Milan Baby!

I haven't blogged for a few days, I thought I would wait until I came back from Milan, so I could report my research. And my research involved a lot of eating (of course).

First of all, Milan is beautiful. Everywhere you go the streets are lined with amazing buildings featuring gorgeous wrought iron detailing, cobbled streets and a wealth of quaint restaurants and cake shops.

On the first night we arrived we tried to explore a little and found ourseves talking to an Italian man who worked for a bar not far from where we were. He did us a great deal of two drinks for 10 euros each, which we quickly took advantage of, and found ourselves drinking these:

These were AMAZING. I urge you to find a barman, and ask him to make you an Apple Mojito. It smelled so appley and delicious, but the mint was still a strong flavour, so it was sweet but gorgeous and refreshing as well. I love cherries too so they were a bonus for me. There was also the sour taste of lime which added yet another dimension to the drink. This was a winner.

Our hotel was in an amazing location, surrounded by restaurants and a pleasant 15 minute walk from some of the main attractions in Milan, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and the Cathedral.

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele is beautiful, and has the 'feels outdoor but really indoor' thing going on. It is filled with prestigious stores such as Louis Vuitton and, quite amusingly, opposite was a rather fancy looking McDonalds.

We decided to stop at a cafe in the Galleria, where I had a delicious lemon cake. It was a sponge with a lemon curd centre, covered in a gorgeous lemon mousse.

After walking what felt like about fifteen miles (honestly, feet were burning and that was in flat boots!) We decided that we heartily deserved some lunch. And did we reward ourselves!

I'll give you a moment to guess what these may be. Go on, try.

No idea? Olives! That's right, olives. We decided to order some olives as an appetiser before our main course (that's right, multiple courses for lunch, told you I'd done some heavy research!), and this is what arrived. At first we thought this plate had been brought to the wrong table, but nope, after a first tentative bite, we discovered that they were indeed olives, but they were olives stuffed with sausage meat covered in breadcrumbs, which was a food bloggers delight. I was amazed at how peculiar this presentation of olives was, and chuffed because they were delicious, but the only downside was that I couldn't really taste the olive at all, which defeated the point really.

What followed after our surprising starter was a pizza that was like the size of a wheel, and we had one each as well! We struggled with the Italian menus, as not many had an English translation, but we managed to select a 'Quattro Stagione', which had a generous helping of  mozzarella (one of my favorite cheeses, I could eat it all day long), artichokes, mushrooms, black olives and pancetta. This pizza was fab. And here is a picture of my friend attempting to slice it up.

And how ace is the can of coke?!

 

I think she is fabulous.

After our fat lunch, we went for another dose of culture, and went to see Leonardo Da Vinci's painting, 'The Last Supper'. Unfortunatley and unsurprisingly we were not allowed to take photographs, and wasn't hard to see why. It is a beautiful work of art, but incredibly faded and in parts of it the brick work of the wall is showing through. However it is about 500 years old so it is incredible that it has lasted until now, but I feel priviledged for the opportunity to see it.

We only stayed for two nights, a short but sweet stay, and on our second night we went to another lovely restaurant. We weren't exactly hungry, still digesting our mega lunch, but determined to have a full experience for our evening meal, so we ordered a starter between us. We had chicken liver pate, which was great. You could really tell it was fresh, homemade pate, and a generous portion it was too. It was also very strongly flavoured, I do believe that if you are not a massive fan of pate, then you wouldn't have liked this, but being the foodies that me and my friend are, we really enjoyed it, but the one starter between us was definitly enough.

My main course was by far my favorite meal of the trip.

This was a Tagliolini with duck ragout. It was stunning. Duck is one of my absolute favorite meats, and this was different because the duck was incorporated into the sauce, much like a bolognaise. It really was so delicious, it was a very salty dish, and nicely portioned too. The cheese sprinkled over the top of the dish was strongly flavoured, which was important because the duck was also a strong flavour too and again so salty, so the cheese was able to cut through those flavours.

I also have to mention the wine that we had with this meal. I have to be honest, i don't really know a lot about wine, except what tastes I like and what I don't like. An English wine menu is hard enough for me to understand so an Italian wine list was impossible. We spotted the word 'chardonnay' and decided to go with that and we were glad we did. It was devine, it was so smooth and easy to drink, I could have drink it all night. I want a glass of it now actually ha!

And here is a picture of me and my friend enjoying our wine.

And that was my Italian food adventure! Unfortunatley my purse is not bottomless, so I did not splurge on much other than food. However we did pay a trip to Sephora, where I indulged in the new Jimmy Choo perfume, I personally love it.

I also purchased a book (as well as food I also have a thing for nice, interesting books). It is called 'The Gospel According To Coco Chanel' and is basically a book filled with her legendary quotes and an analysis of what she meant and how they are relevant today, because as we know, Chanel is completely and utterly timeless.

Arrivederci!