I have decided to blog about all the glorious food i've consumed in Italy. Because we all are familiar with Italian food. And we know they're all gewddd.
Our first destination in Italy was Milan. Some people told Shah Milan isn't worth a visit. Shah was like, but The Last Supper is there! I was like, totes yeh! We gotta see The Last Supper! Because we love The Da Vinci Code and all! And i was also like, it's another fashion capital of the world!
So to Milan we went.
Only, you know, we didn't do our planning too well, because you need to book wayyy in advance to stare at the famed painting. Yes, you need to get a ticket or book a tour to stare at it, for 15 minutes. That's the time allocated for each group. If you're really, really lucky, it's not impossible to acquire a last minute ticket though. And you have a higher chance too if you don't go during the busy season. Oh well. At least the window-shopping will always be available.
We arrived from Paris to Milan after 5pm, and we were for some reason totally knackered by the time we checked into the guest house we booked. The guest house, by the way, kind of blew. It's really more like a hostel, so we were really really really glad we were only in Milan for a night.
A girl in tshirt, jammies pants and socks answered the door and led us into a gloomy house and checked us in (a process that involved a lot of confusion over the payment made online). Although that was the first clue to how stinky the house was, we have to give it to the girl. I say "girl" and not the adult version because she looks like a girl. And i'm allowed to call girls "girl" now because i'm 27 years old.
Anyway, as i was saying, we have to give her some credit, since she knows her way around public transportation in Milan very well. If tourists ask me questions on public transportation in KL/PJ, i wouldn't be able to answer them, i'm sure. Aside from telling us how exactly to get to places for the next day (she even included number of stops and things like that), she also suggested to us to go to a "non-tourist" area to have dinner, which is a short tram ride from where we lived. So i guess it wasn't totally useless that we stayed in that particular area.
We walked into this street at first.
And suddenly the little street led us into a whole other world.
Which looks romantic. It did feel that way actually. Even with all the many, many people milling around.
Shah and i went from restaurant to restaurant, checking out the menus. You're spoiled for choices here, as they are countless restaurants, but almost all are full. Some waiting around might be needed for some of them. It's not true that there are absolutely no tourists, and this place is not exactly a hidden gem or anything, but it's evident that a majority of the crowd are locals, or at least Italians. We took that as a very, very good sign.
We ended up picking a restaurant that is in the little street. And typical me, i don't even have a photo of the front of the restaurant. And i don't even remember the name.
Shah's number one on his list is a good pizza, and this place is a great place for that, since we saw these two men doing their thayng from the outside:
So, yeh, i don't know what this process of pizza-making is called, or what the huge oven is called. But with my little knowledge of the process, i deduced that that looked pretty authentic. Like you'll get an actual Italian pizza out of it.
I saw the one of their Specials of the Day and i knew i had to have it: spaghetti, with lobster.
OK, seriously, that looks yum, right? Is that not making you hungry right now?
And look how i tried to contained my bubbling happiness at getting to eat my first authentic Italian food evah!
Obviously for us it's the safest to opt for seafood or vegetarian dishes in foreign countries (note: to be safe, ask if they add alcohol to their food, because they do that sometimes! if there's alcohol, simply ask for it to not be added), so Shah chose the seafood pizza, which is such a party pizza! I could devour mussels anytime, so i was pretty excited to see this pizza appear.
How GLORIOUS.
The toppings include mussels, clams, calamari, and prawns.
Someone is excited too with the pizza!
Of course i don't expect allllllllll Italian restaurants in Italy to serve good food, but i'm glad we picked a great one on our first night in Italy. Needless to say, both plates were clean and empty by the time we were done. We now have fond memories of Milan thanks to that night.
I asked for tea but they ran out. Me, well, i'm always like, "I need tea, OK???", especially when i have a sore throat and cold, which i did at the start of our Italy trip. Shah knew me all too well, so he had to coax me into getting their coffee instead. I was kind of glad they ran out of tea, or else i wouldn't have tried their coffee with Nutella.
Uh huh. They add Nutella to coffee. Which is GENIUS. I don't like coffee too much but this one, i could finish in one go.
That's Shah's Coke and my "coffee with nutella, sour cream and cacao". That's what's written in their menu, but i'm positive they translated "whipped cream" wrong. I can assure you that from now on, if i have to make my own coffee at home, i will add nutella to it. And whipped cream to top it off.
I still wanted tea, so Shah suggested we find it elsewhere with dessert to go with it. We headed out into the vast area with the canal in the middle and found a cute cafe.
In Italy, it is apparently normal to get a selection of teas when you order hot tea. It's like having your own little tea party.
I can't remember what this dessert was, but it was almond biscotti with some sort of cream on top. I had forgotten that i disliked the medicinal taste of almond biscotti, so this dessert went unfinished. But it still looks gorgeous, doesn't it? You might love it, though. I know it's weird i call the taste "medicinal", but that's just what i think.
This is a reminder that not everything that LOOKS good will TASTE good. OK?
I want this moo!
So that was our glorious first ever dinner in Italy.
More stories of Italian food to come soon!
xxoo
Our first destination in Italy was Milan. Some people told Shah Milan isn't worth a visit. Shah was like, but The Last Supper is there! I was like, totes yeh! We gotta see The Last Supper! Because we love The Da Vinci Code and all! And i was also like, it's another fashion capital of the world!
So to Milan we went.
Only, you know, we didn't do our planning too well, because you need to book wayyy in advance to stare at the famed painting. Yes, you need to get a ticket or book a tour to stare at it, for 15 minutes. That's the time allocated for each group. If you're really, really lucky, it's not impossible to acquire a last minute ticket though. And you have a higher chance too if you don't go during the busy season. Oh well. At least the window-shopping will always be available.
We arrived from Paris to Milan after 5pm, and we were for some reason totally knackered by the time we checked into the guest house we booked. The guest house, by the way, kind of blew. It's really more like a hostel, so we were really really really glad we were only in Milan for a night.
A girl in tshirt, jammies pants and socks answered the door and led us into a gloomy house and checked us in (a process that involved a lot of confusion over the payment made online). Although that was the first clue to how stinky the house was, we have to give it to the girl. I say "girl" and not the adult version because she looks like a girl. And i'm allowed to call girls "girl" now because i'm 27 years old.
Anyway, as i was saying, we have to give her some credit, since she knows her way around public transportation in Milan very well. If tourists ask me questions on public transportation in KL/PJ, i wouldn't be able to answer them, i'm sure. Aside from telling us how exactly to get to places for the next day (she even included number of stops and things like that), she also suggested to us to go to a "non-tourist" area to have dinner, which is a short tram ride from where we lived. So i guess it wasn't totally useless that we stayed in that particular area.
We walked into this street at first.
And suddenly the little street led us into a whole other world.
Which looks romantic. It did feel that way actually. Even with all the many, many people milling around.
Shah and i went from restaurant to restaurant, checking out the menus. You're spoiled for choices here, as they are countless restaurants, but almost all are full. Some waiting around might be needed for some of them. It's not true that there are absolutely no tourists, and this place is not exactly a hidden gem or anything, but it's evident that a majority of the crowd are locals, or at least Italians. We took that as a very, very good sign.
We ended up picking a restaurant that is in the little street. And typical me, i don't even have a photo of the front of the restaurant. And i don't even remember the name.
Shah's number one on his list is a good pizza, and this place is a great place for that, since we saw these two men doing their thayng from the outside:
Rolling the doughs, adding toppings, shove the pizza onto the shovel...
And in the oven it goes.
So, yeh, i don't know what this process of pizza-making is called, or what the huge oven is called. But with my little knowledge of the process, i deduced that that looked pretty authentic. Like you'll get an actual Italian pizza out of it.
I saw the one of their Specials of the Day and i knew i had to have it: spaghetti, with lobster.
OK, seriously, that looks yum, right? Is that not making you hungry right now?
And look how i tried to contained my bubbling happiness at getting to eat my first authentic Italian food evah!
Obviously for us it's the safest to opt for seafood or vegetarian dishes in foreign countries (note: to be safe, ask if they add alcohol to their food, because they do that sometimes! if there's alcohol, simply ask for it to not be added), so Shah chose the seafood pizza, which is such a party pizza! I could devour mussels anytime, so i was pretty excited to see this pizza appear.
How GLORIOUS.
The toppings include mussels, clams, calamari, and prawns.
Someone is excited too with the pizza!
Of course i don't expect allllllllll Italian restaurants in Italy to serve good food, but i'm glad we picked a great one on our first night in Italy. Needless to say, both plates were clean and empty by the time we were done. We now have fond memories of Milan thanks to that night.
I asked for tea but they ran out. Me, well, i'm always like, "I need tea, OK???", especially when i have a sore throat and cold, which i did at the start of our Italy trip. Shah knew me all too well, so he had to coax me into getting their coffee instead. I was kind of glad they ran out of tea, or else i wouldn't have tried their coffee with Nutella.
Uh huh. They add Nutella to coffee. Which is GENIUS. I don't like coffee too much but this one, i could finish in one go.
That's Shah's Coke and my "coffee with nutella, sour cream and cacao". That's what's written in their menu, but i'm positive they translated "whipped cream" wrong. I can assure you that from now on, if i have to make my own coffee at home, i will add nutella to it. And whipped cream to top it off.
I still wanted tea, so Shah suggested we find it elsewhere with dessert to go with it. We headed out into the vast area with the canal in the middle and found a cute cafe.
The crowd behind me!
In Italy, it is apparently normal to get a selection of teas when you order hot tea. It's like having your own little tea party.
I can't remember what this dessert was, but it was almond biscotti with some sort of cream on top. I had forgotten that i disliked the medicinal taste of almond biscotti, so this dessert went unfinished. But it still looks gorgeous, doesn't it? You might love it, though. I know it's weird i call the taste "medicinal", but that's just what i think.
This is a reminder that not everything that LOOKS good will TASTE good. OK?
I want this moo!
So that was our glorious first ever dinner in Italy.
More stories of Italian food to come soon!
xxoo
Apparently the Nutella thingy is particular to Milan. My man is from the South (Calabria) and he says that's practically unheard of there LOL
ReplyDeleteHi Sheela,
DeleteHope you're doing well!
I actually completely forgot about the nutella thing. Now I'm getting ideas again!