A little trip to Italy

[Chufi]

So where are we? Ah, it´s day 11, this must be Senigallia

We ended up in Senigallia because of eGullet. More precisely, because of tupac17616!

I read his raving review of Uliassi in Senigallia here. For some reason, what he wrote just made me want to go and eat there! So this turned out to be the only ´destination restaurant´of the whole trip. It was the most expensive, and the most formal dinner of the trip. Was it the best? let´s see some food first...

I read tupac´s review again after we came bakc, and it turns out we had many of the dishes he had. So by all means check out his post to read a more elaborate description of some of the food.

Uliassi is a restaurant right on the beach in Senigallia (which is by the way a very pleasant town to spend a day)

we arrived in the afternoon, found a hotel and went for a stroll. And checked out the restaurant and the menu

We did not want to order a la carte, so this left us to choose between the two tasting menus. One consisted of about 12 courses of raw fish, the other of about 12 courses of fish raw and cooked, a pasta dish and a meat course. You have to order the same menu for the whole table. This was cause for some discussion during the hours before dinner.. Dennis wanted the raw fish and I didn´t... at least not an entire menu of it. I won but actually we both won because even the ´regular´ menu had enough fish (raw and cooked) to make him happy.

Anyway some pics.. it was very dark in the restaurant and htey serve many dishes on glass plates, which are set on a sort of ugly wiry plastic placemat.. so the pics are not good.. but I want to include them just to illustrate what this dinner was like.

We started with thin wafers sandwiched together with foie gras and hazelnut paste

Loaker di fegato grasso e pralino di nocciola (no pic)

then two large pasta shells, deepfried and one stuffed with a mixture of raw vegetables, the other with a fossa (local cheese) mousse (no pic)

Tagliatelle di seppia e alghe marine

this was really good, intensely savoury from the algae, the ´tagliatelle´of raw squid was chewy yet tender, the crunchy bits on top (which tasted of shrimp) a great texture.

Scampo Zen

Raw shrimp, with a foam I can´t remember. there was pineapple and mint, and supposedly green tea, but the taste of mint was very overpowering and there was no delicate green tea flavor to be found. Wasn´t too fond of this.

Ricciola e latte do cocco

Raw fish (I´m not sure what ricciola is but it tasted a lot like swordfish) with a coconut lime cream.

The little mushroom on the other end of the plate was raw shrimp, with a tiny scoop of sea urchin ice cream, topped with a very crunchy biscuit. This was one of my favorite bites of the evening. So it deserves a close-up:

Erbe selvatiche, cristalli di sale nero e capesante

This was wonderful. A salad composed of what seemed to be all different leaves, each with their own oungent herby flavor, on top of some perfectly cooked sweet scallops. There was also some fruit and some little frozen discs of cucumber and tomato and celery. All of it worked really well together, each bite w asexciting and fresh tasting.

Schiacciata di patate mazzanolle e tartufo nero

The best truffle flavor of the trip. Mash with truffle, how can you go wrong This was perfect, luscious and rich, but not exciting. Like the very best comfort food.

Albanella con molluschi e crostacei

next came this little jar, which was opened at the table to release an intense aroma of shellfish, steamed in a tomatoey, basl and garlic broth.

spooned onto the plate

Edited October 12, 2007 by Chufi (log)

[Chufi]

Tonno e caipirinha

More tropical flavors: little cubes of raw tuna (each about the size of dice) marinated in caipirinha, I though the little yellow cubes were made of caipirinha jelly. This was the only dish where the tropical flavors really worked for me.. Fresh, zingy, with a nice bite from the alcohol.

Panzanella, canocchie, chiffonade di sedano a anguria. This was really, really good. The canocchie was, I think, poached - it was firm but now chewy, and resting on a little scoop of ´bread mush´ that had the most intense tomato and basil flavor. Of the 3 purees, only the black one (olive) stood out and was the most expressive flavor.

Strigoli al nero di seppia, calamaretti pennini e basilico

This was one of my favorites. The little squid were the tenderest, juiciest I ever tasted and the pasta was so satisfying, yet the basil made it light and fragrant.

Oca laccata e fegato grasso di anatra

Goose meat, duckliver, in a rich berry sauce with soem,ightly cooked raspberries/currants/blackberries. As good as it sounds! But. Yes But. On either side of the row of meat was a cube of mint-marinated pineapple. we were instructed to eat these after eating the meat and foie gras. as tupac said, like a palate cleanser. I did not get this at ALL. Not only did i want the taste of foie gras and tart berry sauce to linger a little longer, I thought the acidic pineapple and especially the mint, really clashed with the other flavors.

Zuppa di gorgonzola, datteri e sorbetto di sedano

aka as cheese heaven. This was incredible, a rich but not at all heavy thick blue cheese cream, with bits of sweet caramelly date floating in it, topped with some (goats?) cheese icecream, celery granita and fresh celery. Flavorwise, already a match made in heaven but the different textures and temperatures really made this a glorious little bowl.

Dessert was meringa di ananas, gelato do fragola e mou al rum - strawberry icecream, pineapple flavored meringue, fresh pineapple and a coconut cream.

interior (you can just see Mauro Uliassi and his sister, Catia, talking together in the back)

So, what did I think? my comments may come across as very critical. Don´t get me wrong, this was a fantastic dinner. He has a very distinctive style. Dennis, who really likes clean, fresh, ethereal, flowery flavors loved this dinner more than I did. For me, it was just a little bit too heavy on the tropical/fruity flavors. As I am thinking about it, I do wonder if I liked the dishes which seemed more traditiona Italian (basil, tomato) more because we were in Italy and this was what I expected? But I don´t think so. I don´t mind a bit of pineapple but to have it in 3 different dishes seemed a bit excessive. He likes to play with this, I think. There was basil/tomato in 2 dishes, pineapple in 3, coconut in 2, celery in 3.

The service was great. Language was a bit of a problem but they were very helpful with explaining stuff, wine etc. At the end of the dinner I asked to see the menu again so I could make notes of the dishes we had. Nothing happened and we finally gave up and left, only to find out when we went to pay in the front, that they had printed out the menu for me.

Mauro Uliassi made the rounds in the restaurant a couple of times. The second time he stayed at our table for quite a while and talked to us, asked where we were from, what had we eaten in Italy so far

After 4 hours we stumbled out, to our hotel which was fortunately only about 100 metres away, and fell asleep to the sound of the waves.

Thanks tupac fro writing about Uliassi and I hope my pics will bring back some memories for you

Anyway. Even I feel a bit weird now, having described and analyzed a meal in such a detailed way. God bless eGullet because my friends would have left the room after me describing the 3rd course Also, I have typed the word flavor a 1000 times now so it´s time to quit and continue tomorrow (with simpler fare)

Edited October 12, 2007 by Chufi (log)

[tupac17616]

Thanks tupac fro writing about Uliassi and I hope my pics will bring back some memories for you 

Thank you, Chufi. Very interesting to see how many of our courses overlapped, and to see where our opinions of certain dishes both agreed/disagreed with one another. Oh, and I remember that glorious little bowl of zuppa di gorgonzola like I just ate it yesterday... You've definitely brought back some very nice taste memories for me!

[hathor]

Great photos, Chufi! And thought provoking commentary. In my fantasies, I have time to play with all the ideas that this thread has sparked.....

[Kevin72]

Umbria in the fall, what could be better? Isn't it amazing how not sick of pasta you can be when you're in Italy?

I'm having a lot of fun reading about your exploits and can't wait to see what sort of trouble Judith had in store for you!

[Shaya]

This is the town of Preci where we were staying:

This is one of the most beautiful photos I have ever seen.

This trip looks out of this world. I wish I had been there too!

[Chufi]

thanks everyone for the kind words and sorry about the delay in posting!

day ? I lost count

Urbino

After our night in Senigallia we headed west to Urbino. Before we left we visited the market where we saw this guy with all the fish beautifully and lovingly displayed:

Beautiful Urbino:

where we had lunch with a spinach frittata (in a weird cake-like shape) and the local specialty Crescia Sfogliata, grilled flatbread filled with vegetables and cheese

In Urbino we saw someone selling fresh truffles. We had promised a friend we would bring him back some truffles, so we bought some here even though it would be almost a week before we could deliver them. More on that later...

Dinner that night was at our hotel, a little drive out of Urbino. One of the very few disappointing dinners, Dennis had a terrible pizza but my pasta was ok:

I forgot the name but it was some sort of gamey, creamy ragu.

Lunch in Urbino the next day was another Crescia sfogliata, this one was way better than the one I had the day before:

Aperitivo, it was still warm enough to sit outside until 7:30 or so. Crodino for both of us, and we very much liked the Italian habit of serving some nibbles with every drink

Dinner that night at trattoria Il Coppiere. The entire diningroom smelled intoxicatingly of truffles (as did our hotelroom since we brought the fresh truffles there )

salad with truffle

ravioli with truffle

steak with mushrooms.

the next day we drove to Montone (with a little stop in Gubbio for more Crescia Sfogliata and some icecream) where we waited on the little piazza until hathor and her husband had finished their lunchshift in Erba Luna

The bar on the piazza (note this is not Erba Luna!)

[therese]

I forgot the name but it was some sort of gamey, creamy ragu.

←

The pasta itself looks like passatelli, a local specialty.

Lovely report, as usual.

[Peter the eater]

A fantastic report KK, thanks. I remember many good looking meals in Italy but some of those images are breathtaking. Don't forget we are waiting for your future coffee table food photography book! (oops, starting rumors again)

And now your new avatar makes more sense!

[Chufi]

Thanks therese and Peter! yes I thought that me trying to decide between the 100 EUIR or 120 EUR tasting menu at Uliassi, would make a nice avatar for eGullet

back to the trip.

another day

Montone!

So we arrived in Montone on Sunday afternoon. We briefly stopped by ristorante Erba Luna, where Judith (hathor) and Jeff were just finishing lunch service. There was a very brief moment of confusion when Jeff thought we were tourists who came for lunch, before he realized that we were his houseguests from Amsterdam With that cleared up, they took us home and before we knew it, we were sitting on their sunny roof terrrace, purring cat on our lap, with a large platter of sweet grapes and cheeses and bread and salumi in front of us, and a bottle of prosecco! is there anything nicer than prosecco on a sunny roof, in the late afternoon?

It was another of those magical moments where you suddenly meet, face to face, in real life, the people you have been ´talking´to in cyberspace for some time. You feel you know eachother a bit and yet ofcourse you don´t, which is great because you have so much to talk about!

With the work in the restaurant going on 7 days a week, they don´t have a lot of free time and we were honoured that they shared those bits of leisure time with us.

That night, ofcourse we went for dinner at Erba Luna! I hope hathor will jump in with the Italian names of the dishes we had - I did not write them down and cannot remember them now! Also, apologies for the quality of the pics, it was dark in the room but I know many people want to see pics of Erba Luna food, so that´s why I´m posting all of them.

Linguine with bottarga

Gnocchi di zucca with celery sauce

Duck with fig sauce

Pork fillet with citrus sauce

Crepe with icecream and chocolate sauce

Poached pear with vanilla sauce

Ha! And that was just the first night! More to come....

[hathor]

Is there a blushing avatar?

Having Chufi visit was so much fun, we can't wait to visit them in Amsterdam. But, I don't think we will be able to bring the cats with us. Bella is here with me now, and sends regards. I'm hoping this will be the first of many visits!

[Chufi]

the next day

Montone

nex day was Monday. We started the morning with hathor and jeff in the piazza, having coffee and the quintessential Italian breakfastpastry, a croissant filled with pastrycream. After that we took a long drive and somewhere along the way I had this for lunch:

lasagne with fresh porcini. I had had a LOT to drink the night before and I am now convinced that creamy cheesy mushroom lasagne is a really good hangover cure

That night brought us back to Erba Luna where Jeff made me a killer (I mean this almost literally) negroni, before we sat down to dinner.

Here´s Jeff opening some wine, and you can see the beautiful walls of the restaurant.

I had the salad with porcini and Dennis had the tartare

After that Dennis had bacala with fried artichokes and I had the buckwheat malfatti with pheasant sauce. The picture of the malfatti came out ´corrupted´, that´s what the file says, which seems appropriate for malfatti Too bad because they were delicious!

[Chufi]

The next day

Bagna di Romagna

The next day was Tuesday and hathor and Jeff´s much anticipated Day Off (the first in a long time!)

They wanted to go somewhere to really relax so we piled in one car and drove up to Bagno di Romagna, a little town just over the Umbria/Emilia Romagna border. The goal was to soak in the thermal baths for a couple of hours, but before that, we had to have lunch. I don´t remember the name of the little restaurant, but here´s what we had - 2 large platters of pasta to share: pasta with canocchie, linguine alla lepre, and potatofilled ravioli with a light meat ragu.

and after that roast pork and potatoes:

Edited October 21, 2007 by Chufi (log)

[tupac17616]

oh man. the linguine con bottarga, the gnocchi di zucco, the pasta with canocchie. you're killing me here, chufi!

[Chufi]

After a glorious afternoon of lying in the sun and soaking in the pool, we went to a supermarket on the way home to get some things to make an easy dinner at home. hathor found limes!!! which apparently is no easy thing to do in Umbria so she was very happy. And so were we because the limes ended up in a lime and chile rub on some gorgeous steaks. The steaks were grilled on the fire in the kitchen.

here´s little Rusty keeping an eye on things

me cutting up some radicchio

steaks with chiles and lime, topped with fried zucchini blossoms

we grilled the radicchio and also had mashed potatoes. And dessert

Edited October 21, 2007 by Chufi (log)

[Chufi]

yet another day

Citta di Castello, Perugia

The next morning I joined hathor and Jeff for their weekly trip to the market in Citta di Castello.

artichokes

borlotti beans and porcini

Porchetta stall

All this time in Umbria and I had not had any porchetta yet!! It was now or never!

Now, getting an order of porchetta is very serious business. You have to stand in line, and listen to all the other customers giving their instructions: a little bit more lean meat, no yes a little fat too, no not that much fat, just a little, yes, no, yes! A bit of skin, no not that part, that part, yes, oh and a piece of liver, please, yes.

And all the time you have to watch that the little old ladies that look fragile enough don´t cut ruthlessly in front of you.. they will, you see, because getting porchetta is very serious business. So I was nervous as I should be, waiting for my turn (wanna see me nervous, check out this post on hathors blog

Anyway, I managed to walk away with a porchetta sandwich that was exactly the way I wanted it (with a nice piece of crackling too) and boy was it good

[Chufi]

In the afternoon we drove to Perugia, where besided the magnificent museum, the main attraction for me was pasticceria Sandri.

This beautiful and elegant pastryshop on Corso Cavour is a wonderful place to stop for coffee and pastry.

We drove home, took a nap and walked over to Erba Luna for our final dinner in Umbria.

After porchetta, pizza on the way to Perugia, all those pastries (and some icecream ) in Perugia we weren´t that hungry, but I managed another porcini salad and then the ravioli

and Dennis, wanting something light had the risotto with blue cheese, walnuts and fresh grapes

Can you tell we really liked the food at Erba Luna? We did. Fresh and creative flavors, everything seasonal, and just a little bit different from everything else we´d seen (and eaten) so far (maybe with the exception of the place in Macerata, which was, both in style and originality, quite similar to Erba Luna). To me it felt like a great balance of creativity and more traditional flavors and dishes - I think the combination works really well. The pork with citrus and the malfatti with pheasant were my favorites (and the risotto was decadently delicious!). And the gnocchi - I wish I could make gnocchi like that - very light yet so satisfying, and the celery sauce was unusual but really really good.

This dinner was the end of our Italy trip. That was a lot of food wasn´t it? There will be a truffle epilogue, once I get my thoughts on that tricky subject organized. For now I´ll leave you with this picture of me contemplating the joys of aperitivo hour: just me and my Pink Meletti

Edited October 21, 2007 by Chufi (log)

[weinoo]

Thanks for helping me relive, via your great pix, our time in Montone, Chufi.

I'll vouch for everything you ate - the gnocchi was superb, the linguini with bottarga AND gamberini also a favorite of ours. Rusty looks like he was waiting quite patiently for the steaks - but I didn't realize he also loved limes.

I can't wait for Jeff and Judith to return to New York so we can all share some more negronis.

[docsconz]

Great report, Klary. It was good to see the food of Erba Luna as well as everything else. I am pretty much overdue for a return to Italy.

[MelissaH]

This thread so makes me want to go to Italy! I guess I'll just file it on my "someday" list for now....

MelissaH

[hathor]

Klary, your photos are just wonderful! I love the photo of your hands cutting the radicchio..I know Dennis took that photo!

Thank you for taking the time to share all of this with us...and I'm sooooo glad you came to visit!!

P.S. I've been eating salty licorice all afternoon...my teeth are black!

[SWISS_CHEF]

Wonderful pictures! Tell us more about Rusty.... is he J&J's cat or yours?

[tupac17616]

hmm, that looks vaguely familiar to me...

i had a porchetta panino from that same truck! tasty.

[Man]

And the gnocchi - I wish I could make gnocchi like that - very light yet so satisfying, and the celery sauce was unusual but really really good.

Yes, gnocchi seem a pretty simple thing to make, yet why is it that almost every time I have them in restaurants they are somewhat disappointing, most of the time ranging from pebbles (in the case of some potato gnocchi) to gooey mash? Erba Luna's gnocchi looked splendid in the picture, just the right consistency and duly 'indented' (excessive smoothness being one of the regular defects), and it's good to hear they were as pleasing to the palate as they looked - well done hathor! (and thanks for this brilliant report Chufi).

[SWISS_CHEF]

Yes, gnocchi seem a pretty simple thing to make, yet why is it that almost every time I have them in restaurants they are somewhat disappointing, most of the time ranging from pebbles (in the case of some potato gnocchi) to gooey mash?

←

My neighbor Rosanna makes the best potato gnocchi I have ever tasted. She says the secret is just potato, 00-flour and olive oil, S&P. No eggs, she says eggs make them hard.

On the unorthodox side are gnocchi Parisienne which we made at venue and were very very popular. We did them in a roasted red pepper cream sauce, when finished in the oven they puff up and get very large and light as air.