Tag Archives: Bruschetta

Eating Montalcino – Le Potazzine

Restaurant: Ristorante Le Potazzine

Location: Montalcino, Italy

Date: June 20, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

Rating: Tasty traditional

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We took a most excellent wine tasting tour of Montalcino (the home of the one and only Brunello). This was led by a top flight young guide named Matteo Perinti, who took us to a pair of top flight small wineries (but more on that itself later). In between we stopped at Montalcino the home base for Brunello.


Montalcino is one of Tuscany‘s long list of ugly locales — just kidding. It’s a gorgeous mediaeval village — with a LOT of wine for sale.


We went to the restaurant owned by the Le Potoazzine vineyard, which was one that we visited. Not only was their wine incredible, but they run a nice restaurant.


For lunch we actually had their IGT Tuscan, slightly down the curve than this amazing Rosso Di Montalcino, but I didn’t get a photo. If you can find the above wine in the states do — it was incredibly seductive.


Tuscan Prosciutto.


And a wider selection of local cured meats.


Panzenella, the very traditional “salad” of stale bread crumbs, onions, tomatos, and fresh olive oil.


Bruschetta with tomato, basil, and olive oil. Tuscan’s have no fear of serving bread too many ways.


Minestrone soup.


Gnocchi done the simple way, with cream, butter, and cheese.


Risotto Brunello. Very fitting, and very tasty.


Local wide pasta fresca with vegetables.

This was a nice little lunch place. Certainly nothing radical about the cooking but every dish was delicious.

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Eating Poggibonsi – Osteria da Camillo

Restaurant: Osteria da Camillo

Location: Poggibonsi, Italy

Date: June 18, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

Rating: Very mediocre

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We were in Poggibonsi to drop my brother off at the bus/train station and we spent a few minutes wandering around and then picked a likely random lunch restaurant. This turned out to be our worst pick of the trip compared to expectations. It looked like all the other likely places — and it was even very touristy — but the food just wasn’t very good.


The menu.


This inexpensive Chianti Classico (probably 10-15 euros) was perfectly nice though.


Classic bruschetta with liver. These weren’t bad, one of the places better items. They weren’t however even close to the best bruschetta we’ve seen.


Mixed bruchetta, also fine. Starting from upper left and going clockwise. Fava beans, lard, mushrooms, and tomato.


Spicy pici with walnuts. This pasta tasted like glue. Paste. It was pretty gross. I think they added flour to the sauce, making it like elmers.


Tagliatelle al pesto. Edible, but very mediocre pesto.


Green tortelli with fossa cheese and yellow pumpkin cream. I didn’t try these.


Linguine with cheese and pepper. This was really bad too. Not even close to the amazing pepper and cheese pasta at Trattoria Pepei. I could barely eat a few bites. The pasta was pasty. Those thin slices of pecorino has an unpleasant melted cheese taste, and the sauce — there barely was one — tasted of paste.


Penne pomodoro.


Tagliatelle with tomatoes, olives, capers and hot peppers. Didn’t try this either.


Chicken, green beans, tomatoes, mushrooms. This was fine, not horrible. Not really a dish that does it for me though.

This place was completely unique for this trip in that it actually had bad dishes, several of them. That pretty much makes it the worst meal, even though it wasn’t horrible or anything. But it goes to show, eat out 50 times in Italy and you can find a dud!

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Eating Florence – La Cantinetta Antinori

Restaurant: La Cantinetta Antinori

Location: Florence, Italy

Date: June 17, 2011

Cuisine: Modern Tuscan

Rating: Slick and tasty

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On our first trip to Florence (we went thrice) we met up with an Italian friend and her family and they brought us to the Antinori wine empire’s casual enoteca, where they combine slick modernized Tuscan food with a large selection of excellent wines.


The lovely room in Palazzo Antinori.


A nice light quafable mineral laced white. We went through about half a bottle a person at lunch!


The menu. Sorry the meat courses are out of focus.


Assorted bruschetta, Tuscan standard.


Insalta Caprese.  Tomato and buffalo mozzarella. Basil and olive oil.


Panzanella. Traditional Tuscan salad of soaked stale bread, tomato, basil, onions, olive oil.


The ubiquitous Insalta Misto.


Taglierini agli scampi freschi. Thin noodles with tomato, basil, garlic and you guessed it, a giant crayfish creature.


Fagioli. Tuscan fava beans and olive oil.


Sea bass, capers, sun dried tomatos, potatoes.


Pounded veal in mushroom sauce.


Filetto di manzo. Beef filet and potatoes.


Almond semifreddo with caramel. This is SO up my dessert alley. Creamy and sweet. Oh yes. Oh yes.


Expresso, to counter the copious amount of wine I consumed.

This was a nice place. Not radical, not staid. Fitting of a hot spot in Florence, it’s basically traditional Tuscan fare with 10% modernization. Given the quality of the ingredients and the base cuisine, this is more than enough for a great meal.

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