Preci- Hotel Agli Scacchi

Our closest restaurant in Preci was the Agli Scacchi located at the Hotel Agli Scacchi.  It's a nice little place with space outside and inside as well.  However, if the weather is nice, most people are going to sit outside.  We have eaten there three times, which is the most we have eaten at one place since being in Italy.  Maybe it's out of convenience or maybe it's because it's home cooking at it's simplest.

The first meal we ate there was lunch on a beautiful Sunday.  The outdoor seating has views of the surrounding hills and the hotel, which is from the 1500s.  The hotel was the villa for the famous surgeons of Preci.  The surgeons were well known for their removal of cataracts and gall stones.  They traveled all over the world and worked on Queen Elizabeth I, among others.

Anyway, they have a large selection of dishes that have truffles.  Like I have stated before, there are truffles everywhere in Umbria.  You can't go somewhere without having options with truffles.  They also have an interesting fish here, salmon trout.  Salmon trout is pink in color (like salmon), but does taste like trout.  Lynn really enjoys the salmon trout.  When Bill and Jan were in town, after a day of sightseeing, we headed there for dinner.  We had an extra dinning companion that evening as we sat out on the terrace.

He is only four months old.  And as you can see, adorable.  But I digress, back to the food and wine.

We started off with a bottle of rose wine.

For starters, I got the orichette with a four cheese sauce and truffles.  So very tasty.  The truffles didn't overpower the dish.  They did add a nice earthy flavor to it.  Jan got the artichoke lasagna.  It had a good flavor, but it wasn't as good as the asparagus lasagna that I had earlier in Orvieto.  They served local Preci cheese to top off the pasta dish as needed.  The cheese, while strong in scent, adds a great flavor to the pasta.

For the main courses, Bill and Lynn got the salmon trout (of course).  I think Lynn was going to get something different, but then at the last minute changed her mind and stuck with her usual.  Jan opted for the veal with a truffle sauce since Lynn and Bill got the last of the salmon trout.  I decided for the vegetarian platter.  Sometimes, you just have to eat your veggies.

All of the food was very well prepared and very tasty.  Well seasoned and the setting is what adds to it.  The owner/operator knew us by the end of our stay and I think that says something.  

  

Italia!

I am going to do several days in one since I need to get all caught up with being here and travelling, and of course eating and drinking.

We drove from Lindau, Germany to Preci, Italy on April 21.  We made it in 8 hours.  I drove for part of the way there.  Go me!  The Mercedes is probably the most expensive car that I will ever drive.  Although, never say never.  The Villino was nice enough to pack us some sandwiches and fruit.  We pulled over to get the car filled up and ate in the parking lot.  We drove through some beautiful scenery on our way to central Umbria, where Preci is located.  We were met by Veronica, who showed us the way to our home away from home for the next six weeks.  We hauled all of our baggage up the hills to our house, and only had enough left in us to go to the local alimentare and buy some necessities for the next day or two.

All I can say is, there is nothing better than fresh baked bread from the local baker.  So good!  I wasn't feeling so well when we got in, so I didn't eat anything for dinner.  There were a few kinks that had to be worked out at the house though.  The owners forgot the password for the internet, which meant going into town the next day and up to Il Collaccio.  This was alright by us for the most part, except before we left, we decided to do a few loads of laundry.  Now, if you have never traveled abroad and tried to do laundry over here in someone's house, a word of caution.  First off, the washers are a lot smaller.  In the U.S., you can fit 10 towels in the washer and dryer.  Here, you are lucky if you can get 5 in and ever luckier if there is a dryer.  Which brings me to my second point- there are no dryers unless you are in a hotel and are paying them.  Or, like we later found out, willing to pay someone or in our case, Il Collaccio to use their washers AND dryer.  Although, the ones at Il Collaccio are like the ones we used in college dorms- large and very nice.

Back to Il Collaccio and the 22nd.  We came up here to use the internet and decided that since there wasn't that much to eat back home, that we would eat here.  The restaurant is called Il Porcello Felice (The Happy Pig) and now I know why.  The food was very good.  I decided to have pizza and a farro salad.  Farro is a traditional type of grain in Italy.  Think of it as rice.  My salad was cold, but it was drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  It was mixed with tomatoes and arugula.  The pizza was stone fired and amazing!  The crust was so thin and flavorful, the sauce was homemade and not from a jar and the mozzarella, wow.  Buttery and just so darn good.

Monday, the 23rd, we were up and out to explore what the region had to offer.  We decided to go to Torgiano.  It was a short trip, however it was made longer by the fact that we stopped off in Visso to get Chiavettas.  Chiavettas are thumb drives with SIM cards in them.  They plug into your computer and you can get WiFi through the cell phone signals.  It makes everything better while traveling.  After Visso, we drove to Torgiano and ate lunch at Il Spiro.  I decided on trying to be Italian and ate pasta carbonara with guanciale (pig cheek bacon) and the grilled chicken.  The carbonara was good, but what made the dish was the guanciale.  It was so fatty, but never chewy.

The grilled chicken was placed on top of a lot of arugula and was topped with Parmesan and balsamic vinegar.  The chicken was chicken- it wasn't dry, which was a blessing.  However, I have to say this.  Arugula- not that big of a fan.  The arugula here is SUPER peppery.  It overwhelms everything that you put it with.  And it is in EVERY salad.  Ugh.  With the meal, we tried a bit of the wine grown and produced locally by the Lungarotti family.  It was very nice- it was a white and was crisp and refreshing.

After lunch, we headed over to the Olive Oil Museum and the Wine Museum.  It walked you through the history of production and the many different uses that olive oil and wine have had through history- medical, religious, trade, etc.  I wanted to buy a book about the two, but they weren't in English.  Sad day.

On the 25th, we took another drive, this time to Norcia.  We decided to eat lunch at Ristorante Granaro del Monte.  Norcia, food-wise, is famous for their truffles.  Lots and lots of truffles dominate their dishes.  You can buy honey with truffles in it, pasta with truffles mixed in, risotto with truffles, etc.  And that is just in the shops.  Forget about the number of dishes with truffles in them at the restaurants.

I opted for the sausages stuffed with truffles and cheese.  The verdict- way to much salt.  The truffles were in paste form.  The cheese was salty and so was the sausage.  I also imagine that the truffle paste had salt in it as well.  However, the restaurant itself was lovely.  The picture above is their grill.  I was sitting next to said grill.  Almost all of the meats that were cooked in that restaurant were grilled.  The cook running the grill was skilled in knowing when to add more wood, where and how often.

Finally, I'll leave you with a picture from our balcony in Preci.  Sorry for all the text and the lack of pictures.  I was bad at taking pictures of all the food and wine.  But the next post...well, let's just say that if it were my last meal, I could die happy.