Da Leo
September 12th - Lucca
In case you're wondering why I seldom report on Linda's food is that she is not a culinairily adventuours as I am. Her moto is when in doubt order the pasta pomodoro. Of course I'm not waisting a perfectly good opportunity to have something that I can either get in San Diego, or can make myself. Don't expect to be seeing any pictures of Lasagna, spagetti and meatballs, or ravioli with meat sauce here. Not that I don't love it but I can get that at home. Our first day in Lucca which was yesterday we went to a place within a few blocks of the hotel. It was pretty late in the afternoon and we were concerned about missing the lunch service so we opted for close to the hotel. A well recomeded place called "da Leo". A very casual place specializing in Luccese dishes (of course all the tourist places say that). For my Primi I had "Minestra al Luccese". It was a soup that was made with red beans and farro. Farro is an ancient grain also called emmer. It looks like a wheat berry. The soup was delicious. The beans were completly pureed so that made up most of the soup, but it also had the farro in it. They were the whole farro berries and provided a little chew to the softness of the beans. All of the restaurants around her have bottles of great Luccese olive oil on the that you can drown everything in. It's like a condiment, just like we would have catchup. I put a liberal dose on my menestra. It was great. It really in some ways reminded me of red beans and rice and Louie Armstrong's fav. Very tasty.
For my primi I ordered the Cotechino with white beans. Cotechino is a big pork sausage that they cook for 4 hours in which time it becomes very soft. Delicious, served with white cannalini bean again swimming in the great Luccese olive oil.
In case you're wondering why I seldom report on Linda's food is that she is not a culinairily adventuours as I am. Her moto is when in doubt order the pasta pomodoro. Of course I'm not waisting a perfectly good opportunity to have something that I can either get in San Diego, or can make myself. Don't expect to be seeing any pictures of Lasagna, spagetti and meatballs, or ravioli with meat sauce here. Not that I don't love it but I can get that at home. Our first day in Lucca which was yesterday we went to a place within a few blocks of the hotel. It was pretty late in the afternoon and we were concerned about missing the lunch service so we opted for close to the hotel. A well recomeded place called "da Leo". A very casual place specializing in Luccese dishes (of course all the tourist places say that). For my Primi I had "Minestra al Luccese". It was a soup that was made with red beans and farro. Farro is an ancient grain also called emmer. It looks like a wheat berry. The soup was delicious. The beans were completly pureed so that made up most of the soup, but it also had the farro in it. They were the whole farro berries and provided a little chew to the softness of the beans. All of the restaurants around her have bottles of great Luccese olive oil on the that you can drown everything in. It's like a condiment, just like we would have catchup. I put a liberal dose on my menestra. It was great. It really in some ways reminded me of red beans and rice and Louie Armstrong's fav. Very tasty.
For my primi I ordered the Cotechino with white beans. Cotechino is a big pork sausage that they cook for 4 hours in which time it becomes very soft. Delicious, served with white cannalini bean again swimming in the great Luccese olive oil.
Minstra Luccese
Cotechino with white beans
Simple but good!
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