us busy for the remaining time. I decided that the evening
would be incomplete without gelato so I stopped into an artisanal place, where
a young woman with a giant black chef’s hat was serving. I had two flavors, chocolate
and black cherry.
A nice night, a good dinner, a walk through some different
neighborhood, a stop to read the bar menu at the Carleton Hotel (lots of Benzs
and Bentleys and 21€ “breakfast martinis”) and home at last.
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