Way Down South....

This past weekend I traveled to Lecce, a small town in Puglia, located in the very southeast of Italy. We weren't blessed with great weather for the trip, but we were still able to enjoy our food. It's important to understand that restaurants are not as plentiful here as they are in bigger cities like Rome and Milan. We had to go hunting just to find a place to eat. But never fear, there were dozens of pastry shops around every corner so we were never short of sweets and goodies. We stopped at a place right on the main square for some dessert after a long day of being cold and wet. We tried some common pastries as well as some things specific to carnivale. 

We ate our first dinner at a little place off the beaten path and found ourselves alone in the restaurant. Despite being determined to speak Italian, the waiter was more excited to practice his English and this is the one moment all trip we spoke English to a local. I ordered the Tria e Ciciari, a traditional dish consisting of fried pasta and chickpeas. In my searches to learn more about the dish I came across this webpage that talks more about the dish and tells how to make it. I really enjoyed it and I may even get adventurous one day and try to make it myself (but don't count on me actually rolling out the pasta myself)! 

In the traditional Italian style, for our last meal in Lecce we had an enormous lunch. We split an antipasti that consisted of fried potatoes, fried eggplant, and some other fried goodies. Thank goodness we split it between the two of us or that could have been a meal in itself!

Our main course was, of course my favorite, gnocchi. My dish had a mushroom and tomato basil sauce and you could tell at the first bite the gnocchi was homemade. We were also given fresh out of the oven bread with our meal, which was amazingly dirt cheap! 

We noticed both nights that the water and cover charges were much less in Lecce than in the other big cities we have visited. The wine for our dinner was cheaper as well, just 4 euro for a 1/2 liter! I was very happy to have tried a traditional dish from Lecce and despite going out of my comfort zone I was not disappointed. I am now officially a fan of the food way down south.....and I'll raise a glass to fried pasta and chickpeas any day!