barcelona, spain

the best sangria we had! strong and not too sweet, and the free spicy potato tapas dish was a+ 👌🏼

so good, in fact, we hit up their happy hour (which was an awesome deal!) twice in two days :)

barcelona, spain

“bravas” potatoes

“assorted tapas”-- battered fried (anchovies?), blistered peppers, croquettes, clams, butter herb shrimp 

barcelona, spain

thing we like: walking around and looking at food and buying snacks to eat while walking around and looking at food.

I wanted a fried thing so I got a fried thing

he wanted a meats so he got a meats (jamón ibérico, yas yas yas)

happy as a ham

pontassieve, pelago

on the way back to the airport, we stopped by a tiny, “down-home cooking” trattoria, where no one spoke English (nor were there any menus in English), and the house was packed with quick-speaking Italian men breaking for lunch.

The food here was so, so, SO good.  this was another one of our “if-i-were-back-in-the-area-would-return” places. if you ever find yourself in Florence, I HIGHLY recommend you go.

so simple, so good.

dat sauce-clinging-to-every-pasta-noodle FLAVA

panzano in chianti

Dario Cecchini is probably one of the most famous butchers in the world.  Having been featured on no reservations, reservations for his famous “come-eat-in-my-butcher-shop” dinners are difficult to come by!  luckily, s had found the place and made reservations several days in advance and managed to book us a dinner for our last night in Tuscany!

the experience of it all was really, really fun-- you are welcomed into his butcher shop and are offered appetizers and wine, then are ushered upstairs where you sit family style and steak is continually cooked and served, cooked and served. all the while, all-you-can-eat steak and all-you-can-eat-wine helps you make friends and meet random Instagram pseudo-celebrities on their honeymoon (and make a fool of yourself, because you’ve drunk much, much too much wine).

butcher shop

dario cecchini in the flesh! (haha)

bistecca, bistecca, bistecca!!

siena, tuscany

grom? more like YOM!

this one happened to be the best gelato we had for the whole trip.

that is all.

siena, tuscany

i won’t say much here except that:

this was the best cured meat I have ever had

this was the best cheese I have ever had

the whole thing was so artfully presented-- not just visually (though yes, it was absolutely), but the flavor combinations! the honey and preserves on the different types of cheeses, cheese, the generous drizzles of olive oil and the bright, flavorful tomatoes and.. oh, now I've said a lot.

here we go.

this about sums it up

montepulciano, tuscany

another medieval town, with gorgeous, sprawling views, gelato and a wine bar that was very, very generous with snacks.

we also went wine tasting at a winery with “wine caverns” to explore

ridiculously beautiful

post-sunset happy hour (we had to work very hard to restrain ourselves from eating all the snacks and ruining our dinner appetites)

for dinner, we found a tiny shop and ordered comfort foods-- vegetable soup, truffle pasta, and a seafood tomato-y thing.

DAT TRUFFLE DOE

pienza, tuscany

the idea was to take mini day-trips to little tuscan medieval towns from our little countryside airbnb.  while researching towns, one of the most popular suggestions was pienza, the “capital” of pecorino cheese.  s had to say no more! I was there.

every shop was just rows and rows of different types of pecorino!

“cheese heaven”

we stopped for lunch at “sette di vino”, for a meal that include a sampling of pecorino cheeses, charcuterie, and bruschetta.

this meal was super simple, but we spent the entire meal mm-ing and oh-my-gosh-ing over how flavorful every bite of cheese and cured meat was, how the tomato and cheese was SO good-- definitely the best cheese and meat we had on that trip (so far/at that point. stay tuned).

tuscany

something s and i had decided to do a bit differently this time in our travels abroad was to rent a car and take some time out in the countryside, away from the big cities and take advantage of the very favorable niceness-to-price ratio for airbnbs out in Tuscany.

It turned out to be a really, really great few days out in the middle of the Italian countryside, which was gorgeous, by the way-- rolling waves of vineyards, Italian medieval castles perched on top of hills.  

we just enjoyed time by the pool, gorging ourselves on wine and charcuterie (and snacks we imported ourselves, see below), walking to the tiny local grocery store and cooking for ourselves, and just enjoying the tuscan countryside.

I think this was my favorite part of the whole trip.

“imported” snacks

at night, we snacked away on cheese and meats while s cooked super simple but super delicious things like pasta and broccoli!

florence, italy

s and i are very nosy people.

so when we passed a long, long, LONG line (blocks and blocks) and noticed a second long, long LONG line parallel to it, we had to know what people were waiting for!

it turns out all’antico vinaio is a very famous porchetta sandwich shop, which my sister had also recommended we check out.

of course, we didn’t get into that ridiculously long line right then and there (aint nobody got time for that), but instead made plans to come back the next day right at the opening and waited a grand total of 30 seconds.

hooray!

pro-tip (or, “how to be obnoxious”): ask for extra meats!!

florence, italy

we had been looking for a place to experience the infamous “bistecca all Fiorentina”, and stumbled upon la buchetta after having already made reservations elsewhere.  but the almost comically huge steaks in the front window that let us know this place took Florentine steak very seriously (either that or it was a huge tourist trap).

after placing our order for Florentine steak, our very jovial waiter brought out the raw meat and a scale and weighed it at our table in order to let us verify it truly met the 1.5-2lb standard weight for a Florentine steak (I didn’t really have trouble believing this).

while our steak cooked, we were brought our tagliatelle al cinghiale and our tomato and onion “salad”.  we had pretty low expectations for the pasta, since this was obviously a place that sold STEAK (not ‘steak’, STEAK).

this pasta was so, so good.  again, nailed the “globs-of-sauce-clinging-to-each-pasta-noodle” test.

and then...the steak came out.

they carved it at our table for us, and sprinkled a healthy helping of coarse salt.

it was so interesting--not “fatty” and “well-marbled” like intuition says a good steak should be, but it had this beefy flavor that was intensified by the lack of fat, and really brought out by the hits of salt

the meal ended with complimentary limoncello (yum!)

florence, italy

the perfect place to sit and sip wine before dinner, with a great view of the basilica di santa croce!

florence, italy

florence, italy

“...your smile is so much more genuine when you are clutching an ice cream cone.” --s

florence, italy

osteria de’ pazzi was the perfect quiet, cozy home-y listeria doing simple tuscan food.

the pasta was flavorful and perfectly textured, the beans were warm and comforting, and the house wine was cheap. yes, please.

fagioli all'uccelletto--tuscan beans cooked in tomatoes and sage

pici con le briciole-- pici with fried breadcrumbs

spaghetti alla pomarola--

there’s something so special about perfectly cooked pasta where every bite has big glops of sauce clinging to the noodles. and this was definitely in that category.

florence, italy

I honestly couldn’t tell you the name of the cafe we were at, or where we were in Florence-- but we wandered all over the city and along the river until we came upon a cozy cafe quietly playing jazzy swing music stopped for cappuccino and pastries.