Tuesday, March 17, 2009

St. Pats Bologna Style

The other day I saw an ad for Irlanda in Festa, an Irish party for St. Patricks day here in Bologna. Quite excited about the possibilities of having something other than Italian food for one day, I told Giancarlo that we had to go. It's a yearly festival that runs from the 13th till the 17th with concerts, "traditional" Irish food and of course a Guiness tent. Seeing as we saw the ad on the 14th, we decided to go and make a lazy Sunday afternoon of it.

Before I go on, here is what it is supposed to look like:


Well we arrived around 1 p.m. I was thinking like an American. In New York, on a Sunday at 1 p.m. this place would have been packed. Well, it wasn't, and remembering that we're in Italy we realized (too late) that everyone is at Nonna's house on a Sunday at 1. We decided we were going to have fun, and went over to the eating area for some "traditional" Irish food. Other than cabbage, I wasn't really sure what we were in store for.

The set-up was sagra style, the host gives you a menu and you pick what you want. He informed us that today was only "traditional Bolognese" food (one of the local restaurants was running the kitchen). More pasta... so we ordered, we ate, and we fell in love. I've never eaten better home made Tortelloni than at the Irish festival. Better than Parma, better than Osteria Broccaindosso. Simply the best. Ironic.


We finished lunch, took our beers and wandered around the area to see exactly what else this "Festa" was all about. It appeared as though nothing got started till 5 p.m. and sadly we were about 4 hours too early. But we were hungry and we ate like royalty, so in the end it wasn't a total washout. Next year we hope to be celebrating in Dublin with the Irish, but we are definitely trying this again.

2 comments:

Polideuce said...

mah...dalla foto quello che avete mangiato in quel di Parma mi parevano "anolini" (di solito tortellini e tortelloni sono locali nel modenese); mi fa piacere comunque abbiate apprezzato :)

Em and GC said...

sia anolini che tortellini o tortelloni, sono tutti ottimi!

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