What you can eat in Sorrento, Italy

In just over 2 weeks time, my younger daughter Maria and her boyfriend are going to Sorrento, Italy for summer holiday. It was June 2005 when my husband and I went to Sorrento for holiday and have so many lovely memories - and of course the food!!!

(All photos are from our trip in June 2005 - I have no idea what they are all like if we go back these places now....)

In Sorrento, there are many good restaurants as you can imagine and off the main street, shops are selling lovely fresh fruits.  According to an internet information, hugh lemons growing in Sorrento, a size of American football, are called sfusato sorrentino and is good for making limoncello (lemon liquor).

Lemons are also painted ceramics vase, bottles and tiles ubiquitously and you see then when you are in Amalfi coast.

A shop in Positano, Amalfi coast.

One night, I had Spaghetti with clams - there were so many big clams in my spaghetti and you could taste the sea!  My husband had pizza (see the photo behind my spaghetti). I can't remember what were toppings but he really enjoyed it.

... and his pizza was made by this chef who kindly posed in front of camera for me!

Food was so delicious, we went back to the same restaurant again and I ordered another spaghetti clams and my husband had another big plate of pizza!

Obviously there are many pizzeria in Sorrento.  One evening we went to Pizzeria Aurora ( www.pizzeriaaurora.com) which is in the the main square, Piazza Tasso. 

We also tried other restaurants in Sorrento and also had Capri salad (mozzarella cheese, tomato and basils).  Well the mozzarella was nice and really creamy, tomatoes had so much flavour that they were no comparison to tomatoes you get in supermarket in UK.

During the day, you can also go to a small cafe or some patisserie off the main street for a nice cappuccino (although Italians do not drink this in the afternoon) or biscotti or both!

Being right by the coast, seafood is obviously excellent.  We loved the restaurant called Ristorante Bagni Delfino in Marina Grande (www.ristorantebagnidelfino.com). It is by the sea with sun-deck extending over the water. We had lovely lunch, away from the main town centre of Sorrento but still within walking distance, with wonderful views of the peninsula and mount Vesuvio.

My husband had Fritto Misto di Mare (mixed fried seafood).

and I had grilled king prawns or were they langoustine...? Anyway they were huge and really delicious!  I love to go back there and have these again!!!

During our holiday in Sorrento, we also had day trips to explore Amalfi coast.  We took public bus to get to Amalfi, took a boat back from Amalfi to Sorrento via Positano. 

In Amalfi, we found a lovely restaurant off the main square. We had clams and musseles with hand-made pasta. It was absolutely delicious.

On the way back to the centre of Amalfi from the restaurant, we found a snack bar. They were selling so much variety of cakes and they all looked really delicious.

We had an expresso and eclair with chocolate cream filling for dessert! 

We also went to island of Capri. We went to a restaurant called Ristorante Sollievo - just checking on internet, this is now Ristorante D'Amore. I have no idea if it's still owned by the same people or not...
Anyway I remember they had a photo of Keanu Reeves on the wall so guessed he must have dined there long time ago.

I had spaghetti with clams again!

The restaurant is a bit away from the town centre of Capri where many trendy and probably expensive restaurants are. I remember there was also a very good ice-cream / cake shop nearby.

Back to Sorrento again.  On our last night in Sorrento, we went to a restaurant called Ristorante Caruso (www.ristorantemuseocaruso.com) just off the main square.

It was a very lovely, romantic place, with full of pictures of the great tenor, Enrico Caruso, his friends and family and his life on the wall.  When we went there in 2005, they had tasting menu that came with many courses (can't remember how many) which was what we had then.

Risotto with mussels.

Langoustine ravioli

White fish (can't remember what type?) with bed of fennels

Dessert - sponge cake with liquor and fruits.

I love to go back there but I don't think they are still doing the tasting menu. Well, it was a lovely place to go for a finale of our lovely time spent in Sorrento.

Anyway, if none of these interests you, you can always have Italian ice cream. They are just tasty!
A local tour guide took us to this ice cream parlour on our first day and we kept going back to the same place every day for a treat.  We ate too much but there was always room for ice cream!!!

I hope my daughter and her boyfriend will have a lovely time in Sorrento.

Quick Afternoon Tea

My mother in law came to visit us last weekend. My daughters and I decided to arrange 'Afternoon Tea' at our house last Saturday. We had a very good intension to bake variety of cakes and scones to go with finger sandwiches but come Saturday morning, things did not go as planned. So we went to M&S and got some lovely cakes and other bits and pieces such as salmon quiche, salmon terrine, potato salad and pasta pasta etc. At least we made finger sandwiches by ourselves.

Well, everything was very delicious. My mother in law enjoyed herself and asked if we made those lovely cakes and cream scones by ourselves. We replied, yes they are home-made but not at this home!!

We really enjoyed the quick afternoon tea at home.  We would definitely do this again!

Paella in Barcelona

The first time I ever had Paella was when I first went to Barcelona with my husband in early October, probably year 2005 and went to this restaurant named La Gavina (Plaza Pau Vila, 1, 08039 Barcelona, Spain) by the Marina in Barceloneta district. It was a quiet Wednesday lunch time, much less busy with tourists and lovely warm sun was shining upon us.  We were enjoying seafood paella, watching the world went by. I noticed this man sitting alone not far from our table, eating big plateful of grilled king prawns with a bottle of wine. He did not look tourists, more like a local regular who just popped in for regular lunch with newspaper for companion and he seemed to know staff well at the restaurant.  He seems that he was really savouring the taste of grilled king prawns, totally relaxed in the ambience whilst reading newspaper. I thought to myself  'What a wonderful life he has, eating seafood in such a wonderful setting in such a great city and he can do this every day if he wants to!'  He somehow symbolised the good life in Barcelona to me. I still remember the face of that man and bet I can find him if I ever see him again at La Gavina.

Anyway, we went back to the restaurant last October. Barcelona seemed much busier than how I remembered last two times when we were there. The restaurant was also very busy.  It is not a cheap place to eat but why not, we were on holiday!  We ordered a bottle of wine. For starter I think my husband ordered fish croquettes balls which came as quite a good portion and could be share with two people. I ordered grilled vegetables, which were all prepared to perfection.  This too could be shared or be a meal of its own but it was so delicious I managed to eat all. Starter were both very good.

We then had Seafood paella for two. The waiter brought to us a pan of freshly made paella to show, took it back to the kitchen to put them on plates to serve. There were so much seafood in paella - big prawns, langoustine, not to mention squids, hugh mussels and scallops.  It was just delicious but I wish they kept paella in the pan and left it on our table as I would have liked to scrape the burnt rice stuck to the paella pan, which I think the most delicious part of paella!  The service was good, staff was very professional but friendly and they also gave us complimentary glass of wine each. Overall we had a lovely dining experience.

There are so many restaurants serving paella in Barcelona as you can imagine. Many restaurants on La Rambra have menus with pictures to try to attract tourists.

In 2008 we went back to a restaurant named Amaya on La Rambra for dinner. According to a guidebook, this is a classic Basque-Catalan restaurant. 

Amaya during the day.

Inside of the restaurant.

We had local wine. I ordered grilled king prawns and my husband had seafood paella. 

I liked their vanilla ice-cream with hot chocolate sauce so I ordered this again for dessert!

In 2008 we found a restaurant named Can Ramonet (Career Maquinista 17, Barceloneta, Barcelona).  According to a guidebook, this is one of the oldest restaurants in this area and their signature paella Can Ramonet is piled with seafood and meat but as we don't eat meat, we ordered seafood paella.

Inside of the restaurant.... catering for both meat eaters and seafood lovers!

Our seafood paella.

Last year, we found a lovely restaurant named El Gran Cafe (9 Career d'Avinyo, 08002 Barcelona) in Barri Gothic district.

The restaurant has an elegant and relaxing atomosphre, white table cloths and waiters in long aprons while a piano player playing lovely music in the background.

We had a lovely bottle of rose and shared grilled vegetable between us for starter.  

The grilled vegetable came with a Romesco sauce, which is made with roasted read peppers, almonds, garlic and tomatoes, is originated from Tarragona in Northern Spain. It was really delicious!

This is half of starter as I shared it with my husband.  Orange sauce is Romesco sauce.

 We then had paella for main course.

We found the service was excellent and waiter who was serving us was very friendly. I asked him what the orange sauce was in a separate dish that came with grilled vegetable. He said it was Romesco sauce, and tried to explain to me what's inside and how to make it.  Apparently it is an accompanying dip for Catalan roasted onion.

Talking about paella made me feel like eating one so I decided to make one myself.  My husband bought me paella set for Christmas long time ago so I have a paella pan. I didn't have paella rice so I had to improvise with arborio rice (normally used for risotto) but I am sure I have seen Jamie Oliver saying somewhere on internet that this would be fine....???  I just threw whatever vegetables I could find into the pan. I chopped green and yellow pepper, onions and tomatoes. I have paprika and saffron so threw them in with vegetable stock, then arborio rice. Toward the end of cooking, I added frozen peas and king prawns and cooked further 5 minutes.
Well, it looked no where near paella we ate in Barcelona but it tasted close and delicious.  It was more like a Span-ish paella than Spanish paella. Next time I will make sure I use the right paella rice and use mixed seafood to give more seafood flavour to the paella. I may even consider buying a better paella pan next time when we go back to Barcelona!

The only nuisance is that the paella pan has to be cleaned properly afterwards and be coated with oils slightly to keep it from being rusty but luckily my husband did that for me!