Pronto Pronto in Utrecht

And it was sunday again! Our brain in stand-by/vacation-mode and the relaxation was on. So guess what we did for dinner? You guessed it, a visit to a restaurant in Utrecht =D After a nice walk through the old centre and a few drinks at a terrace, we went to Pronto Pronto on de Neude. A small, informal restaurant that has been there for over 5 years, but never ever managed to get any attention from me and Kina. Well, I didn't even know it was there! I wish I had knew it before though...

Pronto Pronto has a nice clean look, but with a traditional Italian feel. It totally fits the restaurant, cause this is not your typical pasta bolognese and pizza margarita place. The menu consits of small original dishes that have 'Italia' written all over it. You can choose to have a glass of wine selected by the staff with every dish, but the housewine is good enough (for me). A regular costumer will be satisfied with 2 dishes and a dessert, but it's no problem to order more on a later stadium if you're feeling hungry ^^ The waiters are pretty laid back (a bit too much compared to the quality of the food in my opinion), but not to the point that it's annoying.

Now for the most important part of this post: the food itself! I definitely recommend this place, the food is really, really good! =D 1st round was a "filetto di manzo" (tenderloin with a cheesecake made of duckliver) for me and a "rotolo con zucchine alla griglia" (Rotolo stuffed with zucchini, lemon and goat cheese. Served with spinach coulis) for Kina. 2nd round consisted of a "carne del maiale" (grilled pork, marinated in brown sugar and mustard. Served with a capponata) and a "tartare di barbabietola" (tartare made of beetroot, avocado, mayonnaise and gorgonzola. Served with a chip of focaccia). Both looked and tasted wonderful!! According to legend (me =P), the quality of a meal/dish can be categorized on te simple fact that if it's reproducable in my own kitchen or not. This is definately NOT reproducable, meaning that it's really good and that you have to visit this restaurant if you're into Italian food. Especially considering the price (9 euros/dish!!) I'm not going to further desribe the food, in my opinion (and Kina's) this was a 9 out of 10 (Kina's was a bit to salty).

Then for the desserts..I chose a "torta di ricotta con melle" (housemade ricotta pie with apple, pistachio and a base of vanilla creme fraiche) over the housemade tiramisu. I had a perfect tiramisu when I was in Italy and I didn't think this one would be better. Besides, the ricotta pie seemed pretty tasteful as well :) Kina had the "torta al cioccolato" (housemade chocolate pie with pepper-flavoured ice). And OH MY GOD those are...just...devine..The chocolate pie was still liquid on the inside and kind of crispy on the outside. It drops like a ton of bricks in your stomach and makes you want to continue eating even while you're body's telling you you're about to explode. The ice cream wih pink pepper is really weird on the other hand. You expect it to be sweet, but it really tastes like you took the 4 season pepper vail instead of the brown sugar and sprinkled it over your ice cream. There might be a handful of people liking it, for us, it was the only thing we didn't eat. About the ricotta pie, totally satisfactory :) My English isn't good enough to describe those sensations :) From now on, besides LE:EN, this will also be a restaurant we will visit just for the desserts.

To conclude this post: Restaurant are often ranked based on the number of stars they receive. At inomnom we use nom's instead of stars. To rank Pronto pronto: Om nom nom nom nom nom :)