Absolute Carnage....(in a British accent)

Ahh....what a lovely day. We took it a bit easier today which was so nice. I mean...we are on vacation aren't we?? The title of the blog was inspired partly by our British friend but mostly by the place we had dinner.....we will get to that.




We started off our morning a little later than usual. Breakfast at 9:30. The breakfast here was great! Lots of homemade tarts and goodies. New favorite thing.....little toasts with olive oil sprinkled on....at all times of the day! We are in food heaven. From there we took off to enjoy the city of Montepulciano, leisurely shopping, wine tasting, and taking in the sites. This city has the most steep hills we have seen. Holy cow I am going to have some awesome calves when we get home! We saw some really cool wine cellars that have been here for hundreds of years with big barrels that are still used. The wine here is just so awesome...for lunch we had a cheese platter....another new favorite thing.....aged cheese with nuts and honey..oh man. Like I mentioned earlier, we have located a shop to ship wines from. Even with the exchange rate wine is so much less expensive here....for very good wines! Today we bought a bottle of the wine we had at dinner last night and some olive oil. Bryce learned a bit about olive oil grades...I think we should write this day off as a business expense!




Shopping..so much fun! I have seriously considered getting a leather computer bag but am going to have to pass....wine comes first and the bag would cost $150 euro. We will see if I change my mind tomorrow!




Ok.....dinner. We went to a place on a recommendation from our host. He told us we could do 7:30 or 9:30. We took the first one. When we arrived at the restaurant, people were lined up outside...not something we were used to seeing. The owner was at the door checking names. Nobody was getting in without a reservation. Cool! Our host sent us here for a traditional Florentine steak.....holy cow did he ever. This place was very cool. We were at shared tables and there we're a few strict rules. You only get one glass for water and wine....it's tradition, no split bills, and basically an overall theme of this is what we are, take it or leave it. Dad - pay attention.....you would love this place. From there we see the menu......VERY reasonable prices for everything.....3 euro for a 1/2 liter of wine, 2-3 euro for apps, and 5 for pasta! The one splurge and what they are known for is the steak. You pay by the ounce and it runs around 48 euro. At $2 an ounce....you do the math. Well that was what we came for so we had to do it ( to share) along with bruscetta, cheese with honey, gnocchi, and more bread with olive oil of course! So...as we were waiting for food, you can watch the owner ( who is all over the place ) go back to cut each steak off for those who have ordered one. He then brings the rare cut of meat to your tablet make sure you are ok with it. seriously.......huge....24 ounces! He then takes it back and they throw it into a fiery oven. Then he proceeds to answer the phone, talk to people, serve food, wine, etc. Like I said.....he is all over e place but clearly he is the only one to cut the steaks and bring them for inspection. So we got our food, ate all of it along with 90% of our steak and it was amazing. They never asked us how we wanted it cooked....again...you do what they say, no questions. It was cooked perfect. One more duty of the owner was to come to our table to "bring us the check" . What this amounted to was him writing the price of everything we got on our paper tablecloth and adding it up long hand right there. He did this for everyone. What a great place. They accept reservations at 7:30 and9:30 and essentially move people through in 2 shifts. It seemed incredibly efficient. Everyone there worked their tails off. Very impressive and we loved every minute of it! Here is the website......http://www.acquacheta.eu/











We ended our night here at the B&b with a few rounds of limoncello from our very attentive host....he really is incredible and always looking for ways to help us out and make our stay lovely. Tomorrow we have a day of wineries......we are looking forward to the tour and learning more about the wine making process!




Ciao,
Mandy



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Location:Montepulciano