7.

Sunday 22^nd May: “Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers”
Romeo and Juliet – 4 ii

A final word or two about Verona and the week spent there. It certainly is a very pretty place and has some excellent restaurants. When on tour and in a strange place, come dinner time it’s very easy to walk round a town once or twice (in for small towns three or more times), trying to judge which restaurant to go into, on the grounds of have they started service yet (19:30 is an early start), how easy will the menu be to decipher, suitability for eating alone and affordability. Sometimes it’s just all too much and you end up with some ham, cheese and wine from the supermarket and just sit out in the park or in the hotel. And sometimes this is even preferable if you’ve spent the whole week eating in restaurants. However, back to Verona, where I’ve been blessed with good restaurants. I should now warm you that the next bit is a ‘foody’-type description which may make you think I’ve got my head well and truly up my posterior. However, bear with me. It’s just for this blog entry.

My favourite, which I stumbled across while negotiating some of the narrower streets in Verona’s old town, is S. Eufemia (www.s.eufemia.it) , a place which has simply annexed the narrow road for its diners and would be hard to find, even if you knew it existed (I thought I’d lost it the second time I tried to get there). Noticing tradional fayre on the specials board outside the restaurant, I opted for just a pasta course and had the bigoli al asino, or to translate it, bigoli pasta (rather like a denser, al dente spaghetti) with donkey stew. The picture doesn’t really do the taste justice. It was a meaty affair, seemingly cooked in its own juices, some heavy red wine and a good dose of rosemary. If you could imagine a kind of half beef and half horse, you’d be just about in the region of the flavour, with a texture being more like slow-cooked braising streak. The whole flavouring and taste conjoured up a feeling of being in the hills. I had a heavier red with it (well, an actual bottle of red and not the cheapo house stuff I've been taking a lot of) – a Valpolicella Classico Masi from the local area and this did the job very nicely. Quite a tasty drop.

Going back on Friday evening, I opted for two courses to celebrate the arrival of the weekend and the end of a heavy week’s examining. This time it was a different vintage of Valpolicella with the sparkling water, a lasagne and some beef carpaccio.

Now Lasagne might not seem like a bold choice, especially considering you can get a microwave version on offer down the Sainsbury’s most days for under £2.50, but believe it or not, I’ve never eaten it in Italy before. In contrast to the Sainsbury’s version, this stuff was obviously far, far better. In fact, you might even wonder if they were the same dish. The lasagne we know [and love?] is often a meaty ragu with layers of heavy béchamel sauce and a few sheets of pasta separating it all. The dish I had, however, wasn’t as much a ragu a rich tomato-based sauce with a flavouring of beef; not too much actual beef to be had, not that this was bad. The beef that was there did taste like it’d been poached in milk before being put into the mix and was really soft/tender for it. The cheese sauce was very light, too, blending with the ragu to give a pleasant, and natural, orange looking colour. The other main difference was that there weren’t three or even four sheets of pasta, but 6 or 7 sheets of very thin, home-made pasta. Essentially it was pasta, barely separated with a light meaty cheesy sauce. A very light pasta at that and the perfect first course. It really was all about the thin, delicious pasta, and the ragu was there as an accompaniment, which seems to be quite the other way round to the UK take on the classic dish.

The main was beef carpaccio, rocket, radicchio (of the region, naturally) and truffle shavings, served with a flower in middle (rather like the flower pictured above with the donkey stew), a chunk of lemon and a drizzling of balsamic. What’s not to like there (apart from the flower, perhaps...)? Basic ingredients put together well resulting in a truly delicious main course. Polish that off with the decent bottle of red and a coffee afterwards and it’s all done and dusted with a handsome tip for 45 euros. The food on this tour has been a treat and I’ve enjoyed eating out a great deal, although I do wonder if I haven’t done rather too much of it.

Other pictures of Verona are seen above. There’s me in the amphitheatre (it was being set up for a gig on the Friday night and the opera season, starting in June) and Piazza del Erbe by night. Just to the lower left of the tower is an arch with a whale rib suspended from it. Legend has it that the rib will fall on the first ‘truly just’ person to walk beneath it. Not much of a reward for being ‘truly just’ as from that height I imagine it’d likely kill you if it fell on you, but this is in a country that rewards [alleged] serious crime with presidencies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0M2e-td-_c). Anyway, not wishing to spoil everyone’s fun and picture opportunities, and to preserve my own life, I edged round it each time and never walked directly underneath it.

That’s Verona done, who knows when to be seen again. Next stop is Peschiera del Garda, a small and ancient town on the southern banks of the beautiful Lake Garda.