It was midday in Padova, Italy. We had just been dragged all over the city by our Italian confidant and host, the lovely Gioia. We had seen all of the piazze, the frescos, the building designed to look like an upside down boat and the shockingly huge horse therein, and now it was time for lunch. Finally.
"We will go to the piazza della signoria and get something to eat," She had said, "A merenda." A light snack.
She approached a small red cart protected from the noon sun by a pair of white umbrellas and a large man with shoulder length hair greeted us, "Bon giorno! Che cosa volete?" He said in a voice better suited to a children's television show than a burly italian man.
I was quickly distracted from his vocal oddity by the mass quantities of seafood laid out on the cart. There was grilled octopus, fried octopus, octopus sauteed in garlic and olive oil, sardines with onions, scallops with caviar, boiled fish with shallots, grilled cuttlefish lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, fried calamari done in a light buttermilk and seasoned with thyme and salt and pepper, and then I was brought around from my food induced orgasm by a jarring elmo-esque voice shouting to passerby's, "Pesci fresci! Abbiamo pesci fresci!"
Gioia told the man, "We'll have one of everything," and then insisted on paying for it.
We carried the plates three at a time to our little table in the square, and each of us still had to make two trips. We pulled another table over as a waitress from the restaurant that I assume the tables belonged to came up to us.
Instead of asking us what we thought we were doing, moving the restaurants tables around and bringing food from elsewhere in, she asked us if we would like anything to drink.
It turns out we did. One bellini a piece please.
The food all tasted as good as it looked. The cuttlefish was grilled so it had a little give and a nice snap as you ate it. The octopus was slimy but smothered in oil and loaded with garlic. The anchovies and sardines were salty and had been sauteed with onions or breaded and lightly fried. The calamari was leagues beyond anything you will have at TGIF, crisp, crunchy, flavorful. There were also little fried crabs, that were fried whole, and whole baby octopus. The scallops were buttery and whatever the opposite of heart-wise is. Probably "delicious".
Then the bellinis came to wash our meal down, a perfect mix of peach nectar and champagne to quench our thirst and prepare our pallets for dinner...
"We will go to the piazza della signoria and get something to eat," She had said, "A merenda." A light snack.
She approached a small red cart protected from the noon sun by a pair of white umbrellas and a large man with shoulder length hair greeted us, "Bon giorno! Che cosa volete?" He said in a voice better suited to a children's television show than a burly italian man.
I was quickly distracted from his vocal oddity by the mass quantities of seafood laid out on the cart. There was grilled octopus, fried octopus, octopus sauteed in garlic and olive oil, sardines with onions, scallops with caviar, boiled fish with shallots, grilled cuttlefish lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, fried calamari done in a light buttermilk and seasoned with thyme and salt and pepper, and then I was brought around from my food induced orgasm by a jarring elmo-esque voice shouting to passerby's, "Pesci fresci! Abbiamo pesci fresci!"
Gioia told the man, "We'll have one of everything," and then insisted on paying for it.
We carried the plates three at a time to our little table in the square, and each of us still had to make two trips. We pulled another table over as a waitress from the restaurant that I assume the tables belonged to came up to us.
Instead of asking us what we thought we were doing, moving the restaurants tables around and bringing food from elsewhere in, she asked us if we would like anything to drink.
It turns out we did. One bellini a piece please.
The food all tasted as good as it looked. The cuttlefish was grilled so it had a little give and a nice snap as you ate it. The octopus was slimy but smothered in oil and loaded with garlic. The anchovies and sardines were salty and had been sauteed with onions or breaded and lightly fried. The calamari was leagues beyond anything you will have at TGIF, crisp, crunchy, flavorful. There were also little fried crabs, that were fried whole, and whole baby octopus. The scallops were buttery and whatever the opposite of heart-wise is. Probably "delicious".
Then the bellinis came to wash our meal down, a perfect mix of peach nectar and champagne to quench our thirst and prepare our pallets for dinner...
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