Italia - Gourmet edition

Continued from the first post about my trip to Italy...

Now to list the most important thing ever... The FOOD!

Sportstadion Pranives
So Selva Val Gardena depends pretty heavily on ski tourism and open season is typically in the summer and winter. Since we went in the fall, many establishments weren't even operating, and as we had gotten into Selva Val Gardena in the early evening on Sunday, this made the search for food even more challenging as most places are shut on Sundays. We took a walk around the small village and came across an ice skating rink that had a pizzeria within its premises - this was AWESOME because it served huge portions of super affordable but mad delicious food.

I wasn't sure what to expect food-wise when it came to hiking, I thought I'd have to rough it out but turns out, these mountains spoil their visitors. All along the trails, there are various restaurant huts for one to stop at. These huts have a wide selection of food and beverage including specialties from the region, super clean and modern washrooms (hot running water, flushing toilets etc) and even high speed wifi in some! You can choose to sit indoors or outdoors (indoors is heated!) and you can bring your pets in!

Sanon - We loved the food here - comforting, fatty and delicious!

Stubele - We found this place for dinner - it was quite busy and we initially ordered the food below as starters but cancelled our mains because the portions are HUGE and we couldn't eat anymore. The curry chicken and risotto was really good (also maybe because I love Asian food and this might be as close to Asian as Italian can get).

Starved person

Free speck on a bread stick!

Murmeltierhutte/Delle Marmotte - The food in the region is influenced by both Italian and German cuisine so names of huts (and also road/village names) have both German and Italian references. This place was hidden amongst a garden-like area of the hiking trail which made it a beautiful place to stop at. Unfortunately, the menu was in German only and the food, limited only to German cuisine. We sat at a table with some older German folks who helped us translate and order. We ordered a specialty which is the cheese with a super low fat percentage, onions, olive oil and balsamic vinegar thing and it was interesting but not as delightful as I had hoped it'd be. Weiners in soup was yums but not mind-blowing.

Sorry but MEH

Restaurant Al Sella - After a crazy day of hiking, we managed to get back here (where the car was parked) and we decided to have dinner in the restaurant before driving back to the chalet. We were really exhausted and cold and we both had a hot chocolate each... And now I'm wishing I had like, five, because that shizz was dope. The food was not too bad but that hot chocolate, oh mama!

The beef was a bit tough

Troier hutte - Pancakes with jam and icing sugar for lunch? Sure why not? People need to make breakfast a daylong affair because it's just fantastic. I loved my lunch but the boo wasn't happy with his polenta. I've googled that it's cornmeal porridge which would have been great knowledge prior to ordering it since the boo doesn't even like normal porridge. Both of the dishes ordered are considered regional specialties so at least we tried each once!

Sorry Dolomitians, but polenta is... strange

Cascade - This place in St Cristina (a small town) ranked as one of my top favourite eateries of the trip. The spinach ravioli was crazy good, and obviously you can't go wrong with pizza topped with a runny egg, and to top it off, a nutella and cream concoction to give me diabetes while making me extremely happy. MMMM.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Party animal drinking alcohol!

Obviously we couldn't leave the Dolomites without presents for our friends, family and bellies, so we went shopping for food!

Food In-speck-tor hurhurhur

One of the regional favourites is this thing called Speck which is kind of like bacon - an Italian cured smoked pork, typically the belly. It's kind of salty and they eat it with a crunchy bread biscuit usually. I think we ended up buying 10kg of food, most of which is speck.

Other delicacies include olive oil (of course), jams and marmalades, honey and chocolate. So yes. We bought all of that. Speck party anyone?

Alright, now that I've recapped my entire Dolomites diet, I'm starving! Ciao for now!

Thanks for reading!