What to Eat Around the World | Page 56 of 70
Stigghiola di Vitello: Sicilian Grilled Veal Intestines
Stigghiola di vitello is thin veal intestine wound around a skewer and grilled over charcoal, street food from Palermo that today belongs to all of Sicily. Off the grill it gets cut into pieces, salted, finished with a squeeze of lemon and eaten with your hands, with nothing on the side. The name traces back to the Latin word for a little gut, the history to the "fifth quarter" - everything left at the slaughterhouse for the poor.
Stigghiola: Sicilian Grilled Lamb Intestines
Stigghiola is a Sicilian street food made from cleaned lamb or kid intestine, wound around a spring onion and parsley and grilled over charcoal. It's part of quinto quarto cooking, the fifth quarter, and it's grilled all over the island - in Messina it's called tajuni. It's served hot, with nothing but salt and lemon, most often in the evening at a stall you find by the smoke.
Vucciria Market: Where Palermo Stays Up Late
The Vucciria isn't the oldest or the biggest of Palermo's markets, but it's the only one that made it into a proverb and into an art gallery. Sleepy alleys with a handful of stalls and permanently wet flagstones by day; grills, smoke, music and crowds after dark. Why the proverb says the market's flagstones never dry, what Renato Guttuso has to do with it, and why I prefer Ballarò.
Cartocci Siciliani: Fried Yeast Tubes Filled with Ricotta
Cartocci siciliani are fried tubes of yeast dough, rolled in sugar and filled with sweetened ricotta studded with chocolate chips. They are cannoli's Palermo cousins, bought in the morning at a bar or a bakery to go with coffee, and in Palermo they also go by the name Macallè - after an Ethiopian town, though nobody knows why. Today you'll find them all over Sicily.
Kuchyň Restaurant, Prague (2): Schnitzel and Plum Butter Dumpling on the Lower Terrace
Another visit to Kuchyň restaurant on Hradčanské Square, this time on the lower terrace, where nobody comes to wait on you and the view of Prague is maybe even better than from above. On the plate, pork neck schnitzel with potato salad and a yeast dumpling filled with plum butter - Czech classics whose prices didn't strike me as steep even a few steps from Prague Castle.
artic bakehouse, Prague: Icelandic Sourdough at the Foot of Petřín
artic bakehouse was set up in Prague by two Icelanders - a pastry chef with a Cake of the Year title and his childhood friend. Since 2018 they've been baking sourdough loaves with names of their own, croissants and caramel rolls that get you up Petřín without a single stop. Only the name isn't spelled the way your head keeps insisting.
Lán Dê - Xôi Chè: Caramelized Pork Belly with Rice in Prague's Sapa
A small stall at the back of Prague's Sapa market doesn't have a single seat and you order right in the kitchen, among the pots. Lán Dê - Xôi Chè does one dish and nothing else: caramelized pork belly with egg and sticky rice, which a smiling lady snips into a plastic box with scissors and buries under shredded pork and fried shallots.
Bún Cá Hải Phòng: Carp Soup in Prague's Sapa
The Bún Cá Hải Phòng bistro in Prague's Sapa market is named after both its signature dish and the city the recipe comes from: a fish noodle soup from the Vietnamese port of Hải Phòng. In the deep bowl, fried carp meets dill and lemon, and there's bánh quẩy to dip in it. It's full at lunchtime, but people come and go fast and you never wait long for a seat.
Chè Sài Gòn: Vietnamese Desserts in Prague's Sapa
The Chè Sài Gòn stall at the back of Prague's Sapa market specializes in chè - Vietnamese sweet cups and drinks made of beans, tapioca, jelly, fruit and coconut milk. The cups are numbered, the menu on the wall is in Czech and Vietnamese, and there are around ten kinds. The three of us tried three of them and picked the winner unanimously.
Sành Quán: Bún Riêu Cua Crab Soup in Prague's Sapa
The Sành Quán bistro wrote its own review straight into its name - sành ăn is Vietnamese for gourmet. On the edge of Prague's Sapa market, by the Buddhist temple, it serves bún riêu cua crab soup of a kind you'd struggle to find anywhere else in Prague, along with a bún đậu spread with stuffed pork sausage. And on the tables there are little jars of homemade chili that really does burn.