October 7 Siena

I had to write about food sometime. Italy is not the place to be on a diet so I had to laugh when I found this:

Temptation is everywhere: gelato, bread, cookies, pizza, pasta. Elizabeth Gilbert gained 10 pounds in her Italian Eat section in Eat Pray Love. So if you love me, pray for me and have faith that walking 8 miles a day will mitigate the glorious Eat sections of our every day in Italy.

We wanted to sit down and enjoy a nice dinner after a long day of travel. Something Tuscan. Mike checked the guidebooks and found a place that specializes in truffles. We walked through golden medieval Siena streets to Tar-Tufo Ristorante but had to wait until 7 pm when they opened. We were hungry.

A lovely slender woman dressed in black warmly greeted us at the door, putting us at ease in the very formal restaurant….you know, white linens, a single tall candle, golden chargers and the most beautiful water glasses with pink on the bottom that reflected the diamond pattern cut into them. We had already read the menu outside but we asked her to explain all the options that included a tasting menu with 5 to 7 truffle choices with wine pairings. We placed our more modest order and she opened a bottle of 2013 local chianti that she poured into lovely fine crystal glasses. “Smooth but full bodied enough to handle the meat.”

The chef sent out an amuse bouchée…a tiny pile of vegetables topped with a white ball of fluffy egg white. A second waiter poured a white sauce on the concoction. It was crunchy, airy, creamy and smooth as well as delicious and cute.

Then came another gift from the chef, this time a little ball of pate in a smooth crunchy shell sort of like a salty M&M cover, and topped with a red current. Adorable. I wanted another one but there was also a bread plate with the crackers, breadsticks and the typical breads of Tuscany (“not salty because the ham and meats are salty.”) We each got a tiny ball of herbed butter to accompany.

Next the waitress placed a small clothed table by us. On it was a 6” glass jar holding….ta da!…the truffles. Brown balls about the size of walnuts. The appetizer we ordered (polenta with pecorino and tomato) was placed on the little table. With her bare hands, she scraped thin slices of the truffles with a grater apparatus built into the jar lid. I had never eaten truffles, really, so I learned how they made a rather pedestrian food combination into an amazing one…salty, earthy and a little chewy.

Time for the main course. Mike had Tuscan longhorn beef with three cuts cooked three different ways and covered again with more shaved truffles. The plate was easily 15” long. Mike was instructed to eat the lighter cooked meat On one end first (salty…good with the bread) and end with the “stewed.” I had wild boar! It was closest to venison cooked medium rare. Kind of chewy and a great contrast to the puréed carrots that were so sweet and creamy I considered passing on dessert. We cleaned our plates.

We were two hours into the meal at this point and both getting a little drowsy but how could we resist looking at the dessert menu? We did pass on the truffle panna cotta. Here’s my dessert. The brownish balls had hazelnut cream in them. The other little balls are merengue and the larger mound is cardamom ice cream. All of this on a little pile of something nutty and crunchy. (This was not the kind of place where you take pictures of the food but I snuck out my camera.)

End of a most memorable dinner

We were not stuffed. This was such a contrast to pizza pasta gelato. We felt energized walking home and have not stopped talking about our incredible Tuscan meal.

L