Restaurants

Here, there are a couple types of restaurants depending on the type of food you want and/or the time of day. Dinner does not start until 7pm or 7:30pm, just beware!  If you want a snack, the best place to go is a bar, usually a taverna. Haven't been in one yet, but who know when the adventure may strike me. For full meals, you'll want an osteria, pizzeria, trattoria, or ristorante. Once you've chosen your particular type of food and restuarant, then you get to browse the menu. There are a couple types of menus. If  you have kids there is a children's menu, menu per bambini, which is tucked away inside the regular menu. If there is not one, then ask for a child's portion, una porzione per bambini. As for the rest of us, let me explain how Italian menus are set up. There is the appetizer, l'antipasto, and the salad, insalata, but the salads here are not typical of the US salads. In other words, a meal is not centered around your salad. And the only dressing you will receive includes the balsmic vinegar and olive oil bottles. The salad is mostly greens, no real lettuce, and if you are lucky, a couple slices of tomato. No cheese, no sunflowers, no olives, and no croutons. Shoot the breadsticks are actual thin hard sticks of dried packaged bread. No Olive Garden breadsticks here. As for the food, unless you order pizza, the rest of the menu is broken up into the first course, second course, vegetable and dessert. The first course, primo corso, consists of a large bowl of pasta. Pomodoro refers to a tomato sauce. Formaggio is the cheese sauce and pesto of course is pesto. May I recommend the Gnocchi alla Formaggio, it is to die for!! The second course is then your meat, and really it's a small portion of meat on the plate all by itself. I really enjoyed the pollo scallopini and the pork scallopini. Both are really good. If you are looking steak, order the bistecca ai ferri. After that comes your vegetable. I love mushrooms and the other night ordered some. The funghi were baked in olive oil and simply delicioso! My husband has to been in hog heaven because when he eats he does not like the foods to touch, he eat them one section at a time. Me, I like it all on my plate at once. I'm certainly not getting that here. But hey, when in Rome....

The last course, if you have not stuffed yourself silly with the other courses, is dessert, or dolce. Althought some italian pastries are really delicious, my kids have opted for the gelaterrias. Gelato here is simply wonderful and there are so many flavors to choose from. Apparently it is also lighter than American ice cream which means it's better on my waistline.

Here are a couple other things you may want to know about the restaurants which kind of surprised us. First, on your bill, if you have chosen to sit down and be served, you will be charged a coperto per person.It's basically your cover charge to sit down. The service is really slow, so bring some patience with you. For a woman who has little patience and two kids that get antsy, I've got a long learning curve ahead of me. If you want the check, you'll need to ask for it, and they again will be in no rush to get it to you. And the last thing, unless the service is exceptional, there is no tipping here. Go figure. Sometimes it is included in the bill, but mostly they do not expect a tip at all. So try your best to get your bill almost exact.

The last thing has to do with the drinks. If you are ordering a beer, it's either Blonde or Amber, light or dark. If you want wine, vino, you can order by the bottle or by the liter. Time to whip out the old metric system!  If you want a coke, that is doable too. There are two sizes of the cans and you will be given a glass to drink out of. A friend of ours told us that Italians really like to advertise what you are drinking. So if you are drinking a beer, you'll receive it in the glass with the company's name. If you are drinking a coke, you'll get a coke glass to accompany the drink. And please, do not drink from the can, that is frowned upon here. Lastly, the water, or acqua. It is ordered by the large glass bottle and you must specify if you want it naturale or frizzante. The bottles are for use by the table and you'll get glasses for everyone. Lastly, if I can figure out how to order some ice with my drink, I will, because they do not serve ice here!  That's like blasphemy for me. I've been complacent about it, but really I like my ice!!

Buon appetito and buono fortuna!