Yaokuis in Italy

Buon Giorno, food loving creatures! Today is our last day here in Italy and we are sad that our gastronomy tour will soon come to an end. Gan, myself and two other friends have literally been eating up Italy all the way from Venice, Rubano, Cinque Terre, Modena, Florence, Siena to Rome using the food itinerary I have put together. Travel websites and travel blogs were really helpful for my research on eating places, but as customary to my food inspiration, I rely a lot more on Anthony Bourdain's recommendations, as well as suggestions on chowhound.com, food blogs and tripadvisors. Our goal was to eat good local food, go to places where there are as few tourists as possible and as authentic as possible. Lo and behold, since "No Reservation" is such a popular show, we ended up seeing a lot of American tourists eating at the same restaurant Bourdain featured on his Italy episodes. He is now officially an industry in the food-turismo (we've been seeing quite a few agroturismo movements here). If all restaurauteurs pay him commissions for each cover he helped guide tourists to their restaurants, I won't be surprised if Bill Clinton will be challenged in his position as the richest man on the planet. Well, I'm sure Bourdain would not, as he always do say in his books, "sell-out" to the evils of the $$ or in this case €€.

The craziest thing we have done for food this trip was driving 1 hour from our hotel at Siena di Torrita to Siena for dinner at Il Canto late in evening and returning back to Torrita di Siena/Montepulcino mountains at 2am in the morning. Imagine, driving down the Italian autostrada with no street lights and even more unnerving, driving through the treacherous Tuscan countryside windy roads with approaching Italian drivers driving at like 200kph! Aside from that, I have also gotten food poisoining for the very first time during a trip. I'm guessing the unpasteured cheese I ate at the Siena mercato was too much for my stomach to handle. But nothing is stopping me now, especially when we are in Rome. Traditional Roman Cacio e Pepe dish we had last night at Roma Sparita was a good start to our short Roman holiday. Step aside, Anita Ekberg! I'm having my own La Dolce Vita, cibo style. Looking forward to eating as much as we can today and sharing the food stories and photos soon! Ciao!