Shopping and Divine Food!

11/6/2009

Today we slept till nine to help mom deal with jet lag. Last night I had some ambitious thoughts about getting up early and going to the Uffizi Museum, but when the alarm went off at 7:30, I took great pleasure in turning it off and rolling over. The beds in our hotel room are extremely firm, which mom likes a lot but they tend to stretch out my back too much. It is also extremely warm in our room and we cant open the window because our room is right above a dumpster. Other than that, the hotel is really nice and has worked out great. We are in the center of everything and can walk everywhere!

After getting ready, we left the hotel to cross some things off of our “To do” list. For whatever reason, I kept getting turned around as we would leave our hotel, but eventually I got my sense of direction straightened out. We first rubbed the nose of the wild boar for good luck and then headed over to the Pontevecchio Bridge to look in the jewelry shop windows. Since we had not had breakfast yet, we stopped at a waffle stand and shared an unbelievable sweet waffle cream sandwich. I think I could probably eat one of those waffles a day. They are so good with the chunks of sugar in them. There was also a glove shop by the bridge that someone had told mom to go to, so we also checked that out.

Then we turned around and headed in the direction of the Duomo. Rexanne had told us about a jewelry store in the piazza duomo that we had to go see. It was quite the store. We looked around there for a while and then it was time to do an early lunch.

I wanted to take mom to Mario’s, the place that I ate with Katherine, Tyler, and Joe and had the Florentine steak because it is such an incredible hole in the wall place that has been written up in unbelievable magazines (see previous post). I knew we had to do an earlier lunch because if we tried for a later one we would get stuck in a line and might not be able to eat there since it closes down after lunch. On the menu for the day, we ordered chick pea soup, a salad with beans, potatoes, and tomatoes in it, and a roasted chicken breast. As with everything that I have had at Mario’s, the entire meal was mouthwatering delicious, the chicken especially. It was cooked in something that allowed the chicken to be moist and cooked to perfection. We ordered a liter of the house wine, which ended up being a little to much wine for lunch so we shared it with the Australians that we were sharing our four person table with. We had lovely conversations with them and all of the people from Connecticut that were sitting around us. One of my favorite parts of Mario’s is their close, welcoming, and friendly atmosphere. You are literally rubbing elbows with your neighbor as you dine.

After Mario’s we stumbled upon the massive tent market around San Lorenzo. We had so much fun looking at all of the booths and it seemed like the tents went on forever. Even with the dollar being so bad compared to the Euro, we got a lot of Christmas shopping done, so I can divulge what we bought, but its all good. It was a great long day shopping. Mom and I also happen to have the same sneakers from Running Etc… and we both had them on, which was probably why we could last so long.

We got back to the hotel around 5 and rested for a while. I checked my mail because I had been in contact with Tyler about meeting him for dinner. He ended up having to work at night so he couldn’t join us but he did give us some recommendations. Hopefully we will be able to meet up with him tomorrow for lunch before we get picked up to go to the cooking school. The concierge strongly agreed with one of the places on Tyler’s list and it was not very far from the hotel, so we decided we would try it out. The place was called Quattro Leoni.

When we got to the restaurant, we were told that it would be an hour wait but the people in front of us told us that the wait was definitely worth it. They had been in Florence for about a week and came here on their first night in town. It was so good that they decided to also make it their last meal in Florence. With a review like that, the restaurant had to be good. They also gave us some free champagne as we waited for a table. We stood outside and talked with the people, who were in front of us in line, and it made the time pass by fast. The wait also was shorter than an hour.

The first thing I see when we get to our table is a collage of a bunch of different pictures that have famous people in them! The first picture I see has Anthony Kedis, who is the lead singer of The Red Hot Chili Peppers and who I also recently read a book about him, in it so I think that is really cool. Once again, with so many famous people coming to this restaurant, the place has to be good.

Typically the menu was in all Italian so we asked our waitress to point us in the right direction of what to order. She recommended cheese stuffed eggplant, spinach and ricotta filled baked with tomato and cheesy sauce pancakes, and a steak. We took her up on her recommendations in addition to ordering the Florentine steak because mom had to try it since we were after all in Florence and a liter and a half of wine. The food absolutely lived up to the rave reviews. The eggplant was grilled and the cheese mixture that it wrapped around was goat cheese, mascarpone, some garlic and chives, very simple and so delicious. The pancakes were an extremely unique take on the classic pairing of ricotta cheese and spinach. The Florentine steak was incredible. Obviously on the rare side because that is how they cook their meat here, but seasoned to perfection. To top off our feast, we split a tiramisu, my favorite.

The whole meal was incredible! To tell you the truth we have not had a bad meal since we have gotten together, everything has been way above par. We went back to the hotel and with full bellies went right to sleep. It was a great night!