Our last night in Italy was Easter and we opted to have dinner in our hotel as we assumed, wrongly, that the city would be virtually closed. It was not. Utterly nothing was closed unlike Germany where you could not get so much as a bottle of water on any Sunday, much less Easter. Italy was hoppin.’
Our hotel was a glorious, luxurious place. And the dining room had a kind of 50’s feel with navy blue velvet cushioned low chairs with cream welting, and marble floors. We had a seat in the window with a glorious view of the Mediterranean. It was crepuscular (setting the scene here). I ordered the four-cabbage soup (zupetta) as a starter probably not the most scenic, romantic or Italian thing I can think of but I like cabbage soup. What I got was beautiful but also insane.
The leaf thing was a savory cookie. The “cabbage” turned out to be cauliflower, an error in their English translation on the menu which is sort of understandable I suppose. An expensive hotel serving expensive food ought to know better. But OK.
This was not soup. The cauliflower was not cooked. Or if it was cooked at all it had been only for a brief moment before it was artistically placed in the . . . the . . . the . . . the . . . I have no idea what that was, pudding maybe. It wasn’t pourable and It was almost unflavored. It wasn’t bad although I do not like running into clusters of uncooked rosemary and thyme. If it had had more flavor I would have had some guilty pleasure eating this decadent dish. As it was I ate it more in confusion than anything.
Sorry but that looks awful.
It wasn’t awful but it was no joy either.