jducoeur

We're now in Milan, and for our first two evenings (our wedding-anniversary weekend) did the two restaurants that we had made reservations long in advance. They were night-and-day different, so it's worth a bit of compare-and-contrast.

For the night we arrived, we had gone for Langosteria Cucina. By the numbers, this looked to be kinda similar to Ristorante Benso, which I talked about in my Bologna writeup -- white-tablecloth, seafood-oriented, fairly creative.

tl;dr -- it failed us in nearly every way.

To begin with, the service was more pretentious than effective. To give them credit, there were lots of servers, they were prompt and effective, and our primary waiter in particular did a completely solid job.

But seriously: when we walked in and gave our name, they simply said that no, we didn't have a reservation -- maybe we were at the wrong restaurant? I showed them our confirmation, and they said that no, no, I obviously hadn't clicked on the button to confirm the reservation. I told them three times that yes, I had absolutely done so, and finally spelled out my last name letter-by-letter, only for them to find that oh yes, I'd had a reservation all along.

I mean, seriously -- how in heaven's name was "how do you spell that?" not the first question when it didn't come up immediately? It's not unusual for maitres d' to fail to understand how to spell my last name, and anyone of any quality always asks that next. So that set a poor tone to begin with.

The menu was a little challenging for Kate -- she doesn't love shellfish, and most dishes had some involved, but we knew that that going to be a bit iffy going in. (On the plus side, she had the tuna cheeks as her appetizer, and those were the one truly excellent aspect of the meal: innovative and delicious.)

But we saw the catch of the day menu, which included a sea bass dish that sounded excellent and several others that appealed to her, so she resolved to order one of those while I ordered some fish that, yes, had shellfish in the sauce.

That plan sounded great, until we tried to order it -- and discovered that they will only sell the catch of the day as a whole fish. At 130 Euros per kilo. And the smallest fish they had was 1.5 kilos. We were incredulous: who in god's name only sells fish in what, even after preparation, must be a pound-and-a-half serving? (Yes, steakhouses do the same thing -- but you can take leftover rare porterhouse home, re-sear it, and get excellent leftovers. Fish leftovers aren't a thing.)

So she settled on one of the few plain fish dishes on the main menu that she could eat (the rare tuna steak), which was fine but boring. Similarly, my dish (basically Italian cod) was moderately flavorful but utterly dull.

As a minor note, but in keeping with the rest: they forgot my cocktail to go with my main -- I gather that the order was put in, but nobody thought to deliver it. Which, fine -- at most restaurants I would just shrug and not worry about it. But this place is trying to project truly high-end dining, and you do not ever make that kind of service mistake at a truly high-end restaurant. The whole point of high-end is impeccable service.

And of course, the whole thing was stupidly expensive, which forced the obvious comparison. It cost us nearly twice as much as Ristorante Benso, for a similar concept, was far less creative, with service that was relentlessly pretentious but not actually nearly as good as the charming folks at Benso.

Towards the end of dinner, we wound up chatting with the German couple sitting next to us, who had seemed a bit dour throughout the meal. It turned out that he had been to one of their restaurants once before, and had the same experience of it being ridiculously expensive, pretentious, and not very good. He was grumpy because he was kicking himself for having forgotten his intention never to come back.

(And they had exactly the same experience as us with the catch of the day, but pushed it harder, demanding to see this insanely expensive fish and getting into it with the waiter because even for two people that was far too much food, and how the hell did they think it made any sense to insist you had to eat an entire, enormous, expensive fish? Frankly, the humor of that shared suffering at the end was the high point of the evening.)

So while I don't often bother writing negative restaurant reviews, I'll make an exception here. Langosteria gets a hard "avoid at all costs": the service is snooty rather than good, the food is much less interesting than it sounds, and it costs vastly more than it is worth. It's a "show off your money" restaurant, not a good one.

On the opposite end, tonight's dinner was at Yapa. And I won't hide the hard reality: we wound up paying even more than at Langosteria. But that's kind of the thing: Langosteria was wildly overpriced at 200 Euros or so; Yapa was worth every penny at half again that much.

To be clear, that's the high end of the cost at Yapa -- we decided that the whole menu was intriguing enough that we opted into the eight-course tasting menu, which was a lot of food, and we had a bunch of drinks to go with, so we probably ate something like twice as much there as we had at Langosteria. And man, it was all so good.

Yapa is something I don't think I've ever encountered before (and I'm not sure why not): South American Fusion. You see Asian Fusion all the time nowadays: take the flavors of Asia, mix them with a lot of creativity, and you can get something great if it's handled with skill. This is the same thing, but leaning into the cuisines of South America, with lots of corn and avacado and chile and so much more.

The food was all sorts of things. My personal favorite was the ceviche with tiger's milk and several other elements, served with both plantain and corn chips -- lots of different flavors to combine in a wide variety of ways. But there was also the Elote -- Mexican street corn on the cob with a rich sauce drizzled on and a chile rub of some sort -- the robustly seasoned and perfectly cooked lamb chops, served with a slightly dangerous hot sauce and a more delicate mayo on the side, the dessert of pears with a pear granita and a delicate crumble, and the final bite, a spoonful of lovely sweet cream with a chocolate crumble on top. And so much more -- really, I ate too much, but it was impossible to pass anything up. (Kate just can't cope with octopus, so she simply skipped that course, so I kinda had to have half of hers because it was delish.)

Plus it's worth mentioning the cocktail menu, which is every bit as innovative and fun, from the Paloma Muerte (black as night, with a savory saline edge) to the Mexican-spiced Espresso Martini.

And the service was exactly what was lacking last night: effusively friendly instead of snooty, chatty (we were at the chef's counter) without being intrusive, efficient while never feeling rushed.

We're going to sleep on it, but may well give Yapa our highest possible praise: go back again on the last night of our vacation, to try some of the items on the a la carte menu that weren't on the tasting menu. (I'm kind of dying to try what appeared to be squash-blossom-filled tortillas that they kept making in front of us.)

We can never remember whether our anniversary is the 27th or 28th, but this year it's officially going to be counted on the 28th because that was the meal that was worth calling our anniversary dinner.

So Yapa gets a full-throated five-star review. It's not cheap, but it was the best meal of our vacation (beating out the fully-excellent ones we had at Parlor and Benso in Bologna) -- if you find yourself in Milan, and can afford a great dinner, this is the place to go.

(CW: alcohol)

As many of my friends know, I am an Amaro Nerd. My booze collection contains more amari than most bars, and indeed more than the typical liquor store.

(I concluded some years back that I am very slightly OCD, which I channel in specific ways. One of them is allowing myself to get horribly completist about a few things, one of which is amari. This is slightly controlled by the rule that Kate has imposed: before buying a new bottle, I'm required to finish something, lest the collection completely take over the basement.)

For those who are going, "Okay, what the hell are you talking about?" -- Amaro is a ridiculously over-broad category of spirits that is particularly ill-defined; it is almost "everything that doesn't have a better name". Italy is the heart of amari, although there are plenty native to the US (Malort is, god help us, pretty clearly a terrifying variant of amaro) and lots that basically fit under that term in many countries of Europe.

They tend to be more bitter than other drinks. (Although not always.) They tend not to be very sweet. (Although some are fairly sweet.) They often involve herbal flavors, and often spices. Some are very strong (up to 100+ proof); others are basically just infused wines. There's a lot of "you know it when you taste it" involved, but really -- if it doesn't fall into another category of booze, there's a decent chance that it qualifies.

Anyway...

During the food tour the other night, I asked about regional amari, and our tour guide recommended that I try Blu. I didn't try it that night, but looking it up, I discovered that the makers were only about a mile from where we are staying in Bologna. So while Kate had a sit-down this afternoon, I wandered over there.

It turns out that Gothi Spiriti Nobili basically operate out of a local bar -- I walked right on past them before re-checking the address and doubling back. They have a whole line of spirits, so I sat down and ordered several. (Hence my burbliness this evening -- I get talkative when tipsy.) Let's review.

• Blu is practically unique -- a Scotch-based amaro, which is something I've never come across before. It's a gentle and refined sipper, which lets the Scotch shine through (highland-style, not much smoke or peat), with a hint of anise from absinthe, and a slight salinity from using seawater in the blend. (This is apparently a hallmark of Gothi.)
• Settemezzo is an artichoke-based digestif (don't be shocked -- artichoke is a fairly common basis for amari), again pretty refined rather than overpowering in the way many German digestifs run. (Or punch-you-in-the-face licorice like an anisette.) Also a fine sipper, although I wish I'd ordered it straight up instead of on the rocks, which diluted its flavor too much.
• Bitter Allko is roughly in the Campari category, with the characteristic bright red warning-sign color, but better straight than Campari or indeed most of that category. Citrusy, peppery -- not as refined, but slightly sweeter and stronger in flavor, possibly my favorite of the bunch.
• Towards the end, I got into a conversation with the brewmaster's brother, and he encouraged me to try a taste of the Drai Vermouth, which is just plain hard to described. It's grapefruit-based, leaning more heavily into the characteristic salinity with both seawater and capers -- I'm not sure I'd want to drink a glass of it straight, but it would make for some fascinating cocktails.

Overall, delightful stuff. They do apparently import to the US via Oliver McCrum Wines and Spirits in California; I may have to chat with Ball Square Fine Wines and encourage them to check it out...

We're currently on to Bologna in our vacation, having arrived last night.

Getting from Bologna Airport to the center of town via taxi sounds like a good idea. But not so much when:

• There's been recent serious flooding;
• There turns out to be a major ceramics festival in town (we had no idea), so there are tons of tourists arriving; and
• There is a major taxi strike this evening.

We spent 10-15 minutes in the immensely long queue waiting for taxis, with none apparently arriving, before noticing the eensy-weensy hand-written sign near the front saying "taxi strike". And of course Uber was completely useless, since everyone was trying to use it to get around the strike.

Thank heavens our AirBnB hosts graciously came and rescued us from the Bologna Central train station -- we had managed to find our way there via the monorail, but we weren't looking forward to dragging our luggage a fair walk to find the bus.

Anyway...

Tonight was a food tour that we had scheduled. Suffice it to say, Delicious Bologna know their stuff, and it was a hoot, getting to try lots of local fare (including real Mortadella, with a talk on how it compares with the stuff we find at home, and the weird but delightful Ciccioli), get introduced to Lambrusco in its genuine non-sucky form, try the weird but wonderful local spinach-based green lasanga and tortollini in brodo, and finish off with gelato (me being me, I went for a combination of the Coffee with Sambucca and Beer flavors).

He was also careful to show us all of the important tourist sites and fill us in on the major history and legends, including the battle between the city and the Vatican over their overly-large cathedral (it is apparently now a point of pride that, many centuries later, the thing is never going to be finished), and the controversy around Neptune's penis. European history is just weirder and more fun than American sometimes.

The whole thing was a blast, and it was lots of fun chatting with folks in the tour group, who were from all over (three of us from the US, plus a couple of guys from Ireland, a woman from Australia, a guy from Paris, a couple from Vancouver, and so on). Highly recommended.

Of course, I took the opportunity to inquire about local Amari, because, y'know, Amaro geek here, and was directed to a lovely bar, Camera a Sud. (Where our tour guide eventually wound up taking a seat at the bar a while after we arrived, which helped solidify the sincerity of the recommendation.)

Tonight's exploration: Amaro Salento Amarissimo. Intense, solidly bitter, with a strong anise edge. (In general, I get the sense that they aren't afraid of anise flavor in these parts.) Good stuff, although the anise is probably a bit more than I would usually go for. We're likely to return to Camera a Sud -- they had several other local Amari I need to try, including the intriguing scotch-based Blu.

On the weirder and more commercial side: I happened to stop in a nearby grocery store this afternoon, and just for giggles picked up a bottle of Amaro China from, no kidding, Martini. (The people who make the ubiquitous adequate-but-not fabulous vermouths that you can find everywhere in the States.) And y'know -- it's actually not bad. It's ridiculously cheap (under 10 Euros per bottle), and I've had far worse. I wouldn't say it's great amaro, but it's entirely acceptable, and far better than some of the crap I find at home; in terms of bang for the buck it's really quite impressive. So I may see whether it can be obtained at home.

Also in terms of beverages: it's wonderful being in a country where not only is Sanbitter quite cheap, but there are lots of similarly-inexpensive competitors. (I wound up picking up a ten-pack of the official Campari and Soda.) But I do still miss Spain's Bitter Kas, which is quite similar, even cheaper, and doesn't involve nearly as much glass waste.

We'll see where we go next: we now have a couple of unscheduled days to eat our way across Bologna and hopefully not get squashed flat by the tourists here for the ceramics festival.