Eating my way through Milan

Well, I survived the marathon flight from Seattle to Toronto to Milan on Air Canada.  Leaving Seattle at the ungodly hour of 7:00am and arriving in Toronto 2:30pm EDT, followed by an 8 hour layover before the next flight left Toronto for Milan.  All the flights were smooth and without incident (upgraded to first class Seattle to Toronto, then business class with a lay-flat seat Toronto to Milan).  Still it was a very long 24 hours between leaving Kirkland and arriving in Milan at the Airbnb.

The Airbnb apartment is very nice, in the Brera district of Milan.  Tons of great restaurants, bakeries, gelato places, etc., very near here.

On my first day of walking around I noticed that Milan, and Italy in general, still has small shopkeepers doing their specialty thing.  Yes, there are large stores (e.g., Rinascente, which is Italy's Bloomingdale's).  But by and large, you see small shops that attempt to do one thing very well.  They will sell and specialize in prosciutto or only sell bed+bath linens and they won't be a chain, just the one store.  I remember a long time ago when New York was like that, too.  Sadly New York changed dramatically since I lived there, and not for the better.

And so to juxtapose those small shops with a foreign invader, I stopped by the Starbuck's Roastery, the first outpost of Starbucks in Italy.  On the inside, it looks very much like the one on Capitol Hill.

On the outside, however, it's another story.  As you can see in the picture, it used to be a post office and was constructed in monumental style.

Ah well.  As they say, "There goes the neighborhood".  Nonetheless, it is still quite busy, although I'm not sure if it's with tourists or Italians/Milanese.

My first night here I found a restaurant just a few steps away called Convivium.  It looked very nice, so I looked it up on Google maps to see reviews.  To my amazement, it didn't show up.  Then I zoomed in and it showed an unnamed restaurant in the location.  It turned out to be Convivium and it had good reviews (almost all written in Italian--a good sign).  I went in for dinner and found, to my great surprise, that they were also serving Alba white truffle! Those of you who I spoke with about my trip know that one purpose I had was to go to Alba during the Festa Tartuffo Bianco (Festival of the White Truffle).  Here, on my first day in Italy, I was going to have white truffle with risotto for dinner.

The folks at Convivium couldn't have been nicer or more hospitable.  The food was delicious, and the truffle was of a medium potency (white truffles, like wine, vary considerably year to year based on the weather).  It also helped that their wine list by the glass was quite nice.  I think I quaffed at least a couple glasses of Barbaresco (Michele Chiarlo 2015) before the night was done.  Being that I'd been up for 30+ hours by then, I was fading fast.  After paying, I left happy and made my way across the street and the few doors down to the Airbnb.

The next morning I realized that my messenger bag (which didn't have anything in it, thankfully) was missing.  I couldn't quite remember where I last had it, but did remember bringing my iPad back from Convivium.  So I suspected it was there.  I returned when they opened for lunch and before I could ask, the host brought my bag to me and said "I think this is yours".  And so it was.  And then there was pizza and more Barbaresco :-).  I should make a note that it is not a good idea to drink wine with lunch at the best of times, but especially when it's only the 2nd day after a long flight.  Can we say nap time?

So far this trip has been a lot about food and wine.  Also nearby is a place called Salsamenteria di Parma which makes great plates of sliced meats/salamis, tortelli, and other pasta.  Also an outdoor cafe called "God Save the Food" (yes, in English).  And a gelato place that ranks with the best called Gelateria Toldo.  And of course, you must have breakfast, which in Italy consists of a pastry with caffé (espresso or cappuccino).  There is a famous Milanese bakery called Princi.  Princi was bought by .... (you guessed it...) Starbucks.  Fortunately, Princi's still makes their pastries the old way (BTW there is a Princi's in the Roastery on Capitol Hill).

There is a Princi's 5 doors down from where I'm staying (yes, I lucked out on the location of my Airbnb).  Of course they serve Starbucks coffee (probably roasted at the Roastery a few blocks further down the street).  But made by a barista with grind, dose, and tamp control and using a real espresso machine, not like the ones in the US where they put a cup under a spout and hit a button.

And so has gone my first few days in Milan.  In another post, I'll put in what I've done besides eat :-).