We went out for dinner last night. Who would have thought Sunday night would be such a challenge?
After Saturday’s food challenge we decided to ask the hotel to ring the restaurant to a) make sure they were open, and b) ensure they could do gf pizza. Since R and I were recovering from too much sun, blearily awakening from a nap, T took charge and made friends with Mario, the guy on reception. ALL the places on my list were closed, so he pulled up the AIC website and started calling the places on their list.
Eventually he found one that was open, and merely a 10 min taxi ride (he had rejected some as too far – 30 mins by taxi is a bit steep for dinner…). He wasn’t sure which of two names it was, as they had the same listing info, so we hopped into a taxi and off we went.
After hair-raising driving (lights are merely a suggestion, and there’s no point in waiting for a break in oncoming traffic to turn or do a u-turn, just push in!) we found La Cucinetta. Closed. After much confusion, our helpful taxi driver called the hotel and asked Mario what the deal was. Mario called the restaurant, who confirmed that La Pizzeretta was, in fact, open, further down the street.
So, more hair raising driving ensued. We got to La Pizzeretta in one piece, but th door was locked! We had to ring to get in (we think this may have something to do with the strip club next door), but once we were in it was lovely. One difficult moment when they said it would be an hour for gf pizza, but when we explained that our pal Mario had called ahead, they managed OK.
We had antipasti here as well as pizza – grilled vegies and caprese salad – yum! The others had fried mozzarella as well, but as it had breadcrumbs, the waiter said to me “not for you!”. I’m getting used to this 😉
My pizza was delish – Vesuvian cherry toms, eggplant, mozarella and parmesan. The dough was nice and salty, but a bit too tough – I had to break it by hand rather than cutting with knife & fork. We washed our food down with a white from Vesuvius – nice and light.
When we were on the train yesterday we’d seen a lot of the market gardeners’ areas – you can understand why the farmers don’t move away from the volcano even with the sweetener of E30,000 and the constant threat of danger — this soil is fertile!! The toms on my pizza and the wine certainly showed the plus side of volcanic areas!
The taxi ride home was just as roller-coaster, except this guy didn’t seem to have control over his gearbox. High revs while going 5k/h isn’t terribly healthy!
Two Weeks Away 