16 Jan
Bologna: What We Ate
Bologna is sometimes referred to as “la grassa” in reference to its cuisine. It has a fantastic food district to wander around in, and we were engulfed by several tourist groups while strolling the streets around Tamburini (a deli/cafeteria style dining place lots of foodies rave about, but we didn’t end up eating there). It is this reputation for having the richest, most delicious food in all of Italy that had me waffling back and forth between Bologna and Parma while planning. Bologna won because my mom had been before and said the shopping was great (though I personally found it to be much better in Florence), and because of its proximity to the airport we would be flying in and out of.
Our first meal was at Caminetto D’oro. We dined on:
Fishy bread, tomato, basil
Zucchini salad with apple slices and parmesan. This was insanely simple and incredibly delicious, I need to remember to try to replicate this at home.
Ham from Parma with a variety of breads.
Homemade pasta with seasonal mushrooms.
This was a fantastic way to start off our trip! The food was simple, yet inventive. We walked out of there feeling like coming to Bologna was the best idea we’d ever had.
9 out of 10 stars for D’oro.
A note about Italian bread:
Before I forget to tell you, Italian bread is very dry and hard, nothing like what you find in restaurants in America. My reading suggests that the tradition of making it this way developed when the salt tax was very high, and so bakers made their bread with very little salt. Over time the Italians grew used to having their bread this way. I haven’t been to the south, and I know the north and the south are very different, so this might not be the case down in Palermo?
On our way back we saw a bunch of locals crowded around Stefino Gelato, and realized we hadn’t met our quota of one gelato/day.
They spoke almost no English, but I looked up the word for wafer and we did our best to guess at what we would like. I chose Bacio, which is basically Nutella. TH had something called Cuba, a mixture of vanilla, cream, and rum. It was 2 euros for a small, and though I wouldn’t go out of my way just to go there, if you eat at Caminetto D’oro it’s a nice place to get dessert afterward.
Based on a Chowhound recommendation, our lunch the next day was at Nicola’s Pizzeria.
We were eating during the slow period (Italians eat on a very different schedule than Americans), and the Italian-only speaking waiter did not seem happy to see us. From the other reviews, it sounds like you should really only get pizza if you go here. After a big, delicious hotel breakfast we decided to share a pizza with prosciutto, mozzarella, and tomatoes. The crust was thin and dry which TH didn’t like, but it was lightly sauced, which I really liked.
5 out of 10 stars for Nicola’s.
Our next stop was Moline Gelato. (I wish I had seen that blog post before we went!)
I had two flavors, dark chocolate and sour cherry, and I was disappointed by the sour cherry because I like the ice cream portion of that flavor to be very tart. TH had the praline, which he found to be overwhelmingly sweet, but very creamy.
Dinner that night was at Trattoria Meloncello. After reading review after review, this was the meal I was most excited about, and I had been hyping it up to That Husband for days. We came hungry and ready to eat, after our hike up to the Madonna of San Luca. All of the foodies online seemed to be raving about it! In short, the meal was so disappointing that I actually went back to our hotel and looked it up to make sure we hadn’t eaten at the wrong Meloncello or something.
We came in right when it opened, and were the only ones there the entire time. We sat outside, which was nice, but a bit noisy due to street traffic. We dined on:
Sasuage bolognese, which was swimming in cheese, so much that it overwhelmed the dish (I didn’t know this was possible).
A dish typical to Bologna that I didn’t catch the name of. (My Italian is quite poor.)
Meloncello has no menu (a rather quaint twist that I really like), and we let the waiter know we wanted to eat whatever he thought was best. Maybe this was our mistake? Overall I felt like the food was “niente di speciale”, nothing special. Our meal plus waters only cost us 25 euros though, which was one of our cheapest dinner experiences during our time in Italy, so even though we were unsatisfied we didn’t pay a lot for it (not like our experience at Bistro 18 the next night!)
4 out of 10 stars for Meloncello
This experience actually had us thinking that we don’t like traditional Italian food, and over time we’d become snobby and needed a nuovo/moderno twist to our dishes like what we found at Caminetto D’oro. Later we went out into the Tuscan countryside and realized it wasn’t us, it was Meloncello/Bologna/the commercialization of the restaurants. When traditional Italian food is done superbly, it will blow your mind.
After our disappoint meal at Meloncello, we wanted to end the night with some gelato. It was here that we found our favorite gelato in Bologna, at a place called Venchi. Venchi is famous for it’s chocolate, and thus the chocolate flavored gelato here is superb. I ordered Crema Venchi, Cuor di Cacao, and Ciocco Cocco. This is one of the few true artisanal gelato places we found during our time in Italy, most have nearly identical menus leading me to believe that they have their gelato trucked in from somewhere. Another bonus for Venchi is that it’s right next to Tamburini and the main piazza, and so we were able to go the next night as well. The second time I had Cioccolato azteco, Ciocco coco, and Fior di latte superior. We ducked into the shade of a store window and dove into our cups and cones as the tourists walk by. That is pure Italian magic to me.
9 out of 10 stars for Venchi
Bistro 18 was another location I had really high hopes for. The website said dinner wasn’t served until 8, but I think it was served even earlier. Dining room was very cool, and it felt nice to be in a light wrap sweater with strange almost-erotic art comics hanging on the walls. We paid 70 euros for several courses, no dessert and no drinks.
Perfectly ripe cantaloupe
Stale bread (from an American perspective), no olive oil served with it
Goat cheese salad. Amaze. Heavy on the croutons and I would like more lettuce, but the crispy heaping round of goat cheese was perfect.
Brodo, a traditional Italian dish, was not anything to write home about. Noodles in salty broth?
The sheep pasta was the saltiest dish I’ve ever had. I could only eat a few bites, though I did like the slight al dente of the pasta.
TH had the veal. Slightly overdone on edges, kind of nice paired with the tomato. Last year we spent some time in Vienna though, and this failed miserably in comparison to the schnitzel there.
5 out of 10 stars.
This meal was the saltiest I’ve ever had, and I was prepared to give it 4 stars but the goat cheese salad won me over. My sheep pasta was so bad, I considered sending it back to the kitchen (though I was full so I decided not to).
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After deciding to visit Bologna due to the number of people raving about the culinary options, I was very disappointed. I was frustrated that time spent planning did not seem to be paying off the way I thought it would. As I said in my previous post about Bologna, I can’t really think of a reason I would personally tell someone that they needed to carve out time in their budget for. Caminetto D’oro and Venchi were wonderful, but there is much more where that came from in other areas of Italy.
Also:
I'm a farm-raised almost-crunchy stroller-pushing picture-taking lifestyle-blog-writing gastronomy-obsessed divine-seeking thrift-store-combing cheese-inhaling pavement-pounding laughter-sprinkling lover of individuality and taking chances.
Interesting. I think I agree with you here. I only spent a day in Bologna (almost 2 years ago) and the highly recommended restaurant we went to (can’t remember the name) was also recommended by the Chowhound boards and was a complete disappointment. I did love the gelato we had, though! The best meal we had while in Italy came from an industrial and farming town and was made by a mom - simple ragu with homemade pasta.
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1While I am very respectful of your opinion on this, I lived in Bologna for a year and would recommend it to anyone. Visiting Bologna allows someone to visit an Italian city, but without all the tourism that comes with Florence or Venice. You can really lose yourself in the Italian-ness of the city. And the food is amazing. I am really sorry that you had such disappointing food experiences while there, but the good food is there, I promise. My comment is not to contradict you, Jenna, just to present another opinion of the city and to encourage folks to visit it!
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2I have never been to Bologna (and based on your experiences will probably not be going), so can’t speak to the food quality there. I did think the food elsewhere in Italy was really amazing though.
Did you only use the Internet to find restaurants? I have found that this only works if 1. you know exactly what sites to look at (ie, the ones the locals use; so in China dianping is very useful, but Trip Advisor/Chowhound etc. are totally awful) and 2. if internet use is widespread. A lot of more traditional countries don’t really use the internet that much, especially smaller businesses. Even in Singapore you can’t really do shopping online because stores rarely post their full sales or inventory there. I don’t know enough about Italy to say whether that’s the case there or not, but I would guess that it might be.
Much more successful for me in finding good restaurants is to only go to ones full of locals (this does mean you have to eat when they do, but at least you’re getting immersed in the culture!). This works especially well somewhere like Italy, where the locals really care about food. If you like your hotel a lot you can ask there for recommendations too (this only works in wealthier countries like Italy though, where the staff can actually afford to eat out regularly).
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Turtle Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 10:43 pm
I would like to echo this- even in smaller towns in the U.S., I find the internet to be less useful for finding the best food. If you think about it- for reviews to be useful, you have to have a critical mass of people doing the reviewing otherwise the selection biases are too great. I’ve also had luck with travel guides- like Rick Steves in the case of Europe, and asking around- either people at the hotel, fellow travelers, or different people like shopkeepers we meet during our time visiting.
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Jenna Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Yes, I did a whole lot of Googling. Seriously hours spent making spreadsheets trying to narrow down the best places. I didn’t rely on reviews (because there just aren’t enough) just a lot of forum reading (mostly Chowhound). I would find a restaurant they talked about on Chowhound, and then cross-reference with blog posts and some google searches to see if this was a popular opinion.
I’ll get to this in my next post, but we eventually realized that a large part of our problem was the type of food we were order/the types of food available. We kept having bad experiences, and I started to think that maybe I just hated Italian food, but then we went out into the country and we could. not. get. enough. of this food that was absolutely as authentic as it gets (for that region) and what we realized is that we just didn’t like this very commercialized, tourist friendly stuff.
We were much more successful in Florence, because I had been in contact with someone who lived there for foreign exchange. She gave us some really excellent restaurant recommendations.
Now that I’m planning our trip to Thailand I think we’ll avoid some of our past mistakes. I actually have a reader I talk regularly with who is living in Thailand right now and going to help me plan a vacation that meets our personal objectives. I’m very excited about it.
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Grace Reply:
January 17th, 2012 at 1:15 am
Tourist food is the worst: so bland and mediocre.
It’s the best to get recommendations from people with good taste. And how lucky to have an in-country contact for Thailand (especially if you have similar interests): I am sure you will have a great time!
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Stephanie C Reply:
January 17th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
Such great advice. My husband and I stayed at a little B&B in Italy and the owner/front desk guy had tons of recommendations ready. He even made a reservation for my husband’s birthday for me and requested a special dessert (they told me if I had called earlier they would have MADE a special cake for him.. A WHOLE CAKE!). While in that small town we had some amazing meals.
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I don’t think the Bologna culinary options are infamous. Do you mean famous?
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4I think that if you are headed to places with online reviews/chowhound with staff that speak English (which at the same time you seem to value) than you are in a touristy area/restaurant. Or maybe one that is popular with expats. I wouldn’t even necessarily rely on other travelers but on the (Italian)locals- the best restaurants I went to in Italy were places that didn’t seem to even have a name and usually made at most three things each day for you to choose from with no menu to look at. Did you have a little translation dictionary with you? Brodo means broth, usually it is tortellini in broth- so yes noodles in salty broth! I hope you have better luck in Thailand- do you plan to take the same planning approach?
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Jenna Reply:
January 17th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
I’m not sure how I somehow gave off the impression that I would only go somewhere where English is present. I parlo Italiano. Non bene, ma un po. Ho avuto prendato tre semisemistrale al BYU. The reason I so badly wanted to go to Italy is because I find so much joy in utilizing this paltry skill I’ve worked at over time. Even things as simple as asking for directions and understanding when they say right or left is a thrill for me!
Actually, I have this pattern of forcing my travelling companions to go hungry for hours at a time while we wander around trying to find a place to eat that does NOT have English on the menu. I have done this in Vienna to TH, in Krakow to TH, in Bologna to TH, and in Rome to my mom. This is a rule I apply very stringently when coming upon a restaurant randomly, but that I thought I could safely relax if there seemed to be sufficient evidence that enough people who enjoy and value food raved about the menu. Maybe that is not the case?
Throughout our time in Italy I did indeed have my trusty translation dictionary with me. The one with the cover that falls off constantly because I used it so much throughout college and while living in the Italian house for one of the summer terms.
I knew that brodo means broth. If I’m going to eat a dish that is nothing more than noodles in salty broth, it better be exquisite. And I imagine if it’s a dish that this region is famous for, when it is done right, it is. At this restaurant in particular, it was not, and I think people who are considering a visit there should know that. I had spent a lot of time reading an old copy of a book entirely devoted to detailing the food of each region and what it was famous for (this is how I decided not to go to Venice, even though it’s where *everyone* goes. The culinary options there are largely geared toward tourists, something we aren’t interested in.)
I hope I have sufficiently debunked the assumption that I need to have English somewhere to enjoy myself. I admit this assumption annoys me because it is so completely opposite of who I am when it pertains to food, and especially in regards to travelling to Italy. I keep bringing English up in my posts because I’m intending them to be a reference for people planning their own trip to Italy. (Why else would I spend so much time writing up notes and filling these posts with links?) This is something that is important to a lot of people who are travelling to another country where they don’t speak the language.
For our Thailand trip I’ll be working on my planning with http://www.alexinwanderland.com/. We learned a lot from our time in Italy, about what we value in a vacation, and what we would rather skip, and plan to budget our time and money accordingly.
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Have you had a lot of regional Italian food before traveling there? I ask, just because it sounds like you enjoy the rustic country cuisine, which isn’t really “more authentic” but just pocketed and regional to those areas. I ask just because I grew up with LOTS of Italians, and “mama’s spaghetti” was completely different depending on where Mama came from - and it was hilarious to watch the debates of which was more authentic. But before I went to Italy, I pretty much knew what I was getting where and had tasted most of the regional cuisine here in the states.
I think of it like Mexican food… because I grew up with thinking all Mexican food was Oaxacan. Then I went to college in SoCal, and realized most people there thought real mexican was Baja. So while I crave mole, they crave lime and fish tacos. And while I turn my nose at a burrito with rice in it, I know we’re all right in some way. I just like my earthy Mexican and they like their coastal fresh.
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Jenna Reply:
January 18th, 2012 at 10:19 am
This does tie in to what we later realized, that we just don’t get really get very excited about pasta. Handmade, perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned? That is something to marvel over, but what we experienced throughout Bologna and Florence (these very large, commercial areas) just didn’t taste like any of those things.
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Just to give a gelato tip, the way you can generally tell if it is house-made is by the pan/container it is kept in. Plastic is usually a good indicator it is made somewhere else, where as metal trays tend to be made in house.
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Jenna Reply:
January 20th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
This is interesting and very helpful. Thanks Kelly!
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I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy Bologna as much. I agree with Kim, I think the food in each region is very distinctive. We spent a lot of time in the Vienito region when my sister lived there and everything felt really heavy and rich. Other places we went had lighter fare, more seafood, etc. That said we had the best gelato and cappuccinos we’ve every had there. We really liked the city because it was less touristy.
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8Did you ever visit Modena? Beautiful place! It’s actually the home to Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and a few other smaller artisan automotive companies. However, it’s also home to Mandarano Balsamic. The stuff is GREAT! We first came across it when we were traveling in Italy.
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Jenna Reply:
January 23rd, 2012 at 7:18 pm
We had a fabulous lunch there! I have a whole post on it later.
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I’m vacationing in Bologna now, and came based on all of the hype about it being Italy’s best food. Huge disappointment! While we’ve found some good restaurants, each has basically the exact same menu, exact same dishes, and nothing flavor-forward. We also did hours of research. Here for 5 nights, so plenty of going out and sampling. What a bummer!
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Jenna Reply:
October 16th, 2013 at 7:55 pm
Nooooo. I’m so sad it happened to someone else. What you described sounds like exactly what we experienced.
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