Category: food fascination

Sadly, I didn’t manage to complete the list of food that I want to eat in Singapore. 2 and a half weeks is just not enough time, especially with the commitments that I had to fulfil. I wish I had more time!

However, I did manage to go to some, and I thought that I’d share those which I thought were memorable :

1. Maliboro

My siblings and I discovered this place quite by chance as we were walking through Jurong Point after I dealt with some matters at the DBS bank. There was a lady at the entrance, inviting us in. And with the premise that the chicken is so tender that you could even eat the bones, we were Intrigued and went in to give it a try.

And these was what we ordered :

Crispy Soft Bone Chicken ($6.90 SGD)

Grilled Soft Bone Chicken ($7.90 SGD)

Red Chilli Soft Bone Chicken ($7.90 SGD)

Oh wow, I loved my meal a lot. It was absolutely delicious with the accompanying sambal next to it – it is probably a tad hot for some, but I like it hot! That’s euphoria to me.

The chicken, which was the highlight was really good. The outside was crispy, like an ayam penyet, but the bones were so soft that I ate the entire bird whole. It was actually quite tasty. I think its a sort of an evolution of Ayam Penyet I guess.

I also liked the place as it had some items which are vegetarian friendly and was able to tweak some ingredients so Cart could give them a try.

Tahu Telur ($6.50 SGD)

This delicious dish of soft tofu and egg is usually accompanied with oyster sauce at the bottom. But they manage to substitute it with a vegetarian sauce, and it still tasted true to the original dish to me.

Sayur Asam ($4.20 SGD)

This is a sourish vegetable soup that Cart could eat, which I thought was tasty. Although I think it tastes pretty much standard at any Indonesian restaurants around Singapore.

2. Real Food

I’m really glad that I went to this place (despite having run 10 km in the morning) as I absolutely adore this place! To me, the restaurant is so adorable, cozy and non pretentious.

Real food is a vegetarian restaurant. But unlike most restaurants, you can just walk in and sit at any empty table that you like and order directly at the counter.

Cart and I ordered these :

Lentil Burger ($12.80 SGD)

So delicious! I’m still thinking about this burger at this point of time. It was so good! The buns were soft and the insides were chewy and juicy.

I know it doesn’t look that appetizing, but I really enjoyed eating this. It had a rustic, earthy taste. And it had that chewy texture which I liked, which to me makes a good vegetarian burger (I don’t like burgers which are one texture)

And here is Cart’s burger.

Beet Millet Burger ($12.80 SGD)

To be honest, as delicious as my burger was, Cart’s one was even tastier. Made of beet, it had that slight sweet taste, but very hearty. I know it totally doesn’t look appetizing at all, but the taste was so good, so juicy, delicious.

I was so impressed with my meal that I gave my compliments to the people at the counter. I even contemplated to thank the chefs (there was an open kitchen at the side) but then changed my mind as they looked really busy, and I didn’t want them to lose their concentration.

I’d definitely go there again in a heartbeat when I’m back in Singapore.

3. VeganBurg

I think I knew about this place when someone shared this on my twitter list. I love burgers, and there was a bus that took us to there from my parent’s place, so why not?

Veganburg, is a cute little place. There was seats with fake grass, and there was an area where kids could play. There was this incentive where kids can swap their toys, which I thought was a nice idea. The burgers took a while to be prepared though. For a fast food restaurant, waiting for almost twenty minutes for a burger isn’t good.

Nevertheless, the burgers that we had were tasty. And these was what we had :

Smoky BBQ Burger Meal ($11.80 SGD)

I asked for ice lemon tea and broccoli as the side. The lemon tea was fine enough, but I think the broccoli could be salted a bit more.  And here is a close up of my burger.

How can a vegan burger be so sexeh? I liked the buns had a hint of walnuts and my burger was chewy and juicy and delicious. It’s so interesting that considering that there are no animal products in this whatsoever (like mayonnaise for example) it was so good, you don’t even feel like you missed anything.

And this was Cart’s meal :

Creamy shrooms burger meal ($11.80 SGD) and Vegan Franks ($3.90 SGD)

Unlike me, Cart had fries with seaweed  and I think it’s deliciously awesome! I should have asked for that instead! The franks were good too, considering that it’s vegan.

But the highlight, would have to be the burger. IT WAS SO GOOD. Even better than mine! Cart really knows how to choose the good stuff.

The patty was crispy on the outside and juicy in the inside. And the creamy sauce elevates the taste. It reminds me a lot of a chicken patty burger. But it’s not! It was so good, I was regretting not ordering that instead.

I definitely recommend this burger. If I can have food like this everyday, I don’t mind being a vegetarian 🙂

4. Original Sin

I had lunch here with some of my blogger friends – Jerrick, Michelle, Sayanee, Chinmay and Daphne.

Original Sin is a vegetarian restaurant and is located in the chi-chi area of Holland Village. It’s pretty easy to get to by the way, as it’s right in front of the mrt station.

Here are some of the items that we ordered. I’ll just put up pictures of the ones that I tried. This was my set meal (27++ SGD)

Tofu Burger

Some juice cranberry and other things I don’t remember and a chocolate cake.

My meal was fine enough. The burger was good and the cake was decent. But to be honest, it didn’t make me go wow.

Vegetarian Tandoori ($26 SGD)

Cart’s tandoori was quite tasty and I liked the accompanying sauces that came with it. To me, it tasted  good enough as a vegetarian substitute for chicken tandoori! And now Cartcart now knows how it tastes like 🙂

Bocconcini Pizza ($22 SGD)

This is Daphne’s pizza which she managed to only eat less than 1/4 of. So she offered it to the rest of us. The thing about 4 cheese pizza is that just eating a little makes you feel stuffed.

I quite like it, it was tasty, but I wouldn’t order this pizza normally.

In a nutshell, the food here is nice, but I’m not sure if I’d recommend it much because it is quite pricey. And for the amount that we paid to eat here, there are many other more affordable vegetarian restaurants around.

Plus, the place was so noisy! Girls were chit chatting at the top of their voices. I know of quieter hawker centres than this. Totally spoils the mood for a supposedly upper class joint.

Come here only if you want to see white chicks.

5. Cafe Le Caire

Cart and I were in Kampung Glam to visit the Malay Heritage Center which was in the neighbourhood. We went there too late unfortunately, and it was closed when we reached there.

So we went off to have a dinner to cheer ourselves up. It was too funny, walking in the hipster part of Kampung Glam, me the hipster-est one of all. I was wearing my cotton baju kurong and not giving a care! It’s actually very comfy

We originally wanted to eat at El Sheik. But it was closed for renovation. So we went to Cafe Le Caire instead. I was unwilling to eat there, because the last time we were there, the standard seemed to go down. But we were peckish and didn’t  have much alternatives

I didn’t want to eat at the super touristy road in front of Masjid Sultan.

These were what we had :

Babaganush

A dip made of roasted eggplants, I always order this when I go to a middle-eastern restaurant. If you haven’t had one before, try it! I think you’ll like it. It’s creamy and smooth and just perfect to be eaten with bread.

Adas Bil Hamod

A dish made of lentils, this was really really tasty! Cart and I loved this as it was very flavourful with the spices inside it. It’s not hot by the way, and each bite was a joy.

Foul

And Falafel set

I didn’t care for these so much though, as I am not big with fava beans. Cart likes it though, and the falafel didn’t have the right texture. Someone put the chickpeas in the processor for too long.

I also had sautéed veggie wrap that I forgot to take a picture of.  I wasn’t that hungry, so I guess it was really that good. It was surprisingly better than I thought it would be.

All in all, I was actually glad that we went back to Cafe Le Caire. Delicious! And we only spent about $38 SGD for the both of us. I think we were probably unlucky the last time, because this time round, the food was so delicious, I can close an eye at what happened the last time.

Special Mentions :

6. Komalas

When Cart and I head to Little India, we like to go to Komalas. The fact that they make Indian food ala Fastfood style is quite charming to us. Cart also likes getting some packs of karaboondi here to bring back to Rome.

So we were surprised when we see that the place looks classier now. They’ve renovated and it looks more up-scale now.  I thought I was at the wrong place! Even the menu had more things.

Here are what we had :

Mock chicken 65

I’ve love eating chicken 65 since the first time I tried it.  And while the taste isn’t exactly like the one that I had, I think for a vegetarian version, it’s a good alternative. Inside is a mix of tofu and cheese, and outside is a hot, spicy and crispy layer.

South Indian meal

My eyes were bulging when I saw this. For about $8 SGD, this was a substantial amount of food that made us so confused at how to approach it that we had to ask the staff for help on how to eat it. In any case, Cart seemed to enjoy having his meal.

I didn’t like my burger meal unfortunately. It was quite disappointing as I had always enjoyed eating my burgers here. But this time round, the burger wasn’t satisfying and the fries were much too oily, I didn’t touch it any-more after the third bite or so.

7. McAloo Tikki burger

I know that you are probably going to baulk that I’m actually recommending McDougals. BUT I think they did a good move to include vegetarian items in the menu so it’s more inclusive to a wider choice of diet.

Plus the burger is not bad. The picture doesn’t look that appetizing, but Cart and I both enjoyed it. Only thing is, I don’t think that it will be a long term item however. Kind of like Burger King’s Veg burger. A shame though, because I tried it and I liked it and this was way before I met Cart and his vegetarianisms.

Anyway, that’s about it! Some of the more memorable meals that I had while I was in Singapore. If only I had more time to try more, nevertheless, it has been more or less satisfying so far 🙂

Sidenote : You would probably think that I’m showing off, and that I’m gloating but I’m very surprised to find out that didn’t gain any weight since I came back. It was probably all the exercise I did. I should have eaten more. HAHAHAHA!

Recently, I was hankering for a good burger. We found an awesome butcher in Mercato Piazza San Giovanni di Dio where you could get grade cuts of meat. I got for myself some ground meat for the patties. But the problem was the buns!

(This is a cheat picture as it’s a vegetarian burger)

In Italy, the ingredients for regular, freshly made bread are flour, yeast, water and salt.

Any other additional ingredients (like sesame seeds, eggs, milk etc.) are legally required to be called ‘special bread’ instead. Which is why it’s a good habit to read, or ask about the ingredients on the labels, especially when you are on a special diet.

Anyhow, one rule of thumb that I’ve discovered is that if these speciality breads (like sandwich breads, burger buns and hotdog rolls) are packaged in plastic, and are kept in the non refrigerated section, a big chance that these breads were treated with alcohol to make them soft.

While there are some thoughts that it is justifiable to consume, as alcohol evaporates in high temperatures, I prefer to avoid it where I can. It’s such a chore trying to find speciality bread without ingredients that I do not consume, so imagine how enraptured I was when we found sandwich bread which was good for us!

Anyhow, I was so unhappy and feeling so indignant about unfair the whole situation was, that I was pleasantly surprised to find that Chef John, (who I adore) actually published a video on how to make burger buns. It looked so easy too. I was so intrigued that I was compelled to make them ASAP!

By the way, in Italian, yeast is lievito. We only managed to find the fresh cube ones rather than the dry ones. Not sure if one is better than the other. I’ve never worked with yeast before nor made bread, so it was fascinating to see them grow …

And grow … At one point, I was concerned that the dough would get too big for the sheet tray.

But I think we just need a bigger sheet tray :p

Oh gosh everyone, if only you could smell the kitchen as the buns were freshly made. It was so lovely! So rustic! So comforting!

I’m so amazed I made these! They are so pretty! Plus the taste easily beats the one you get from the stores. Do try them out! You’d be so happy and proud of yourself when you make them.

At the moment, 4 of the cooked buns are in the freezer so we could defrost them when we are in the mood for burgers again (You need to consume fresh bread immediately as they turn hard after a few days) But I’d definitely make a new batch again in a heartbeat. They are amazing!

Sidenote : Look who followed me on instagram. I feel so omg-fangirl-moment. HAHAHAHA!

I cannot sleep now :p

If you are in Rome around July, you’d see a lot of these types of tomatoes being sold.

These are called pomodoro da riso and they are really big compared to the regular tomatoes that you usually use. The skin is firm, making them specially for stuffing rice. So today, I’ll show you how to make Pomodori Ripieni al Riso – which literally means, tomatoes filled up with rice.

You could use regular tomatoes too, but be sure that the tomatoes are big and firm – so that it doesn’t collapse under the oven.

First cut off the top and leave them to one side. Then take a spoon and dig a out the pulp inside. Be careful not to break any part of the skin – it’s a little tricky when it comes to the bottom part.

When you are done, it should look like this. Try to scrape and remove as much seeds away.

(If you were wondering, yes that is a computer. I like watching videos while doing chores :p )

Lightly salt the caps and the insides of the tomato and lay them upside down – this will remove the liquid from the tomato.

This is the troublesome part – trying to remove as much seeds as possible from the pulp. I normally use two bowls for these (one for the pulp and the other for the cleaned pulp) and painstakingly scrape off the seeds with a dining knife.

It’s time consuming and annoying. You could of course leave some, but too much seeds can make your tomatoes taste bitter.

And here is the cleaned pulp. Yes. This picture is necessary because of the amount of time I took for achieving this. Nowadays, I give Cart a black face whenever he wants to buy pomodoro da riso from the market :p

But the tough part is done!

If you like, you can sieve the seeds, and rub a spoon over it for the juice to filtrate out, since that’s where most of the liquid is trapped. No need to be overzealous though.

Now with the juice and the cleaned pulp, pulverize them together with some salt and garlic – about a garlic for two tomatoes. Some people might not like too much garlic, so you could just limit to one clove for your entire batch. But I like mine garlic-y.

No kisses for a while I guess :p

When you are done, you should have an aromatic pink liquid that looks like this :

Now separate the liquid into two containers. As one part will be used for the rice and another part for the potatoes. For each tomato that you have, add about a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil in the larger container.

Next we use some rice. I’m using Riso Roma here, but you could also use arborio or carnaroli. Or any rice that is of the short and fluffy type.

Depending on the size of your tomatoes, you use about 30 – 50g of rice for each tomato. It should be enough to almost fill the tomatoes completely. Let it rest in a cool place for at least 3 hours.

After which, you could leisurely peel and cut some potatoes. I used 3 medium sized potatoes in the pan below. But if you like more, feel free to add more of course :p

Salt it generously and add enough olive oil to coat them.

After 3 hours have passed, the rice would have expanded after absorbing the tomato juice.

Now pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.

And spoon the rice and juice mixture into the tomatoes. When it is half full, you can tear one fresh basil leaf into small pieces and drop it in each tomato. By the way for those in Singapore, I don’t know if Thai Basil makes a good substitute. I found some in Giant. But if you can’t find fresh basil, dried ones will work too.

Another variation is to use mentuccia – these are the ones we have growing in the kitchen. The purple flowers are so pretty! When cooked, it gives a sharp taste with tones of mint and oregano.

Once the tomatoes are filled up, tear up some more leaves and place them on top.

And cover them with their respective caps. Remember the reserve tomato juice in the other container? This remaining tomato juice is to be poured on the potatoes – giving it a savoury taste.

Cook in the oven for about 40 minutes or till the potatoes are cooked. The last 10 minutes, you might want to put them on grill function to crisp up the potatoes. And it will look like this!

So delicious! A yummy and hearty meal 🙂

By the way, these are great be it eaten cold or warm – making it great for picnics or preparing it in advance if you have guests coming over. No need to use too much plates for these are they come in their own natural packaging that you eat!

 

In Italy, there is this bean called ‘Fagioli Borlotti’ and call it odd, but I find them really cute.

Unlike the typical green coloured beans, the pod for fagioli borlotti is red and the inside is a beautiful red and white marble pattern which I love.

With the beans, you could use them in a lot of dishes like minestrone, or pasta fagioli. But one of the things that Cart loves to make with them is Fagioli Borlotti all Ucceletto – A hearty and rustic dish that originated from Tuscany.

It’s quite straight forward to make. You will need :

• 400g Fagioli Borlotti
• 2 Cloves of Garlic
• 200g Tomato Sauce (Pure tomato! Not ketchup!)
• Fresh Sage
• 2 tbs of EVOO
• Salt and Pepper

In a pot, heat up the extra virgin olive oil and fry the garlic and sage. When the garlic turns golden brown, add the fagioli borlotti, and then the tomato. Add salt and pepper and lower the fire and let it cook till the gravy thickens up.

Serve with a bit of extra virgin olive oil on top and eat it with some toasted bread. And enjoy!

Nom! I like them as much as I like baked beans. I wonder if Cart would flip if I added a fried egg to eat it with :-p

Apart from the things that I’d like to eat while in Singapore (which hasn’t really changed since then) here are the food places that I’d like to visit while we are in Singapore. We’ll be there for only 3 weeks so I’m not sure if we’d be able to visit them all. But lets give it a shot!

In absolutely no order of merit

1. Pasarbella

I know of this place because there were a number of people mentioning this on my twitter feed some time back. To me, the name is strange because Pasar is market in Malay and bella is beautiful in Italian. So it’s sort of like a mixed baby?

Anyway, this is a place where you could get niche food products. Kind of like Eataly in Rome. If I’m not wrong, it opened just this year. I’m not sure what I’ll discover when I get there, but the pictures looks nice.

2. Le Steak by Chef Amri

Daphne, who is a cow lover, wrote about this place in her blog recently. By the way, Le Steak is such a cute name isn’t it? Every time I hear the name, I’d keep visualising the song, “Freak out! Le steak, C’est chic“.

Prior to living in Italy, I wasn’t such a big fan of steak, but after discovering halal butcheries and cooking it for myself, I found out that I really like eating beef fillets and steaks. There is a simple, rustic taste about a good steak and I’m looking forward to try something that a chef makes.

My worry is that being a steakhouse, will there be substantial food for Cartcart, who’s a vegetarian. I only see Aglio Oglio in their menu and maybe garden salad. I don’t trust so much for mushroom soups being vegetarian, as I’m 90% sure that there is chicken stock in there.

3. Real Food

If I’m not wrong, it was Walter who mentioned this in his Instagram feed. He was showing the lovely desserts that he was having and I thought that the place looked interesting. This place serves organic and vegan food so I think that this could be a good place for a meet, regardless of what anyone’s food preference is.

Looking through the menu, the quinoa burger sounds interesting. I’d try that.

4. Original Sin Vegetarian Restaurant

I don’t remember who mentioned this, so I don’t know how it managed to get in my list. Regardless, this restaurant is another vegetarian one, but more posh and up-scale. But the thing about being posh is that, the prices are bound to be on the more expensive side.

Indeed 26 SGD for a vegetarian tandoori seems rather extravagant … but no harm trying once.

5. Gelato di Posto Storico

I remember Sarah mentioning this in her blog. In a hot climate such as Singapore, it’s nice to cool down with an iced dessert. And everyone loves ice cream! I also love that this place is located in Arab Street. One of my favourite places in Singapore.

We could go to Hajah Maimunah for lunch first and then head for some gelato and then after that, we can go exploring in this super charming area. If you haven’t been to this area, you should! It’s a lovely place that is reminiscent of a 1950s side of Singapore 🙂

6. Skyve Elementary Bistro and bar

A famous blogger wrote about this place a long while back and when I read it, I’m stunned and shocked. It was so unreal to me as it used to be the institution that I used to go for night classes and I had nice memories there. In fact, I blogged about it a long while back and now it’s a restaurant.

I don’t know if the food is good there. You know, how blog advertorials tend to only say positive things. Moreover, the place has a lot of meat types that I won’t eat but I’d like to go there just for the sake of nostalgic purposes and see how much things have changed there.

7. Fika Swedish Cafe

It’s hard for me to not think of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets show whenever thinking of Swedish Food. The irony is that Italy (where I am living) and Sweden is so much more closer than Sweden is to Singapore!

To be honest, I’m not sure how authentic the Swedish food here is, but it’ll be interesting to give it a try. Maybe the meatballs since I don’t eat the ones at Ikea.

8. Charcos

To be completely honest, number eight is actually for a Halal Japanese restaurant I stumbled on a blog. According to the author, the food here was close to what he ate while in Japan. Sadly, I don’t see it in my bookmark anymore.

So I guess I am substituting it with another steak place! It’s supposed to be good.

9. 18 Chefs

I’ve always wanted to eat here but I never seem to ever have a chance to visit. I hope that when we reach in August, we’ll finally eat there.

What attracts me to this restaurant is that the place has a crew with troubled youths and convicted criminals so that they could reintegrate into society through positive work experience and I like the philosophy of giving people who want to change, a second chance.

The head chef is the one in the middle there by the way, I’ll buy you a coffee if you could recognize the dude on the left 🙂

10. Chye Seng Huat Hardware

Friends tell me that this place looks like where you could get tools like hammers and saws. Moreover, the name is so old-school, with the Mandarin characters on top. But it’s actually a coffee shop! It’ll be interesting to see it in person and of course spending time with friends chit chatting here 🙂

On top of all these, I’d like to eat my beloved Ayam Penyet of course. And Cart is looking forward to going to Komalas at Little India. Not forgetting all the visits to my thousands of relatives in Singapore. Oh boy, I think there will be a big chance that I’ll put on weight again while in Singapore :p

Sidenote : Gordon Ramsay is in Singapore at this time of writing, challenging Singaporean Hawkers. I wonder who’d win the round.

Cart and I were at the Auditorium Parco della Musica yesterday. It’s the same location where we watched the Pat Matheny concert a while back.

We were there yesterday as this was the location for the past three days for the Festival del Gelato. Being a gelato lover, this was something that I didn’t want to miss. As here you could find award winning creations by some the best gelato makers in the entire Italy – all in the same area.

This is a giant sized container for cherries if you were wondering, you’d see this in a lot of Italian gelateria

It’s officially Summer! And as it was rather warm in Rome, we only ventured there after 6pm when the weather was cooler. Nevertheless, there was a big conglomeration of people there. So many gelato fans! You could see lines and lines of people queuing up in front of the many booths.

It was only when we went closer was that we found that you’d have to queue up first to buy tickets. With this ticket, you get a black and white shopping bag (like what the girl is holding in the picture above) a packet of waffle-cookies, a coupon for a gelato-cocktail, a guide book, a maximum of 5 gelati sample of choice.

Tickets costs 12 euro though, and for the price of that, the size of your gelato bowl was really tiny. Moreover, with the very long lines, Cart and I both weren’t down with that, but we continued our look-see.

This was a sort of a bus where you could see people making gelato inside.

A lot of the gelato that is made in Italy uses these kind of machines to mix them together – it’s a much professional version compared to the one that Cart and I use.

This booth serves black forest gelato.

This is coffee gelato (if I’m not wrong)

This is a gelato with strawberries and passionfruit.

Peach gelato with a touch of chocolate sauce and pistacchio

White chocolate gelato with a touch of vanilla, chocolate and pistacchio.

I was joking with Cart that this was durian ice cream. He shot me this horrified look. Haha! It’s actually gelato with Sicillian oranges and a touch of chocolate. The colour is gorgeous though.

If I’m not wrong, this was a mix of cherries and pistacchio on cream gelato – making it the colours of the Italian flag.

This gorgeous looking one has chantilly cream, dulce de leche and gianduja.

Coffee with almond milk

There was also a conference hall where there were a few invited speakers who did courses on how to make gelato and others who gave tips about making gelato. We didn’t stay too long for this one because, when we reached there, the speaker was already halfway through, and we missed the bulk of the talk.

In the end, after visiting the Gelato Festival, we headed to one of our favourite, Tony Gelateria. It may not be award winning. But we both love it anyway 🙂

Less queue and only 2.50 euro 😛

Nevertheless, with the list of these gelaterie at hand, I think we’ll go around Rome for a gelato adventure at our own time 🙂

We had some coconut milk leftover from making currypuffs and I decided to make some Kaya with it. Kaya is a wonderful egg and coconut jam combination which is just lovely to spread on toasts.

There are two types of kaya – the green and the brown one, each with it’s own special taste. Kaya means rich in Malay by the way, and it’s funny when we gift a bottle of this to someone who wants to be rich (Sort of like for Italians eating lenticchie)

In any case, I’m surprised at how easy it is to make this. I used the recipe from this site. A pity that I didn’t have palm sugar around the house and had to use regular sugar instead. I’m sure that it’ll be so much tastier with!

Sidenote : As you know, my main compy is having serious issues right now. Which sucks. Worst case scenario, I’ll just blog from my phone. Am contemplating on buying a new laptop when I’m in Singapore. Anyone has any recommendations? 🙂

After we’ve settled down from our bed and breakfast, we headed out for some dinner. From the list of recommendations which the caretaker left us, we eventually went to a cozy little restaurant called Trattoria da Pordo which was just a few minutes drive away from the bnb.

So today I’d thought that I’d talk about what we ate, as well as one of the food that Tuscany is famous for.

As many people know, the Bistecca alla Fiorentina is probably the most famous Tuscan dish.

It is basically grilled beef tenderloin and it’s renowned for how thick it is. We didn’t have that though as we all couldn’t eat them because of each of our own personal reasons … Haha! However, if you can, this is something that is a must try if you are ever visiting Tuscany.

Anyway, here are what we had :

Gnocchi con asparagi

So yummy! Reminds me a bit of the one that we had in Castelli Romani. (Speaking of which, asparagus is in season at this point of time. We should get some! And cook ourselves Gnocchi con asparagi! Frittata con asparagi! Asparagi with half fried egg! And others!)

Ravioli Ricotta con Spinaci con pomodoro

I like the parmigiano shavings on top. And the tomatoes taste so delicately fresh. But it’s the raviolo which was quite interesting to me, as I’ve never encountered such a big raviolo before.

Look at how large it is compared to the fork! It’s most probably handmade. By the way, in making ravioli with ricotta and spinaci, there ratio of ricotta cheese should be more than the spinach and not the other way round.

A duo of fresh and cured pecorino cheese for you to taste – they are both essentially the same, made of sheep milk but they both have different maturing stages. I prefer cheeses which are fresh and have a delicate flavour as compared to the tart and rich flavours of the cured ones.

And then for dessert, Cart and I had a cake filled with ricotta and Philadelphia cheese respectively.

While the food above were really good and tasted very fresh, they are not really a Toscana speciality. But as mentioned, we tend not to eat meat when we are outside, so a lot of the food that they are renowned for, like rabbit stew, and grilled wild boar, we couldn’t eat.

But here are the things that we did eat!

Ribollita – Suitable for vegans

Ribollita means reboiled in Italian. This is a soup made with bread and local vegetables such as carrot, cabbage, beans, bietola, cavolo nero and onions. It looks kind of like a minestrone, but this dish takes a much longer cooking process.

Cart and Hema liked this a lot. Although for me, I think I’ll take a longer time to warm up to it because Tuscan bread has no salt in it to justify that you could appreciate the flavours of the dishes better. But to me, I don’t like Tuscan breads as they are a tad too bland … sorry!

Ceci all’olio – also suitable for vegans

This dish is basically by boiling chick peas in water and add a bit of olive oil and rosemary have it boiled till the dish is almost completely evaporated. This is slow cooked also, which is why you’d see the coagulated consistency of the soup as opposed to a more viscous texture for a dish which takes a shorter time to cook.

(Coagulate? Viscous consistency? Hahaha! Geography terms that still stick to me after all these years)

Cantucci e Vin Santo

Remember the wine that Hema bought at the bed and breakfast? That is called a Vin Santo and it is a sweet wine and you could have it as a dessert with almond biscuits which you dunk it in. I wonder how it tastes like. But Hema seems to like it, and this is a rather popular combination that I even see it served outside of Tuscany.

Castagnaccio

We didn’t have this in the restaurant but I thought that I’d just add this just for the fun of it since Cart made this some while back.

Castagnaccio is made of chestnut flour mixed with water and soaked raisins, pine nuts and fresh rosemary on top. It is a very rustic cake and I think it’s good to eat during holidays to help negate the rich foods that we ate.

So, that’s about it for today! I think I’ll blog about our visit to the olive oil produce and winery in the next blog post! 🙂