Bologna

I’m a little behind on my postings because my parents are visiting, and we’ve been busy, busy, busy (and I will have posts on that coming up). But anyway, I was on Bologna. The only reason why I went to Bologna was for the food. The city’s region, Emilia-Romagna, is supposed to have the best food in Italy. They produce, among other things, parmesan cheese and prosciutto, and every spaghetti Bolognese that you’ve ever owes its existence to Bologna. So I decided to go for a couple of days to check out the city, but basically to eat.

In fact, there really is not much to do or see in Bologna, in my humble opinion, but the food is pretty amazing, so most of this post will be about food. But quickly, Bologna has a nice representative picture gallery and a huge cathedral that was never finished, so it kind of looks like a big ornate barn. Also, serendipitously, I got there one week after a new contemporary art museum had opened called MAMBo (which is an acronym for something). MAMBo was great actually. It was a really interesting building, and they had this huge opening exhibition which is essentially the history of technology in modern art since the Futurists. It was a huge, kind of messy, exhibit, and there was no audioguide, because the museum is so new, so I basically walked around and saw some interesting stuff.

Anyway, to the food. The first night I ate in the restaurant in my hotel, which is one of the best in Bologna. It’s name is I Carracci. I had, by far, the best service at this restaurant, maybe anywhere in Italy (with the possible exception of the vegetarian restaurant in Rome). It helped that there weren’t many people there (it was a Monday night). But I felt completely comfortable there, eating and reading, and never felt rushed. I should also say that I had wine at very meal in Bologna, but I couldn’t tell you what because I just asked the waiter to bring me the most appropriate wine for what I ordered, a practice I continued in Venice. Anyway, the food was amazing. Most of the best dishes I had in Bologna were the first course pasta dishes. This one was some penne pasta with asparagus, prosciutto and oil. It was very simple, but the pasta was incredible, and the sauce nice and light and refreshing. For my second course, I had veal Bolognese, which is a small scallop of veal, with a slice of prosciutto on top, and then a slice of mozzarella, with some parmesan, in a light white based sauce. Yum!!! I can’t remember the dessert. The best desserts in Italy is gelato, I think, and you really don’t need to go to a nice restaurant for that. But I had something.

For lunch the next day, I went to Da Cesari which is right off Piazza Maggiore (the main square) and so you’d think it would be really touristy, but since there aren’t many tourists in Bologna, every restaurant has to cater, at least a little bit, to locals, so prices are pretty reasonable. The food here was surprisingly good. They had a special eggplant parmesan, and basically anything parmesan is my favorite, and since I’m supposed to be a vegetarian (although it’s not quite sticking here in Europe), I thought I’d try the eggplant. Good choice. It was yummy, surprisingly light considering all the cheese, and the eggplant was perfect, and, importantly, not fried in batter the way it usually is done in the United States. Since I knew I wanted that, I had asked the waiter what other dish would go with it. I fully expected him to suggest a “second plate,” a meat main course, but he didn’t. He suggested an appetizer, instead, of prosciutto and melon. Now it doesn’t take much of a chef to make that, since it’s all about cutting, but this was real, authentic, parma ham, and it was extremely, I would say, excessively good. It’s probably ruined prosciutto for me in the U.S.

That night I went to what may be the best restaurant in Bologna called Ristorante al Pappagallo (which means Restaurant of the Parrot). I actually think I Carracci was better. But the green lasagna (a Bolognese specialty made with spinach) was pretty damn good. One of the interesting things about all the dishes in Bologna was that they weren’t loaded with sauce. There’s just enough to keep it moist, but not so much that it overwhelms the taste of everything else. This was the case for this lasagna. I could actually taste each individual main ingredient: pasta, spinach, meat, sauce. The lasagna was much better than the second course, which is so unmemorable that I can’t tell you what I had. The other problem with this restaurant is that I felt really rushed, and that severely undercut my enjoyment. So I Carracci wins the prize as best restaurant for me.

Bologna’s food is so good that even the slice of pizza I had at the train station before I went to Venice was one of the best slices I’ve had. In all four cities in Italy, the only place I saw fat people was in Bologna, the food is so damn good. The completely ironic kicker is that I saw more McDonald’s in Bologna than I saw in any other Italian city. What’s up with that?

But then I went to Venice, which essentially changed the trip for me. I was getting a little bored in Bologna. But Venice …. Ah….