I've been to a few countries so far, but I think just once on my own, and never just with @tanjakolader. So when we went to Italy recently, it was quite the adventure, to say the least.
There were many new things we had to be aware of as fresh semi-solo travelers. One of those things was definitely picking the right places to eat.
I didn't know that that many restaurants in the world solely existed just to scam visitors from abroad, but I guess that's the way it is. Luckily there were multiple tools we could utilize to help us pick the perfect spots to eat. One of those was google maps. Now, to be clear, you have to take the ratings on google with a grain of salt. If a restaurant has just one 5 star rating, that could easily be the owners themselves. But if a place has a 4.9 on average from hundreds of reviews, that's usually a good sign.
Something I also did was read the lowest ratings, just to get an idea of what people were displeased with, since sometimes some of those complaints are completely unreasonable. Like someone that had to wait 1 minute too long for their food.
With all these tactics in mind we arrived in the city of Napoli and searched for our next foodie experience. We found this family run restaurant 5 minutes walking distance from where we were staying called "Trattoria Da Pasqualino Di Cappella Salvatore".
The people were really friendly and offered the Buratta immediately, which is mozzarella from cows surrounded with tomatoes and a dressing basically. It was cheap, so we tried it. This was a very good start. We had the searched the menu beforehand, so we already knew the other dishes we wanted to try.
The main one was the fried calamari and gambas (shrimp). Very delicious and crunchy, especially when squeezing the lemon that came with the dish all over everything.
Another thing I wanted to try was the friarielli, which is a local bitter leafy vegetable. They prepared it well, because the bitterness was pleasant with all other seasoning.
We also had the meatballs, because why not. Who doesn't like meatballs in tomato sauce. :)
Tanja definitely liked them as you can see. I wish she stared at me like she stares at the food at this restaurant. :(
These are fries, nothing more to say. Crunchy, starchy, salty, just the way we like them.
And last, but certainly not least, we had the pork scallopini, which are pretty much pork medallions with a citrus-like yellow sauce. We enjoyed this as well.
Safe to say that we were full after all of this, and also sharing a bottle of wine. So when they asked us if we wanted desert, we initially said no. But we're both suckers for tiramisu, so, in the end we ordered one tiramisu to share. We did not regret it.
The food was so good, that we went back the next day to try out some other dishes on the menu. Seemed like we had found a comforting safe foodie place for ourselves.
This time it was for lunch and not dinner, so a little less on the heavy overeating side for us. Tanja had the Pasta Genovese, which is pasta with a slow cooked beef sauce. The beef itself was perfectly tender and the sauce was great. Tasted kind of like the way french onion soup taste, but thicker, and with beef.
We also had their local eggplant dish. The family was surprised that we ordered these types of dishes, since they usually only get tourists that want pasta. Understandable, but we also wanted to try what locals like to eat there.
I had their grilled chicken, because why not. The image of that is at the top.
There's that look again. In the end we found a gem in between all the tourist traps that exist. We later found even more gems in the city, so we didn't go back a third time, but it was a great experience nonetheless as first time semi solo travelers.
How about you, how do you find the best places to eat?
