Yep .. we got married 6 years ago .. incredible …
To celebrate this I had made a very early booking at Mare Nostrum, our favorite seafood place in Turin, but I got a call yesterday from them, that they would keep the restaurant closed! [gasp]
They said that while every other evening of the week they are totally booked, for this night they only have one reservation, ours! The reason for this was most likely the soccer match Italy - France. I can’t believe that soccer was about to ruin our anniversary dinner !!!
| So, I called around and got a reservation at a place called ‘Al Gatto Nero’, but even better, one of Ritsu’s colleagues got us a reservation at ‘Conti di Saluzzo’, another great seafood place, recommended by Ritsu’s gourmet boss. |
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But surprises did not end there, Ritsu got caught in the pouring rain while shopping for a gift for me and no taxi was to be found, so I had to load Julius into the car and go rescue her. Thanks to the down pour it took us until 8 PM to get home, Ritsu still soaken wet. I had our babysitter Alice call the restaurant that we come later and all was good and finally at 9 PM we arrived for a very nice dinner.
Indeed, we were the only guests this evening. Everybody else (including waiters) were watching the soccer game, which we could hear in the back. So what I believe to be the owner lady was serving us.
This place has a very good concept that I have not really seen anywhere else before, the menu clearly says ‘If 2 of you order the same thing, its less work for us, so we make it cheaper for you’ … i.e. the single version pasta is 12€, but if 2 order it, its 18€ .. something like that .. don’t recall details. Oh, and they even have menus in English, which is very convenient. (Though by now we pretty much know our menu-Italian.)

We had raw tuna slices under a very fragrant sauce of fresh tomatoes, onions, very acid-y .. yum! Then we ate paste with anchovy sauce (equally yum!) and we had kept some space for a main dish, for which we ordered the ‘grigliata della casa’, a mixed, grilled seafood platter ..

and boy was that good .. everything very fresh and just fantastic and the biggest surprise, while the menu only mentions some kind of shrimp … we got a whole lobster instead (and that was before we told them it was our anniversary).

Everything was just perfect and we felt bad when we saw the dessert tray. We had no more room left and they had prepared so much (and they had no other guests that night, I wonder even if they cut out that one piece of cake to make the whole thing not look too untouched). Instead Ritsu just had coffee and I had a ’small’ grappa (she poured me about 2.5 times as one gets in other places)
All this with a wonderful bottle of Roero Arneis was 105€, which is really not bad, considering a) the quality of food and b) at Mare Nostrum we usually have 120€ to 150€ damage.
We were very happy and very full and since the rain had stopped we walked all the way back (about 3 km), observing the road side parties (since Italy had won and thus can continue in the current European Cup) .

I am sure we will go there again, I can highly recommend this place. I wonder how it looks with other patrons in it