geriandlennyblog: Friday May 28th Lucca

Friday May 28^th Lucca

Today we decided to have two objectives. The first was to find a restaurant for this evening that would be special and the other was to find a place to purchase a purse for Geri. Gisella suggested we drive to Barberino which is a Discount upscale outlet center near Florence. It is a 45 min drive from our house. I was challenged to find a restaurant. I went to trip advisor on line and found the top 3 ones in the Lucca area. The first was mainly a meat place. No good for me. The third we had gone to the night before and had a great meal. That left the second one to investigate, because the 4^th did not look that good. So we decided to drive about 15 minutes outside of Lucca to check it out before we headed to the outlet. We ended up at Vigni Ilari. This a small hotel of 4 rooms and a restaurant that has about 8 tables inside that seat 2,4 and 6 people for a total of 32 people. They also had outdoor tables for another 20 people. We got there about 12 noon which is the start of the lunch period. There was no one there except the two owners, a husband and wife. They were young ad in their their early thirties. She, Elena, had the money to open up the place and be the chef with helpers. He, Andrea, was the buyer of the food and the head waiter. They both spoke to us for about 30 minutes. He explained how their menu worked and how he would tailor for my diet and insure Geri would also be pleased. Half way through the time, the fish person delivered the days catch. There was one enormous fish about 15 pounds and a few 5 pounders. He also told how he drives each day to get fresh produce and fruit. He gave us a sample of the sweetest strawberries we have had in a long time. Then we sampled his house red wine from Tuscany. He was great and we were hooked. We made a reservation for 8:30 that night. We were now really looking forward to our last dinner in Lucca.

So off we went to the Florence outlet center. It turned out to be a very upscale outlet. Like Prada with bags for 600 euro’s down from 900. That is $900 down from $1400. It maybe our 45 anniversary but that was a little high for us. The rest of the shops were either equally high or what we have in Ellenton for half the price. So we walked all 100 stores and left. We returned back to our house and spent time with Gisella. That made our day. We said we would meet her at her shop after our dinner knowing that she closed a 12 midnight.

We arrived at our restaurant at 8:25, finding it without a hitch which was a first for us , at least in the restaurant department.. We were the second couple there. They ended up with seven tables that night. Two with 6, one of 8 and the rest of twos. How they make a profit is beyond me. Our waitress was from Romania. She came to Lucca to find work because she could only make 200 euros a month back home. She met and married a fellow from Lucca since coming 5 years ago. Her English was pretty good and she said her Italian was poor. It was very hard for her to learn. Andrea came out to greet us and discuss what he had in mind for us for the evening. It was the start of our best meal of the entire trip. We started with 5 appetizers. The first was fresh anchovies stacked in a vertical cone shape. They were great. Carpaccio of sea bass; Cod salad over fried polenta, I am doing this on our plane ride home and I have already had four drinks so I cannot remember the last two right now. We then had our pasta part of the dinner, which was green ravioli with fish inside and basil on top. The best. Then we each had a different fish course that we shared and enjoyed very much.

We ordered two different desserts. Geri had a chocolate soufflé with chocolate sauce and I had the best strawberries I ever had. They also provided some biscotti and cappuccino. Did I mention the bottle of local red wine? That was the best and the cheapest wine we had all week at 7 euro’s or $10 a bottle. We spent time talking to Andrea at the end of the evening which was now 11:45 pm. We said we would write something in Trip Advisor recommending their place. We left with a glow and great feeling that we had one of the best dinners we have ever had. It was too late to stop by Gisella’s place since it would have closed by the time we got there. So home we went and then to bed. Well we did play some Gin since we were too full to go to sleep