Friday, July 04, 2014

Piedmont Food Porn Day 2

After a nice rejuvenating evening, we went our separate ways for the day, then reconvened for a local dinner at Ristorante al Capalletto. The nearest restaurant was busy with a christening dinner, but they managed to find room for us on the terrace. We had to tolerate this view, but we survived:




First up for dinner? Carne crudo, a Piemontese veal version of beef tartare, and vitello tonnato -- sliced roasted veal with a tuna sauce. The vitello tonnato was nice, but it's just not my thing. The carne crudo? Definitely one of the top tartares of my life.
Next was sellerie with ricotta, olive oil and walnuts. One of the vegetarian options, it was quite good. The crunch of the sellerie and olives mixed well with the tang of the ricotta and oil. Not what I expected, but scrumptious.
Next up was an involtini -- basically a crepe gathered into a pouch around a filling.  In this case the filling was asparagus and AWESOME.  I'd never had this before and it was easily a highlight of the trip.
Another primi highlight was the agnolotti al plin -- the pinch. The pinch in question was a very small filled pasta that is made by (wait for it) pinching the filling into a dough covering. The filling in our case was 3 meats: veal, beef and rabbit. Very earthy and very tasty.

 Our last primi? Risotto. You can't stay too long in Italy and resist its charms, because it's awesome. This one was simple with peas, but just toothy enough to have texture and flavor. Even our vegetarians didn't whine about another starch.
 Of course, starch wasn't an issue with secondi - I knew I was going to have the traditional braised beef the following night, so I opted for the rabbit with peppers. While not quite as exquisite as the previous day, it was full-flavored and definitely not dry (a common risk with Bugs's cousins).
 Dessert was a clear choice -- I thought.  Every semifreddo I've had before has been blah. And there was a local chocolate cake. Local! Chocolate! It's foodie entrapment. Fortunately, I had a phenomenally cool (currently unnamed) dinner partner. She opted for the semifreddo:
 It was A-MAZ-ING. Gelato interspersed with crunchiness and a bit of ganache on the side. Decadent but not overwhelming. Of the non-coconut gelatos on the trip, this was tops

 Of course, the local specialty was... great. In fact, had it not been up against the semifreddo, it would've contended for best of the week -- rich and satisfying, with a caramel sauce that didn't overpower. With a nice espresso on the side, it would be hard to go wrong. Unless you were seated next to someone enjoying the semifreddo.



2 comments:

swcook said...

While the multiple primis was impressive, I'm a little disappointed in the lack of second dinners.

jtingermany said...

For all her wonderful qualities, Lindsay is just not up to the standard of overindulgence that we set last year.