With a few holidays to spare we packed up for a week’s visit to Sicily, our first stop being Catania. The landscape and how the light touched everything in its path. To the clean air and clear blue sky with no trace of dark clouds in sight as we are used to. It would have been a shame to let that moment pass without taking it all in. I knew i wasn’t home but wished this was it- that was how i felt the moment we arrived. And that was even before we had anything to eat!
Before you go further: This post doesn’t deeply delve into places to visit and eat as we were only there a short time. I am working on updating this on our next visit.
We stayed at a little hotel overlooking the beautiful Gardino di villa Bellini. Vincenzo Bellini was a well known composer celebrated for his works such as Il Pirata among others. Homage is paid to him throughout the city from monuments to the Catania airport which is also named after him.
Settle down, we will eat soon!
Having been starved from our delayed crisps and sandwich serving low cost carrier (not that sandwiches and crisps are a bad thing but when you want a warm hearty meal a sandwich is just not going to cut it)! We decided to head straight to the closest best selling arancini restaurant we could walk to. As luck would have it, the place with the best arancini in town was a minute’s walk away- Savia is the name of the restaurant. Our waiter was Gaetanno- who was ever professional, pleasant and attentive with just enough charm to make us want to order more and it made the exchanges ever more interesting when little Jenny kept blowing kisses.
While waiting for our order we all had an almond drink. It was sweet and creamy, chilled and refreshing. It made me wonder what in the world is my store bought almond milk made of because it tasted or smelled nothing like this!
Voglio solo arancini (i only want arancini)…
Now this is where my emotions got out of hand! Remember how i bragged about having made arancini for a few years and knew what i was doing? How i went on to tell you all the mistakes i had made and felt all proud of myself? Well, i was feeling a little bit small now.
We opted for one of each type of arancini: with pistachio, ragu, and Catania (made with parmigiana). The ragu was familiar to me as that’s what i’ve been making at home all along. Then there was pistachio which was just mild enough to keep me going. But then i bit into the arancini alla Catania and all hell broke loose!!! I feel i need to take a minute and just relive that moment in my head again…
There was a fresh scent of basil with aubergine, it was like nothing I have ever had! All the flavours complimented each other with none being overpowering. If you consider that the arancini is fried and the aubergine is double fried you would expect to be almost nauseated but quite to the contrary. I had to have one more and so I did. And while I devoured this work of art I thought to myself: “why didn’t I think of this? I make parmigiana at home all the time, so why hadn’t i thought to incorporate that into the arancini?
Drink me
To escort the arancini on its way Gaetano suggested some ice tea with a scoop of lemon sorbet! I thought “it wont be a big deal and what’s so special about some tea with a scoop of lemon sorbet?” It arrived, i was parched from the heat but curious me decided to start off with a sip. You know… just incase i didn’t like it. I will tell you this, i have never enjoyed being proven so wrong. Like seriously, can I meet the people in the kitchen and bar? Who comes up with this stuff?
You have no idea how smooth this sorbet was, no hard ice crystals and it screamed of freshness from the unmatched flavour of the southern sun kissed citric fruits. Each restaurant has their own recipe with some drinks having an almost floral scent. I’m telling you this is something you will have once and unfortunately be craving for every so often.
Sweeten me up
We then ordered the cannolo; one look at that little bad boy and I was sold! The ends were dipped in slivered pistachio and the whole dessert dusted with just enough icing sugar. One bite, I couldn’t believe this little temptation was filled with ricotta cream. The cannolo shell didn’t leave any hint that it was deep fried.
Just when we thought dinner was done Gaetano walks over with complimentary coffee and housemade almond cookies. I don’t mind a freebee as much as the next girl- but this left another good impression on me. I felt like they were also showing appreciation for us having stopped by.
Savia had some absolutely mouth watering dessert options to choose from and competition was close as there was another store located nearby that also sold desserts and other ‘souvenir worthy treats’.
Walk it off
After a good coffee that seemed to shake off the fatigue; we were off to see what Catania had to offer.
There is a lot to see and do in Catania, a lot of which i sadly couldn’t do as we were only there for 2 days. However we put in a good number of hours walking around before and after meals. The weather was just so good it was a shame to pass it up.
Catania is known for its rich history, culture and contribution to art, music and architecture. The adventurous historian in you can enjoy the Catania heritage sites protected by UNESCO and read more about our amazing trip to Palermo.
I wish oh so much i had visited the fish market which i also hear is worth a drop by. We intend to visit this little treasure again so stay tuned for an update on this post. Thanks for stopping by
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