Friday, April 04, 2014

Eating like an Italian

Husband spends a lot of time listening to local radio while working on the house so when he heard the offer of restaurant vouchers worth £40 for just £20 he couldn't resist. We were fairly selective in the restaurants we chose to purchase vouchers for but still ended up with 3, which have to be used by the end of May, so, what do you know, we just have to go out and eat occasionally.

Last night we went to Salento, a new-to-us restaurant located in Swansea's marina. This is the view we had from our table.

And this was my main course, Linguine carbonara mare, which was nicer than it looks although I couldn't bring myself to eat the baby octopi.
The waiter/manager is Italian and he explained the ethos of the restaurant is to serve real Italian food as eaten in Italy by real people. He and the chef - who apparently doesn't speak English - come from the region in the heel of Italy that gives the restaurant its name. The menu was certainly different and had an authenticity about it. 

Sadly my aubergine parmigiana wasn't as good as that I had in Rome but the panna cotta was delicious. Husband, on the other, hand made excellent choices with his spicy seafood soup, which was laden with fishy bits, followed by traditional Salento lasagna made with meatballs.

Would we go there again? Oh yes, definitely. We shall be taking YS and Nuora there when they return home for a real Italian's verdict.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds and looks yummy - says she who a mussel in shell has never eaten!

Trubes said...

Oh yum yum!
I could eat all of that and baby octopus is to die for, you must try it Liz next time you go, I'm even brave enough to cook a large ~Octopus which is absolutely delicious if cooked in the correct way, easy too.
Nice view from your table,
Love Di.x

Trubes said...

P.S. I've put a tribute up on my site to Leslie and Lorne if you care to take a peek, if you already have ignore me !

Di.x

Anne in Oxfordshire said...

I would eat the Octopus , but I don't like the look of this dish. I have a very good friend that goes to Puglia a lot , I am going to ask her about the food.

Puglia is the area where Salento is.

Nuora will obviously know, but she most probably comes from a totally different area and never had these foods, like my cousin who lives way up in the North,near Slovenia but in Italy.

Rose said...

I'd pass on the baby octopus, too, but otherwise it sounds delicious! If I had to choose one type of cuisine, I'd eat like an Italian every day:)

Leslie: said...

I've had baby octopi (calamari) when it's deep fried and crispy...not too bad. I do love Italian food! Glad it's a place to which you'd return. :D

CherryPie said...

Your husbands main dish would be more to my palate.

Liz Hinds said...

I'm not wild about mussels, Shirl, but managed these.

No sorry, not those little tentacles, Di!

Yes, Anne, styles are veyr different in all parts of Italy.

It was yummy, Rose.

I've eaten some of the deep fried squid rings, leslie, but just couldn't eat these!

He really enjoyed it, cherrypie.

nick said...

I'm not sure there's such a thing as real Italian food. Every part of Italy has its own local cuisine so it all depends where you are. Apart from the main dishes, if I find an Italian restaurant that serves a properly-made tiramisu, then I go home happy.