The bad
September 12th - Lucca
Our first truly bad meal in Italy. A place near the hotel, which was recommended by the hotel "Trattoria Burralli". We arrive greeted by our waiter and seated. We call him Signori. He insists "Marco" please. He seemed like a very personable guy, young and helpful with good English skills. We look at the menu. I wasn't sure what to have so I asked the waiter for a recommendation. Usually I have pretty good luck with this technique, but not tonight. I must have lost my mind. I ask him what the specialty is, expecting some Luccese creation. He say's "fried chicken" with vegetables, like tempura, like "the colonel" only good and with no ketchup. I must have lost my mind because I said OK. Good thing I ordered an antipasto, which was very good, because this primi came and it was awful. Fried, dry, covered in batter. I don't know what I was thinking. It was the worst. I'm convinced that there was a contest going on in the kitchen between waiter. The one that sells the most fried chicken wins a case of wine. As I was trying to plow my way through this cullinary train wreck, we noticed that the couple in the table next to us had ordered (or got recommended) the same thing. We struck up a nice conversation with this young couple from Colorado and commiserated about the disaster that this fried chicken was. They were very nice and they rescued what would have been a complete disaster of a dinner. We also noticed that most of the english speakers near us also had "the fried chicken". I think that Marco was over the top on winning his case of wine.
I ate about 1/5 of my fried chicken and hit the wall. Marco came over and could see that I had only eaten a little bit of it and said "you don't like it". I said not really. He was actually very sweet and was very apologetic about the whole thing and came back and had deducted it from our bill, which we insisted on paying for any way. He took it off the bill and on our way out we handed him $10 euros. We won't be back to Trattoria Burrali again, at least not for the fried chicken.
Our first truly bad meal in Italy. A place near the hotel, which was recommended by the hotel "Trattoria Burralli". We arrive greeted by our waiter and seated. We call him Signori. He insists "Marco" please. He seemed like a very personable guy, young and helpful with good English skills. We look at the menu. I wasn't sure what to have so I asked the waiter for a recommendation. Usually I have pretty good luck with this technique, but not tonight. I must have lost my mind. I ask him what the specialty is, expecting some Luccese creation. He say's "fried chicken" with vegetables, like tempura, like "the colonel" only good and with no ketchup. I must have lost my mind because I said OK. Good thing I ordered an antipasto, which was very good, because this primi came and it was awful. Fried, dry, covered in batter. I don't know what I was thinking. It was the worst. I'm convinced that there was a contest going on in the kitchen between waiter. The one that sells the most fried chicken wins a case of wine. As I was trying to plow my way through this cullinary train wreck, we noticed that the couple in the table next to us had ordered (or got recommended) the same thing. We struck up a nice conversation with this young couple from Colorado and commiserated about the disaster that this fried chicken was. They were very nice and they rescued what would have been a complete disaster of a dinner. We also noticed that most of the english speakers near us also had "the fried chicken". I think that Marco was over the top on winning his case of wine.
I ate about 1/5 of my fried chicken and hit the wall. Marco came over and could see that I had only eaten a little bit of it and said "you don't like it". I said not really. He was actually very sweet and was very apologetic about the whole thing and came back and had deducted it from our bill, which we insisted on paying for any way. He took it off the bill and on our way out we handed him $10 euros. We won't be back to Trattoria Burrali again, at least not for the fried chicken.
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