In Piemonte

23 June & 24 June (Wednesday and Thursday)

In Piemonte

Piemonte gets two thumbs up for being our favorite place in Italy. We stayed in Alba; drove to Barolo and Barbaresco and were able to get a good feel for the place. I’d say it is characterized by flat river bottom plains surrounded by very steep hills. Somehow it feels more like Paso than Tuscany did although Tuscany is to where the comparison is typically made. On the flats corn and grain; in the steep hills and canyons vineyards, olive orchards, hazelnut orchards and wood lots (subsidized by the government to preserve the truffle heritage) and overall very pretty. Like Tuscany virtually every hilltop has a castle, a church and a little walled town.

To get to Alba we drove up the coast through a variety of small towns until we got to Portofino where we headed back inland to the Auto Strade. The towns were reminiscent of Capitola and Santa Cruz, CA, although much more densely settled and a little bit older... It was great fun to stroll along the promenade, enjoy lunch in a café right on the water and gelato in the hot sun. I dare say that it would be a good time to spend a few days lying in the sun and swimming in the warm water… …but that was not the point of this trip so onward and upward in the hills around Alba.

Shameless plug for the place we stayed: Villa La Favorita. By far the best place on the trip. A beautiful B&B in an old restored house. Roberta, our hostess, was great and took whatever time we needed to guide us to restaurants, sights, etc. to ease our stay. The breakfast was wonderful as was her wine – she grows and makes Nebbiolo…

We had two dinners in Piemonte. Very different but still the same. The first was at Ristorante Nelle Vigne. It is not a menu place, you come in, you sit down, you eat and three or four hours later, you leave. Here is the menu we had:

Antipasti:
• Anchovies (whole and large) in hazelnut paste
• Panne frito covered with lardo (not quite bacon, not quite ham, mostly fat)
• Chicken, celery, cheese, cabbage & peppers salad
• Thin sliced beef tongue with fresh garden vegetable sauce (like a chunky salsa)
• Roasted red and yellow peppers, sweet and sour with tuna
• Zucchini torte
Prima:
• Ravioli stuffed with veal/pork/rabbit in a butter rosemary sauce
• Taglietelle with sausage ragu
Secondi:
• Veal scaloppini in an Arneis sauce
• Stewed veal in a hazelnut sauce
• Green beans steamed with butter
Dolce:
• Pana cotta with strawberries
• Semifreddo with hazelnut
• Pear tart with chocolate
• Rum soaked bread and chocolate pudding

Still water, and a bottle each of 2009 Langhe Arneis and a 2008 Barbera di Asti rounded out the meal (and us). What do you think? €60 each? €75 each? Guess again… The dinners were €24.50, the Arneis was €11 and the Barbera was €17. Folks don’t try that at home; we are profession diners eating on a closed track!

The next day, we were neither convinced nor hungry when dinner came around. So rather than try another traditional meal we hopped in our trusty car and sought out the little town of Verduno and a place called Ca Del Ra. To get to Verduno you have to go through the town of Roddi, in fact you go through the little town of Roddi several times. Like five times… …and no, we weren’t lost it just seems you can’t get away from Roddi. However, Verduno is a very cute little, not very touristy (hilltop, castle, church, wall, etc, etc, etc) town once we found it. We sat outside at Ca Del Ra and enjoyed a much simpler meal. Appetizers were salumi and brasceola; Pasta was taglietelle with beef ragu; Secondi was rabbit (grilled with thyme and salt) for John and veal (braised in Nebbiolo) for Sheila (and potatoes which turn out to be Sheila’s closet passion) and no Dolce for anyone (we did end up at a gelateria in Alba before we went home). The house wine went down by two liters in their barrel – a very good blend of Nebbiolo and a non-specified local red that was peppery with great structure for €5 per liter.

The net? When in Piemonte don’t eat in the tourist restaurants, don’t bring a lot of money and come hungry!

That’s about it for Piemonte. Great place to stay; beautiful scenery, wonderful little towns, excellent food, nice people – doesn’t have much going for it. Oh yeah, they make wine there too… …but that’s the next installment.

Ciao!

Jill and John