Cafe Di Stasio - our first visit

We were pretty keen to try out Cafe Di Stasio after reading it had a score of 16/20 in The Age's Good Food Guide. We left with the firm belief that this IS one of the best value for money restaurants in Melbourne for the combination of the quality, execution, attention to detail, wow factor and price. It can't be considered cheap, but in comparison with other acclaimed restaurants out there like Saint Crispin, Pei Modern and Church St Enoteca - which we tried and were not impressed by (and hence no blog posts on them) - Cafe Di Stasio totally meets every expectation and more. They even have their own monogrammed butter.  

The crayfish omelette with a bisque sauce was absolutely delicious, with soft tender crayfish meat blending perfectly with the herbs bound together by minimal amounts of egg. The bisque was superb. 

The husband had the risotto of the day, done to al dente perfection and teeming with flavour. For the life of me I can't quite recall what it was - smoked pork? 

Whatever it was, I remember it was really good. Vague, and sad, but true. 

We also had a serve of the daily special, grilled Western Australian scampi and boy, were we glad we went that day. The shrimp was beautiful. 

Lightly grilled with a smattering of mixed herbs, garlic and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper. Can't do any better than that. This, however, I felt was overpriced at $29 for effectively two shrimp cut into halves. 

We also had another daily special, the tagliatelle crab meat pasta. This was also gorgeous, with rich and flavourful stock and the pasta cooked perfectly. 

A closer look at the plate - absolutely gorgeous with all the fresh parsely. 

The bill came up to $187, which included a bottle of Sauv Blanc for $59. With the pasta mains at $33, which is the average price for all restaurants in Melbourne with 1 or 2 chef hats, the value for money factor here is pretty damn good because of the quality of the food. Service was decent not brilliant, but no complaints there. 

Website: http://distasio.com.au/

Chianti Classico, Adelaide

We had tried to get dinner bookings at Chianti Classico for our final night in Adelaide, but they were sadly full - which was to be expected, since we had heard such good things about it. Thankfully our flight out of Adelaide the following day wasn't until 5pm, and so we managed to get lunch reservations.

Crusty bread, olives and olive oil - excellent right from the start.

We were seated in the front of the restaurant, and ordered (what else) a glass of Chianti Classico and a South Australian Riesling.

We started with an antipasto platter, which had mortadella, rice balls, pecorino, crostini with salted cod, figs, anchovies and pickled vegetables. 

This was an amazing combination, and the wines were great with the food. The figs were sweet, the cheese+mortadella combo was super tasty and the baccala crostini with radicchio was amazing. 

The rice balls were excellent - crusty on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside.

For our mains, we had a fish stew that came with mussels, fish, prawns and scallops in a bisque also infused with lobster. The seafood flavours were so intense that we mopped up every last drop with bread. It was way too small for something so good.  

The husband wanted to try penne with Italian sausage after hearing it was a daily special - this was comfort food at its best, and to be frank, I would have gone for something finer like a squid ink pasta at such an established place. It was definitely good, but I daresay that Papa Ginos on Lygon St could have come up with something a little less nice for a whole lot cheaper.

The black angus ragu with fettucine was pretty damn good though, and brilliant with the Chianti Classico that the husband picked (no idea which vintage from which vineyard).

We were too stuffed for dessert, but they served up an amazing cafe latte that we had to try after smelling the beans being ground. We would be happy to make a return visit to Adelaide just for this restaurant.

http://www.chianticlassico.com.au/

Basilico Sunday Brunch

We went to Basilico at The Regent for Sunday brunch one weekend, and were shocked to find that prices had increased by almost double to $78+++ since our last visit in 2010. There were also a few issues with my camera, and I couldn't take as many photos as I wanted to.

However, the quality was as good as ever - the first thing we saw were lobsters galore. These were also the first to vanish.
 

There were also other types of seafood - quite a good variety.

The usual amazing variety of tomatoes and different types of burrata and mozzarella

The lobster bisque was pretty amazing.

The porcini risotto was freshly made - this was beautiful.

The usual entrees. Parma ham, burrata and tomatoes - as good as ever.

One of the biggest hits at the buffet - freshly fried foie gras.

The cheese room was something else altogether - it seemed that every single type of Italian cheese was available, all ripe for the picking. They even had a hard truffle cheese that was incredibly fragrant.

Back in 2010, almost everything definitely appeared better: my photos, the value for money factor, and even our appetites, which have declined tremendously probably due to age. The quality of food, however, and the variety were just as good, but at $78+++ per person, you'd have to really be a die hard fan of Italian food to go.

San Gimignano

This post should be instead titled "Do You Know The Way to San Gimignano" because that was exactly the phrase ringing in our minds (albeit with a more Spanish-American twist) as we were heading to San Gimignano by bus. Our journey started out innocently enough - we got on the public bus at Florence, and were told to change buses at Poggibonsi and look for the bus to San G "right across the road". WELL. We must have had the best luck to run into Florence's Most Perverse Bus Driver ever, who dropped us off at the side of a Poggibonsi highway in the middle of nowhere, telling us the bus to San G would come soon. It was the middle of the day, and there we were, 2 lost Asians, smack in the middle of rural Tuscan countryside without a single taxi or bus in sight. Thank God, he sent us a random stranger who "just happened to be passing by" (in the middle of whoop whoop), who walked us 1km to the Poggibonsi train station. And we made the bus, with 5 mins to spare to buy a ticket from the tabacchi at the train station.

The bus ride to San G was a beautiful one (and no, the bus did not pass by that random highway where we were agonising over what to do), and we slowly started to appreciate the scenery after we got over our anger at the earlier mentioned bus driver, and realising our rescue was pretty miraculous. The view of the city, when we got there, was even better.

Another view of the towers from one of the piazzas inside the town - about a dozen or so have been preserved, and it must have been amazing to see the city in its heyday in the 12th and 13th centuries when the entire skyline must have been dotted with towers.

Olive trees galore

Gorgeous Tuscan countryside.

Church of Sant'Agostino - featuring the life of St Augustine.

View of the towers from the Rocca, a fortress-like structure on a hilltop at one end of the town

Random side street

Sitting in the main square, Piazza della Cisterna, named for its well in the middle.

 View of the towers from the square

Amazingly, the entire square was filled with people eating gelato. Being intelligent Asians, we went for the one with the longest queue.

There were too many flavours to choose from, so I decided to let the husband decide.

This had to be the BEST gelato of our entire trip. It was creamy. It was rich. It was intensely flavourful. And it was reasonably priced. I can't recall what he got, but I think there was a nocciola, tiramisu and something else.

It was so good, we went back for another round! All fruit flavours this time - mixed berry, lemon and something else. The lemon was AMAZING.

If you're ever there, you know which shop to look for. And you can say you read about it here, on the Hungry Greedy Hippo.

Just found the website of the shop! http://www.gelateriadipiazza.com/english/master-gelato-maker.html

And that's it for Italy, over and out.

Florence

We spent 3 nights in Florence, and took it easy exploring the city and trying out various restaurants. We arrived around lunch time, just in time to try out what appears to be highly regarded as THE place to go in Florence. Mario's is apparently open only for lunch, and there's a no reservations policy. Those chaps in the photo were waiting for a table too.

Their menu changes daily...I would imagine.

We didn't have to wait too long for a table. When we entered, the place was packed to the brim. And very few patrons were speaking Italian. Oh well...we were also guilty as charged.

I wanted to try the vegetable soup - this was a lot thicker than I expected, and definitely wouldn't have fallen into my definition of soup. It tasted of blended beans and other veggies.

This was the penne with deer - I wouldn't have been able to tell! It tasted exactly like ground beef.

Half a litre of house wine cost 3.50 Euros. Cheaper than water.

 

This is how they cook the bistecca on the grill. We quietly claimed ownership of one of them. Or so we were hoping. 

This was a 1kg bistecca - the husband liked this better than the Sotto Le Fonti version because he claimed it was juicier. Both were pretty good, in my opinion, and I was most happy to eat as much bistecca as I could while we were in Italy. Lunch cost us about 50 Euros including 35 Euros for the bistecca alone.

After lunch, we went for a walk along the streets of Florence and decided to follow Rick Steves' Renaissance walk already preloaded in my trusty iphone. We came across a number of market stalls - I think it's a pity how these canvas structures block the historical buildings from being appreciated in their totality, but there's always a fine balance to draw between wanting a purist approach and allowing some form of enterprise.

Random street in Florence

The Florence Duomo...or part of it, at least

With Brunelleschi's dome built in the 1400s. When Singapore was still a fishing village with everyone building things out of timber. 

Our first gelato stop - Grom came highly recommended, but we weren't too impressed. It wasn't as creamy as we would have liked.

We headed across the Arno River to Piazzale Michaelangelo, on the Oltrano side.

 

And, I'm proud to say, in our most unfit and food-stuffed state, climbed the dunno-how-many steps to get a glimpse of this view of Florence. It was beautiful, and totally worth the hike.

 View of the Duomo and the Palazzo Vecchio

 Ponte Vecchio in the distance.

We didn't eat expensive meals all the time. We also popped into random sandwich shops for a quick panini.

After visiting the Uffizi Gallery, we had dinner at this place called Il Canastorie, which I wouldn't really recommend for the simple reason that I felt we could have had something a lot more special elsewhere. It was decent, pleasant and very enjoyable, but lacked a certain WOW factor. However, all in, a decent meal.

We started with pecorino with honey and fig jam - I really enjoyed this dish.

The husband had ravioli with a porcini cream sauce to start with

While I had tagliatelle with black truffles. There wasn't much truffle!

I think the husband had a veal dish.

While I had a tenderloin with black truffles. Mmm this was pretty good! This cost 20 Euros which we felt was pretty reasonable given the amount, and quality.

Another look at the steak. It was a pretty thick cut, and done to medium-well perfection.

We ended off with vin santo (or holy wine) and cantucci - those thick biscuit like things, for dessert. The vin santo was more than we bargained for in terms of alcohol content.

On our final night in Florence, we ate at Zaza, just opposite the Mercato Centrale and next to Mario's. This was also a really enjoyable meal, and somehow the restaurant was just a little bit perkier than the previous night's dinner venue.

They've also got their own wine glasses.

Half a litre of house red goes a long way with us.

We started off with the wild boar pasta - I was really craving this and wanted to get a last fix.

I liked Zaza's version - it was rich and very flavourful.

Then we also had a prawn, zucchini and truffle risotto flavoured with saffron. This was amazing. The combination of flavours was extremely complex, and yet the risotto wasn't too rich. Easy to eat and very yummy.

Especially with the truffle.

We also shared a pizza with porcini, truffle (it's somewhere under the leaves), pesto and something else. Not bad, but way too few toppings.

Next up: San Gimignano.