What are the chances your tour guide gives you the food recommendation that’s already on your restaurant list? If you have prepared yourself for your food trip, big. And we assure you, Debeli did an excellent job when it came to the selection of the trattorias and osterias in Emilia-Romagna.
Many of the local places were closed during the Christmas and New Year winter break but luckily some of it stayed open. One of those places is highly praised Trattoria Ai due platani in village of Coloreto, just 15 minute ride by car from Parma direction Modena.
The trattoria is known for its tortelli, especially those made with pumpkin filling for which they have received several awards at the Best pumpkin tortelli competition (Disfida nazionale del Tortello di zucca).
The reservations are often sold out months in advance, especially for dinner, so we were both lucky with getting three spots on a last minute notice on a Sunday evening.
We were among first guests to arrive, and were seated in a small dining room with four small tables and one prepared for a bigger company that arrived soon after. I was actually surprised by the fact how many people were dining out but yeah, it’s Italy. Even a pasta dish that you can easily prepare at home, many of the Italians like to have it in a restaurant, just for the share sake of socialising. At the table across ours there was a lovely old age couple that shared a small bottle of wine and enjoyed their tortellini in brodo. They talked very rarely, probably been married for ages so there’s no need for that but the funniest thing was the old man fell asleep several times while waiting for the meal. I mean, it would be probably easier for him to just stay at home and eat, but they decided to go out. The big table next to us was soon occupied by four or five older married couples celebrating something, or just caching up on the old days, so the small room was filled with voices, laughter, fork and glass clinging. If they only knew that few months from then they would not be able to enjoy one of their usual activities like this 🙂
Anyway, since our last meal was late in the afternoon and the dinner started around 8pm we decided to skip the appetisers and go straight to the real food, but we were still offered a piece of bread and mortadella that opened our appetite and set us ready for the rest that was about to come.
The first course was pasta, of course, but only two member of our company went for it. The third one was a bit more adventurous and advanced so he ordered the second course meal for the first one.
Debeli’s a big tripe lover, and every Italian city or a region holds its own recipe. He already tried the tripe in Rome and Milan so it was just matter of time when he would stumble upon tripe specific for this part of the country. The Parma tripe were no different than the other recipes, it’s always the same stuff (tripe, tomato, veggies) but the abundance of the grated parmigiano reggiano made the specific taste even better.
The main courses are almost always some kind of meat but, again, one part of our group decided to go against the rules. By now you can guess who that might have been?
Debeli went for a risotto from the first course section, while me and our friend decided on some feathery small animals; a pigeon breast and a guinea fowl.
By the time we had to order the dessert we were so stuffed, but the table next to us, that big group, they ordered the restaurants famous frozen zabaglione with different condiments like chocolate, alcohol or caramelized nuts. The head chef rolled it out on a trolley. My eyes popped out as you can imagine 🙂
The only logical thing to do in that case, was to order a dessert. So we went full combat 🙂
To conclude the review that’s less a review but more of a memory to a fantastic place were we dined, I would say that the food in general was not high-end fine dining experimental style of food, but it was definitely good quality ingredients made in a good ol’ fashion Italian way. Just what we like. The wine was excellent, the service was good and we definitely appreciate the fact that we got a table at the very last minute. We will be going back when we return to that area.
Oh and yes, we did try those award wining tortelli di zuccas 🙂 We couldn’t have left with out it. Delicious and award worthy. Of course, after the desserts. Just one plate for the three of us. Worth it.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
AI DUE PLATANI
Dakle, koje su šanse da vam vodič sugerira restoran koji ste već imali na popisu? Pa zapravo velike ako ste se temeljito pripremili za putovanje. A Debeli se fala bogu uvijek potrudi. Kao i uvijek gospodin je imao poveći popis restorana, tratorija, osterija, zalogajnica od kojih je dobar broj bio zatvoren zbog zimskih praznika, no onaj mali broj otvorenih bio je i više nego dovoljan da uživamo u vrhunskoj talijanskoj hrani.
Jedan od takvih mjesta bila je i Trattoria Ai due platani (Kod dvije platane) samo petnaestak minuta vožnje od Parme prema Modeni.
Trattoria je, zapravo, vrlo posjećena i dobro poznata u okolici tako da su rezervacije rasprodane mjesecima unaprijed, pogotovo ako se radi o vikendu za večeru. Mi smo imali bogovsku sreću da smo uspjeli dobiti stol pola sata prije večernjeg otvorenja. Ili je u pitanju bilo moje skromno znanje talijanskog? 😂
Uglavnom, nakon razgleda Fontanellata sjeli smo u auto i produžili na večeru. Bili smo prvi na vratima restorana koji se po drugi put otvori taj dan (svi imaju dvokratno radno vrijeme), a ljubazno osoblje smjestilo nas je u zasebnu prostoriju s četiri manja stola i jednim većim pripremljenim za grupu koja je došla kasnije.
Ono što me neizmjerno iznenadilo bila je činjenica što se restoran vrlo brzo napunio. Bio je dvanaesti mjesec, nedjelja. Masa restorana u Oslu bude krcata vikendom, petak subota, ali nedjelja sve je gluho i prazno jer se ljudi pripremaju za novi radni tjedan. U Italiji to nije slučaj. Ako restoran radi, radi na najjače, a Talijani guštaju bez obzira koji je dan u tjednu. Da su barem jadni znali da par mjeseci unaprijed ne bu takve sreće? 😔
Trattoria je zapravo najpoznatija po tortellima, posebice onima s punjenjem od bundeve, što je tipična jesensko zimska poslastica.
Tortelli koje smo ostavili za kraj, nakon deserta čak, osvojili su nekoliko nagrada za najbolje tortelle od bundeve u Italiji. A takvog su i okusa, dostojnog i pre finog.
No započeli smo sa sasvim nečim drugim. Obzirom da je od zadnjeg obroka prošlo manje od četiri sata, odlučili smo preskočiti predjela i preći odmah na prvo jelo, no naravno stigao je tanjur s domaćim kruhom i mortadellom što nam je samo otvorilo apetit.
Prvo jelo u Italiji su obično tjestenina ili rižoto, tako da su se dva člana naše male grupe odlučili na to dok je Debeli prkosno naručio jelo s popisa glavnih jela. Zapravo je Debeli, kao veliki ljubitelj tripica, cijelo vrijeme bio u potrazi za tripicama specifičnim za ovo područje. Već je kušao milaneške i rimske, a sad je konačno bilo vrijeme za tripice na parmski.
Sve tripice do sad bile su pripravljene gotovo na isti način. Uvijek su to tripice, luk, rajčica, korjenasto povrće no parmske tripice običavaju se posut velikom količinom parmigiana reggiana što im definitivno daje poseban, možda čak i bolji okus od drugih.
Glavno jelo i ovaj put je bila mesina, doduše samo za dio grupe. Debeli se odlučio za rižoto s popisa prvih jela. Odmetnik bio i ostao 🙂
Frend je uzeo biserku punjenu pancetom s guščjom jetrom i crvenim kupusom dok sam se ja odlučila za golublja prsa s krokantom od golubljeg bedra, artičokama i domaćim kruhom s orasima. Bolje od boljeg nije moglo biti.
Grlo smo natakali kućnim lambruskom i debelo se dvoumili bili uzeli desert ili ne. Sve dok za stol pored našeg nije stigao šef kuhinje s kolicima s barem nekoliko kila smrznutog zabaglionea i finim prilozima koje je konobar posluživao grupi od barem petero glasnih stariji bračnih parova 🙂
Oči su mi ispale, ali usprkos tome uzela sam samo sorbet. Debeli se odlučio za toplu tortu od jabuke i kruške sa sladoledom od marakuje dok je frend uzeo čokoladnu kuglu sa sladoledom od mascarponea.
Dekadencija do kraja!
Generalno, hrana u tratoriji Kod dvije platane nije nešto izazovno ili nekonvencionalno. Radi se o klasičnim talijanskim i regionalnim jelima spravljenim od kvalitetnih namirnica iz provjerenog uzgoja. Dobra stara domaća klopa, baš ono što smo htjeli i ono što smo tražili. Definitvno preporučamo i vraćamo se prvom mogućom prilikom!
