I woke up before 4 am on Friday to take 7 am flight from LAX. After two connection (Newark, then Rome), I finally arrived in Alghero in Sardinia. It was long but smooth travel.
I came to Sardinia on an annual wine trip to Italy with my old wine teacher and friends from Tokyo. The rest of the group were scheduled to arrive later in the evening.
Hello Alghero. View from my room is beautiful.
I took a little rest, then went for lunch in the neighborhood. I found a cute local restaurant, specialized in local seafood. The place was packed after 1.30 pm. I was lucky that I got there just a little early to beat the rush hour. I had vongole (clam spaghetti) and fried calamari. So good!
Then, I took a walk around the old town.
Pretty quiet and peaceful.
In the evening, I met with one of the travel companions from Tokyo. She also arrived earlier than the others, so we got together for dinner. We had a reservation at Al Tuguri, a traditional Sardinian restaurant in the old town. The cute 3-story building was built in 16th century.
We had a toast with the local Vernacchia & Vermentino blend white wine. It was so fresh and tasty. We both had their tasting course. The first course was sardines in 3 ways. They were very good.
Then, the pasta course was black and white linguine with stingray and pumpkin. It was so delicious! The pasta was perfectly al dente, and the stingray was so pure and sweet that it tasted almost like fresh crab meat. I loved the cute Halloween style serving of the pasta in a carved pumpkin bowl.
Fish soup. It was a big bowl of different kinds of seafood, including skate wing, sea bass, small crabs, prawns, mussels, etc. It was nothing like French bouillabaisse or Italian chioppino. The broth was not overly seasoned or fortified. It was rather very natural with the flavors of all the fresh seafood cooked in it. It was so delicious, too.
Dessert was Catalan custard with brandy that was set fire at the table.
The dinner was so good and I ate and drank too much while I was so jet lagged!
