i went to a really authentic local italian trattoria whilst in verona during the vinitaly 08 trip. and typical of this region was horse meat.

Antica Trattoria Tipica Enoteca Al Bersagliere from the outside. It’s located in a very off the beaten track road and it’s not some place you would just walk past. Check out their website if you can read Italian - or use Google translator!

It has the usual accolades from the usual suspects like Michelin guide, Slow Food movement etc. I particularly like the Slow Food movement  - was actually speaking to someone about bringing this to Malaysia. Wonder if it will work?

You gotta check out their wines here - because it’s a regional thing, this place has pages and pages of Amarone and Vallpolicella…I wish I could dine here everyday!

Another page of Amarones….can u believe it?  I’d be happy if Malaysian restaurants had 1-2 choices of Amarones.

I started with my favourite - Proscuitto di San Daniele…in my opinion the best proscuitto ever made.

This was the local bean soup - nice and hearty meal.

Then came the main course - the horse meat with some polenta thingys on the side…. horse meat here tastes a lot like minced beef with the texture more like chicken. If given in a blind tasting, I would never have guessed it as horse meat. Generally, a very delicious meal although it would not be my first choice of mains.

Another one of my favourite - tortoline with mushrooms….i love mushrooms and olive oil….this could be my staple diet forever… fortunately or unfortunately, i never crave for asian food or rice or anything local when i’m abroad! in fact, if u continued to feed me fresh pasta, i would probably never ask for nasi lemak ever again.

Then came the duck pasta - looks a lot like a chinese noodle dish. Scrumptious though!

Dessert time! The waiter pushed us a cart containing the desserts of the day. I believe it was pear infused in wine sauce, tiramisu, some apple tart thingy, and some cake.

Chose the pear infused with red wine. Not too bad but I wasn’t crazy about it.

The Tiramisu was to die for though. The texture was just right especially the moisture.

The waiter showing us his special lock on the wine bottle….quite a handy invention eh? Especially for your bottles of Super Tuscans which costs RM500/bottle or so.

Grappa anyone? This is a grappa dispenser.

You don’t see any wines in this blog because we just went through 2 days of wine judging at the Vinitaly International Wine Competition and we just didn’t want to drink wines anymore at that point in time.

Anyway, this trattoria is highly recommended and it’s a place where locals go to, and it’s a gem in Verona. I’ll be back!