a paucity of vegetables

it’s completely unremarakable that upon returning from taipei and also from palermo, i had dinner with my family. what is rather odd is the dinner itself – chinese takeout after taipei, and as it happens, italian after palermo. sadly for palermo, i rather think that the italian i had last weekend in somerville beats out anything i had in sicily. the sole notable exception would be that breakfast buffet in trapani, specifically the prosciutto and the cornmeal poundcake; even the best dinner in palermo didn’t really hold a candle to what you can get stateside. i was out at pescatore, and we had a salad (arugula and sundry other greens, grapes, caramelized pine nuts, fennel), seared sea bass (sauteed asparagus, saffron risotto), and chicken marsala (mushrooms, butternut squash agnolotti). there are not many fresh vegetables in either taipei and palermo, so i am fairly certain that i’ve been craving fresh vegetables and that this is why i so enjoyed pescatore’s vegetables. i will say that objectively, i was surprised by just how fine the vegetables were, especially for winter in boston, land of cranberry bogs. the sea bass was especially delicious, with good contrast in textures (the asparagus was perfectly tender-crisp), and the saffron risotto was notably not too heavy. pescatore has certainly upped its game since i was last there, maybe a year ago – before it used to focus more on quantities of seafood, but now the non-seafood entrees have been upgraded.

if you do go to palermo, check out santandrea for dinner. i did find the pasta to be a little thick for my tastes, but that could easily be chalked up to a cultural difference. i don’t know, readers; i’m pretty sure that every time i’ve made pasta or that my roommates have made it, it was better – the pasta was more supple, less coarse in texture, and more pleasurable to eat.