Eating in Florence, Italy

In Europe, we found out that carbonated drinks are pricey…hence making wine and beer cheap. Take this menu for instance. One liter of Draught Cola is Euro 8..and you can get a liter of beer for the same amount! While in Italy…wine (and beer) was what we drank!

We walked around Florence, looking at menus and compared prices before settling into Pizzeria Il Giardino di Barbano located at Piazza Indipendenza….coz everyone was getting cranky hungry. The wait staff was pretty friendly and there were quite a lot of patrons in the joint. Here’s what we ordered besides a bottle of Chianti.

Pizza with capers and anchovies @ Euro 8-9 (Bottom Left). It was my first time eating capers and anchovies on a pizza. Surprisingly, it was pretty tasty. We ordered it to share since we suspect the pasta would definitely not be enough for us!

Spaghetti Cabonara @ Euro 7-8. Hubby and Rob ordered this dish. As you can see, there weren’t much ingredient in it. The pasta was pretty tasty, but very al-dente. The little balsamic reduction they drizzled on the side was good!

Seyda ordered a Spaghetti Pomodoro @ Euro 7-8 (Bottom Left). This is just basically pasta in tomato sauce and perhaps some fresh basil. Again, very al-dente pasta.

I ordered a Meat Tortellini with Creamy Ham & Mushroom Sauce @ $7-8 (Bottom Right). Portion was definitely small, but good. I suspect the meat filling is wild boar, a common meat in Florence.

After dinner…. we were off to hunt for some gelato (Bottom Left). We found this gelateria called “Il Triangolo Delle Bermude” which actually translates to “Bermuda Triangle” I think! The flavors were not bad, the texture were very grainy/icy. Nothing too special to shout about this place…it was a random place we stumbled upon on our way back to the apartment.

And here comes one of the best meal we’ve had during the entire trip. At least the best meal Euro 5 can buy you!! I think my travelling companions would agree with me on this. For just Euro 4 – 4.50, we got ourselves a delicious Doner (Turkish) Chicken Kebab in a pita wrap (Bottom Left) !! Freshly made to order!! Great food on the go! The spicy sauce was so good. The chicken was so flavorful and tender and GENEROUS!! They also have falafel wraps for those who prefer vegetarian meal. It was SO GOOD we went back there 2-3 times for their yummy kebabs!! So, if you’re ever in Florence and want good yummy (and did I mention Halal?) food……stop by Star Kebab on Via Faenza (there are many internet cafes and Indian grocery shops on this street).

The most disappointing Gelato was perhaps from Vivoli (Bottom Left). I read in my travel book that it’s one of the best gelato in Florence (or the world?). The place was a little further from the city center. It took us a while to walk there. When we got there, the shop was empty and cramp. Perhaps it was coz it’s later at night? They do have a variety of different and interesting gelato flavors. Their gelato is costlier than most places. The gelato flavors were intense but the texture wasn’t the best. I thought it was very disappointing coz it seemed so hyped up in the travel guide and it wasn’t anything spectacular. I don’t think it was worth the trouble to walk through dark alleys to get there! =P

Now since we have an apartment with cooking facilities to ourselves…we decided to COOK! Especially since we had to fork out more than Euro 200 to the apartment agency and that was on top of the USD300 we paid in advance for the apartment to Hotels.com. There were many convenient stores below the apartment….and that was where we shopped for spaghetti, tuna, sauce, etc and of course WINE!! We made two kinds of pasta …….the first was Mushroom & Tuna Spaghetti in White Sauce(Bottom Right).

Tuna in Tomato Sauce Spaghetti (Bottom Left) was the other kind of pasta we made that night. Everyone was pleased. There were so much pasta for everyone! And we had 4 bottles wines to drink with our dinner the last night we were in Florence! =) Some of the wines only cost us about Euro 2 per bottle. The ones we got from the winery costs us between Euro 6 to 10.