vegetarian restaurant – Postcards from Barton Springs

Postcard from Siracusa, Sicily: Where Plato tested and failed tyrant-taming

June 7, 2023June 8, 2023 postcardsfromsanantonio2 Comments

Above: Caves created by ancient Greek quarries, including the notorious Ear of Dionysius, line a bluff in the Archaeological Park of Neapolis

Long ago, Siracusa became an important outpost of the Grecian Empire. For strategic reasons, the ancient city first developed on the small island of Ortigia.

A major vestige of this are the ruins of the Temple of Apollo in the heart of the city adjacent to the island’s bustling outdoor market. Forty-two monolithic columns once framed the sixth-century-BC Doric temple dedicated to the sun god. These remnants of the temple incorporated into several private homes and 16th-century military barracks occupying the site were “rediscovered” in the 1890s.

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Postcard from Zaragoza, Spain: Sampling menus from regional vegetables to Neapolitan-style pizza

December 5, 2022December 5, 2022 postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

Above: Casa Lac roasted pimientos del cristal with hake

We’ll start this post exploring a few restaurants in Zaragoza with a leisurely meal at what some claim is the oldest in Spain – Casa Lac – dating from 1825 but with a decor updated sometime during the 19th-century. While Casa Lac features tapas downstairs, upstairs offers old-school, formal, multi-course service – perfect for whiling away time on a cool, rainy afternoon.

The six-course meal suited our mood, but what really drew us was Casa Lac’s reputation for putting fresh vegetables, instead of meat, in the primary spotlight. Ricardo Gil’s restaurant group grows and harvests seasonal regional vegetables, such as borage and thistle, on its own farm on the banks of the Ebro River. Gil says: “Our dishes are full of tradition, but with lively flashes of innovation. This is how we understand our cuisine; this is how we keep it alive.”

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Postcard from Naples, Italy: Always on the prowl for vegetables

March 8, 2020 postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

Large mixed vegetable plate, changing daily, at Un Sorriso Integrale

As seen in an earlier post, seafood often dominated our orders in restaurants. Great seafood often proved easier to locate than the vegetables we found ourselves craving.

Un Sorriso Integrale – Amico Bio Napoli was our salvation. We probably ate there five or six times for vegetable catch-up days. The selection is diverse and always changing to take advantage of the best vegetables of the season. And all are amazingly inexpensive. Always start with a dish of their spicy, truly spicy, fried chickpeas. Rather than make up my mind, I loved getting their mixed plate, which comes with a bowl of soup and six different vegetable combinations. The Mister was hooked on the wok plate. Oh, and a little picante chocolate soufflé to round out the meal.

Sorriso Integrale falafel

Godot Restaurant

Sorriso Integrale spicy fried chickpeas

Re Lazzarone oriccette with broccoli and speck

Re Lazzarone chocolate mousse

Re Lazzarone pearl-like pasta with vegetables

Pizzeria Errico Porzio Vomero genovese and margherita pizzas

Anonymous Trattoria Gourmet pasta e patate

Anonymous Trattoria Gourmet paccheri alla bufalina

Antichi Sapori Partenopei eggplant

L’Ostricaio zucchini

Sorriso Integrale chocolate souffle picante

Re Lazzarone ravioli

Trattoria Scugnizzi Vomero antipasti part II

Anonymous Trattoria Gourmet contorni

Olio & Pomodoro salad

Anonymous Trattoria Gourmet bruschetta

Trattoria Scugnizzi margherita pizza with eggplant

Trattoria Scugnizzi Vomero antipasti part I

Godot Restaurant croquettes

Trattoria Scugnizzi Vomero fried pizza

Sorriso Integrale vegetable stirfry

Olio & Pomodoro split pizza

gelato

Sorriso Integrale eggplant

Godot Restaurant eggplant parmigiana

Sorriso Integrale gilled eggplant, stuffed peppers, fried pumpkin cake

Paccheri, an extra-large tubular pasta, seems to be a favorite regional pasta, with good reason. Antipasti combinations, such as the five-plate selection spread over two photos at Trattoria Scugnizzi Vomero, invite exploration. Two distinctively Neopolitan dishes we tried once but failed to understand their popularity were pasta e patate (pasta and potato is quite a starchy overload) and fried pizza (way too much fried dough).

Most of these restaurants are frequented by locals and were mentioned in the seafood post, so this time around I will just post their links to click in case a photo inspires you to investigate whether to add them to your list of places to try. Since most of these are not tourist-dependent, I am hoping they will survive the current slow-down.

In the Vomero neighborhood:

Trattoria Scugnizzi Vomero

Godot Restaurant

Olio e Pomodoro

Pizzeria Errico Porzio Vomero

In the historic center:

Re Lazzarone Trattoria Contemporanea

Anonymous Trattoria Gourmet

Antichi Sapori Partenenopei

Ristorante L’Ostricaio