Good Lord, she’s got chips on her pizza

Fat lass eats a chip pizza on Lake Garda

I HAVE an uneasy relationship with the pizza, very possibly the world’s most ubiquitous – and abused – street food. It’s everywhere and usually not very well done. Every other new eaterie which has opened up in Sheffield in recent years seems to sell pizzas. Or burgers. Or both.

If I have one it has not got to be piled high with greengrocery, just a smear of tomato sauce, some mozzarella perhaps, olives and, hopefully, anchovies. But, please, not pineapple rings.

As I’m writing this a flyer has come through the door for Domino’s Chipotle Pulled Pork Pizzas. It sounds disgusting. I shall not be buying one.

I’m not long back from Italy and you expect to find them there. But not all Italians are crazy about them. Long ago when Pepe Scime ran his eponymous Italian restaurant on South Road, Walkey (now Vito’s), he would turn up his nose at the mere mention of pizzas and scratch his armpit in a Sicilian gesture of contempt.

I was reminded of Pepe when I came across the Trattoria al Commercio restaurant in Bardolino on Lake Garda. Outside was an A board in three languages. It read ‘Non facciamo pizze’ in Italian, ‘Hier machen Wier keine Pizza’ in German and ‘We don’t make pizza,’ in English. My wife and I thought this is our kind of place and it was.

No pizzas sold here

Not everyone is as entranced by the food as we were. At the front of the menu it asks for people not to write reviews for TripAdvisor. They say things like they want pizza. But we ignored that and enjoyed the tortelloni, scallopine and a very good spin on zuppa Inglese and reviewed him anyway. And then we went back again.

The dining room, where we were, was packed full of Italians. Tourists are put in the garden room. The owner must have liked us because we ate inside both times. In fact, I visited four times, twice to book, but at the second meal he didn’t even acknowledge us. TripAdvisor thinks he’s ignorant. I think it’s just that he hasn’t got much English.

We had pizzas for lunch in a street café in Verona and another one for tea in Bardolino and on both occasions I was impressed by the quality. However, one at our hotel was pretty dire and probably came from the cash and carry.

But, as ever, we Brits can teach those Italians something about their own food. At a lakeside café I spotted a very fat English lass eating a chip pizza which she must have designed herself. I was so surprised I took a sneak picture. I thought this was the most disgusting thing I’d seen but then I didn’t know about the pulled pork pizza.

 

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Anchovies in the tin and on a slate!

Anchovies in a tin – and on a slate – in Verona

 

IF I was going to enter my dish on that excellent website www.wewantplates.com then I was certainly going for broke on holiday in Verona. I was paying a good ten euros for the chef to peel back the lid of a tin of anchovies and plonk it on a slate with a sliced up boiled potato. Food in a tin and on a slate is the stuff of that site’s nightmares.

 The menu at Caffe Monte Baldo read “Acciughe del Mar Cantabrico, servite con burro, patate e crostini di pane caldi” translated as “Cantabrian sea anchovies in their tin served with butter, potatoes and warm bread croutons.”

 It seemed so unusual that I just had to have it for the novelty value alone.

 And it was marvellous. I’m sure being on holiday and feeling I had to justify my choice had something to do with it but those anchovies were excellent, by far the best I have ever eaten. Pairing them with potato is not new: think of that Scandinavian favourite Jansson’s Temptation, which bakes anchovies and thinly sliced spuds with cream.

 My only grouse is that there was not enough potato and certainly not that many croutons to justify all that butter. Would I pay a tenner for the dish back home although they were extremely superior anchovies?

 There was, briefly, a restaurant in London called Tincan which served everything in its tins but it has now closed. I wonder why? And I believe there is one in Spain which does something similar. But so far the idea has still to catch on.

Squd ink ravioli with sea bass filling

 Caffe Monte Baldo is one of the city’s top restaurants. I also had a fabulous squid ink ravioli stuffed with sea bass on a tomato and butter sauce. The contrast in colours, black and red, was spectacular as was the firm texture of the pasta again the fish filling.

 Wouldn’t it be lovely to find something like this in Sheffield? No sure about the anchovies in tins, though!

 Web: www.osteriamontebaldo.com

 

Caffe Monte Baldo in Verona

Bacon, eggs and fried banana

IT’S time for Sunday breakfast, a Full English. Let’s see, bacon, eggs, sausage, mushrooms, grilled (or fried) tomato, baked beans, fried potatoes, fried bread and fried oatcake. But there’s something missing, isn’t there? Can’t guess? Where’s the fried banana?

I have eaten at countless hotels and greasy spoons but I have never, ever seen bacon, eggs and fried banana on the menu. At Chez Dawes I – my wife thinks I’m nuts – have it as a special treat and when the bananas in the fruit bowl are just right, ripe but not going to brown mush.

Bacon and banana is a marriage made in heaven. You get a jolt of caramelised sweetness against the saltiness and smokiness of the bacon, as well as a contrast in textures. Add in a shelled soft boiled egg (another little peccadillo of mine) and the oozing yellow yolk sends things up a gear.

This liking for fried banana comes from my early teens when, out with my parents, I ordered chicken Maryland from the menu because I had never had it before. Fried breadcrumbed chicken arrived with fried banana (they should have been fritters but I remember them naked) and I suppose I was hooked. But only gently.

I indulge spasmodically. I don’t have them every week. And it’s not as if when you’re staying over at someone’s house for Sunday breakfast you can say in an offhand kind of way “Could you add a banana to the frying pan?”

I had bacon, eggs and fried banana for breakfast this morning (as you can see) and enjoyed it so much I want to share it.

And shelled soft boiled eggs? You can’t get them breakfasting out, can you? Fried, poached, scrambled or soft boiled with toast soldiers, yes. But there’s a special pleasure, my father taught me, in deftly shelling a soft boiled egg and slipping it wobbling onto your plate. Preferably eaten with a fried banana.