Not Just Your Average Pasta!

(September 8th-13th) I am, as you can imagine from all of my running, a huge fan of everything pasta. That being said, I was completely unprepared for how extraordinary pasta could be when made fresh and served right! I won't recount every meal in detail, but a few special places stood out during my time in Torino.

'A Furcina (just a Google page, most places didn't have web pages). This neighborhood gem was precisely that: the type of restaurant that would be my go-to neighborhood haunt if I lived here. Between the waitresses that were all happy to help me make heads or tails of the Italian menu, and the splendid food, this place never failed to satisfy me on my multiple visits. My first visit led me to enjoying aubergine (eggplant) as a first course, and orichette with tomato and ricotta salata as a second with the house wine, which smelled like grape juice (very fruity) but had a sharp, full taste.  

The aubergine was almost like a calzone: ham, cheese, but eggplant instead of bread. And the orchilette, fantastic fresh pasta...al dente, but slightly thicker than we're used to...wonderful texture.  After this trip, I can confidently say that orchilette is my favorite form of pasta now.  Over top of the orchilette was ricotta salata. One word: wow! It was so fresh and pure.  I didn't know you could shave ricotta like that.

For the most part, my dining schedule was diametrically opposed to the Italian schedule of eating. Whenever I was ready for a meal (at a normal American time), it seemed that nowhere was open. Restaurant after restaurant would be closed till well after 1 pm...but just when I had given up hope during my daily wanderings, a street market would appear, complete and full of vibrance.  1/2 mile long, 1/3 of stalls were food...fresh produce with giant, round eggplants, teardrop shaped heirloom tomatoes, fish being carved straight from the carcas (a sword fish)

Before I get into my favorite restaurant of this trip, a few assorted dishes:

You can't very well go to Italy without having a pizza. So fresh, crispy, and delicious. A true carb-lover's paradise!

A typical salad. Lot's of great, high quality ingredients adding layers of flavor.

Don't ask me for the name of this traditional Piedmontese dish, but it was vegetables fried in dough. As I said, a carb-lover's paradise!

Gelato! Me and my colleague from Oxford enjoying a few different flavors.

A different take on brussel sprouts.

Caprese salad with aubergines.

Pasta with mushrooms. Nothing else. So simple, but so incredibly good.

Fresh octopus carpaccio.

A calzone. The bread was fried just right. Fantastic.

And now for the other restaurant that I wanted to highlight, La Barrique. This highly rated restaurant was something that I was saving for my last night in Torino. I splurged, a bit, too, by enjoying their fish tasting menu.

Everything on the menu looked so good; I couldn't decide.  Luckily the tasting menu had most of the dishes that I was contemplating (except the fresh eel,  but I'm sure that I enjoyed the red mallet much more than I would have the eel).  I'm trying to think of the last time that I had a meal this satisfying...certainly, this was better than the multi-starred restaurant in Paris. 

Course 0: goat cheese mousse with raspberry sorbet. Light, creamy, but melted in your mouth.  Very smooth, I didn't know that you could get that texture out of goat cheese.

Course 1: marinated, raw scallops, toasted quinoa, daikon, burrata sauce. Textures complimented each other perfectly. Scallop flavor paired well with burrata sauce, though a little rich. And the toasted quinoa...crunchy but still quinoa, one of my favorite grains.

Course 2: fish of the day, a red mallet, served with burraba beans, a seaweed cream wine reduction, topped with salmon roe and finishing salt. The sal de mar, cubed, had just the right crunch and taste to finish the dish off as the other flavors were all mild. Italian white wine from nearby piemonte. Hints of pear amidst its floral notes. In contrast to the later wines, almost had a Chardonnay flavor....but very subdued compared to an actual Chardonnay... much more pleasant really.

Course 3: squid ink tortelli, stuffed with angler fish in a wine sauce. Wine pairing was a local piemontese grape I had never heard of (Erbaluce). Slightly creamy with a wee bitter note at the end. Very graceful (i.e. smooth and pleasant). Matched the sauce well.  Just about the thinnest pasta of my whole trip.  Delicate, but flavorful.  Accentuated the angler fish stuffed inside.

Course 4: white fish (mollet? From sea south of Italy) with porcini, creme de celery, mustard sauce, wilted spinach. Tamarind decorating sides of plates. The fish was a bit like rockfish, but much larger. Wine from umbria....subtle flavor to contrast the potency of the celery cream and mustard. Finishing salt a flake...punctuated other, creamy flavors.

Course 5: goat cheese cheesecake, with raspberries and pistachio ice cream topped with crushed pistachios. Slightly nutty and chocolatey base. All together, fantastic.  Different texture than a normal cheesecake....creamier really. Harkened back to the goat cheese mousse that started the meal. To drink, a Sicilian dessert wine. Very sweet and thick like a port, but lighter in character. 

Course 6: a medley of morsels. First, a chocolate and crispy rice...reminiscent of voodoo donuts. Next, a cookie: slightly nutty cross between a french cookie and a butter cookie. Nut covered tart filled with a lemon cake. Pistachio canolli...ricotta cream was so fresh and va bene. Macaroon with extra dark chocolate shavings.  So bitter by themselves, but an after thought with the creamy macaroon. Raspberry custard tart...trio of flavors and textures meshed so well...tart alone like an egg tart. Cinnamon cookie had a pleasantly contrasting texture to other morsels. Perfect compliment to the espresso. Truffle: uncoated  chocolate ganache rolled in bittersweet chocolate. Very soft, melted in mouth.
 

And yes, I ordered an espresso for the sake of everyone back home since I don't drink coffee.

It's amusing to think that I was worried that I'd leave hungry when I first came in here.  For one of the first times since I arrived in Italy, I am full.
 

The description of restaurant exactly as billed, though easier to find. Inside it was elegant, like Lauduree but with ample spacing between tables.  Louis Armstrong gently played in the background, and my timing had been impeccable as the restaurant went from empty to full within minutes (I was the first dinner guest at 7:50). 

The evening grew late, Louis continued to serenade me, and the wines slowly were embibed...