Tag: arancini

Postcard from Palermo, Sicily: Dining from A to Lac-

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Above: A crispy slice of potato topped with fish, sauteed spinach and a crown of fried leeks at Il Mirto e la Rosa

In keeping with the practice of alphabetizing restaurants we visited to try to assist you in your future travels, A’Nica Ristorante e Pizzeria Gourmet is first up to bat. We already had been in Sicily for a month by the time we arrived in Palermo, so our standards had risen fairly high. A’Nica’s large outdoor patio was directly across a pocket park from our apartment, so it attracted us the first night.

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Postcard from Siracusa, Sicily: Celebrating the bounty of the sea

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Above: Spaghetti a scoglio at Cod da Saretta

It must be frustrating to a traveler who only wants meat to visit Sicily where seafood dominates. For us, that was heaven. We were surprised we didn’t frequently order some of the dishes we expected to devour almost daily. Too many other temptations popped up on menus.

The first was pizza. Every city anywhere we have been, we are always on the lookout for Neapolitan-style pizzas. We even eat pizza in Austin once a week.

But despite the fact that Sicily has great pizzas exactly the style we love, we only consumed about three in two months. One reason was that the best restaurants and pizzerias, perhaps an over-simplified generalization, only offer it at night; the ones featuring it at lunch time tend to be tourist-oriented and often not as good. We tend to eat a main meal at lunch, one so substantial that’s it for the day. No room for late-night pizzas.

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Postcard from Bordeaux, France: French and other worldly flavors

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Above: Grilled fresh sardines at La Pointe Chartrons

We’ve taken you to eat, virtually only, in Bordeaux’s Marche des Capucins and along Rue du Ha, so now we’re going to wander willy-nilly through the city for a final wrap-up of restaurants we sampled.

Located along the Quai des Chartrons, Pastel was among our favorite contemporary French restaurants in Bordeaux. Lunch requires reservations, and, waiting late, we only succeeded in obtaining those once. The soft lemony cheese appetizer with eggplant and tomato confit was particularly refreshing and memorable.

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