What I ate-Italy Edition

Tuesday So where do I start? No seriously! There was so much food and it's hard to know what to try first. We arrived about lunchtime and we were absolutely starving, we headed to the square where there were cute cafes. We found one called Cafe Central (which is part of the Hotel Du Lac and La Dependence restaurant group) which we thought would be perfect for a light lunch. We had a panini, think mine was tomato and ham and hubby's was a different one (can't remember - rubbishy food blogger!). I had mine with a coffee (one of about a million!). The cafe was nice. In the evening we walked along the banks of the lake, which was very relaxing, to the restaurant at the other end of Menaggio. We decided to go to La Grolla Menaggio Restaurant so we booked a table. I really wanted to try Spaghetti Vongale, so the first night I saw it on the menu and I had to try it and I have to say it was delicious! Hubby had a lovely pizza with ham, peppers and artichoke, which he enjoyed.

Wednesday

We decided to head over to Bellagio on the other side of the lake, for lunch and a bit of a touristy mooch. We decided to have lunch at the Hotel Florence where we had a lovely lunch, right on the lakeside. I had lasagna which had pesto drizzled over it (which

made it even better I think) and hubby had a spaghetti ragu, they were both delicious. While we waited for the boat for the journey back we decided to try gellato from Gelateria Splendide because it would be very rude not too (when in Rome.....well you know what I mean). Mine was coconut and pistachio and hubby's was double chocolate with hazelnut. In the evening we went back to the apartment after being out for most of the day, so we decided to cook rather than go out. We decided that my mushroom risotto would be easy.......errrrr finding fresh mushrooms was a challenge. I kind of felt that I had some sort of truffle hunt on or something - they were that elusive. We were both a little tired because we had done quite a lot so we had a chilled evening in.

Thursday

So, we decided to pop over the border to Switzerland and have lunch. It was quite a fun experience, we had to take our passports just in case. We decided to have pizzas from Spaghetti Store as you do get such a great variety, plus it was a bit cheaper than a pasta dish. My pizza was a 4 topping combo I actually picked from a list of toppings. I had cooked ham, anchovies, mushrooms and rocket (I was a bit obsessed with it actually - had it on most of my pizzas!). OK my combo was a bit weird but it was good. Hubby had a pizza with the 4 combo but he went for salami, artichokes, mushrooms and sweet peppers (he also seemed to have artichokes on most of his pizzas). Then we walked back in the drizzle, stopping off to get a few coffees and then we saw some yummy macrons. I had a strawberry one and hubby had a chocolate one of course.

In the evening we went to Il Ristorante di Paolo which was in the square, it was Cordon Bleu but it didn't live up to expectations. It was very disappointing and the service was awful. The food was so undercooked, it was raw, and we had to send it back. Compared to the other meal that we had around the lake, where the portion sizes were generous, these portions were so small that you

would need a magnifying glass. I really dislike this type of food where you pay ridiculous amounts for hardly anything. I am from the school of thought of 'fill your boots' type of food. Hubby and I enjoy our food and we don't like tiny portions. So this is definitely not one I would recommend. I nearly forgot to say what we had because it made me so cross. So mine was the risotto with beetroot and scallops (yes only 3 scallops) - it looks bigger than it was! Hubby's was lamb that was so pink he had to send it back, they then got in a bit of a strop with us for complaining. His dinner didn't come with any sides or anything. We felt so underwhelmed by our experience we thought we might make a snack when we got back. You live and learn, we will take TripAdvisor recommendations with a pinch of salt next time.

Friday

We went over to Bellagio again, we really enjoyed our time there and we wanted to try some of the cute cafes/restaurants.We had some peach Bellini's (mine was a mocktail) at Hotel Du Lac Bellagio. They were lovely. We found a lovely little pizza place. It had a wood fired oven for pizzas which made them delicious. I had a lovely pizza, with shrimp, courgette and rocket. I think it was probably my favourite pizza of the whole trip. Hubby had a pizza with sausage meat on it which he enjoyed.

We then went and had a coffee before we went back to Menaggio. It was a Mocha Macchiato and I have to say it was amazing and I will try to find one when I'm back in England.

It was soooooooo delicious, I think I could try and recreate it when we get a new Nespresso machine (on our Christmas wishlist).

We also found some cannoli's in a cute Pasticceria Castelli and an amazing deli, which we nicknamed the singing deli, a funny group of Italian men started singing as soon as they realised we were English.

We then had another chilled evening in as we had done a fair amount in the day. We decided to have traditional Italian ragu for dinner, which we cooked together. It was lovely but very different from our British Bolognese which we are more used to. It was just lovely to eat all the traditional Italian dishes and it made me think about doing an Italian cooking class.

Saturday

Breakfast was great because we bought extra cannoli's to have, they were delicious. We had a lovely coffee before heading to Tremezzo for a lovely walk around a villa and the gardens. We worked up quite an appetite so we then wandered along the bank of the lake to find a nice spot for lunch.

We had pizzas, mine had cooked ham and rocket and hubby had 4 toppings on his, which I think were olives, ham, mushrooms and artichoke.

We then had a quick drink where I got given a mocktail before we had our last dinner where we had our first dinner (so we went back to the start). We both had mussels spaghetti but when they came they had more seafood than just mussels, but I enjoyed it all the same. We were celebrating my 8 months post transplant. That langoustine however was a bloody nightmare to get anything out of. We then shared a tiramisu (no raw eggs in that one.)

We saw some amazing pastas in the deli and at the airport which I thought I would include. I was in awe of all the amazing coloured pasta (which I was furiously googling because I wish I had bought more home - annoyed with myself.)