MUGI – My Unique Gift Idea

This guy is serious about beef. I mean, look at him!

If you’re on a dining vacation in Italy, you should go check him out. He’ll lop off a steak for you with his cleaver, present it to you on butcher paper before he cooks it, quote a price, and stick it in a fiery furnace for 7 minutes on each side.

His restaurant is called Osteria dell’Acquacheta in Montepulciano, and if you’re a carnivore, then stop by if you’re in town. If you’re a PETA member, best skip this one.

There are good and bad places to stop by in the former seat of the Roman Empire. It may surprise you that, in most restaurants that have a TV, the food is pretty decent. This is because the TV is probably shouting Italian, which means local workers are eating there, which means the food is good and cheap. If it is a tourist place with no known reputation and there are obvious tourist pitches, such as huge pictures of pizza and pasta, chances are the food is microwaved from a freezer. Stay away from that.

An “enoteca” is an Italian wine bar, which I hear are pretty good for quick lunches. They offer meats, cheeses, topped off with a glass of wine. Many suggest to go for the high end ones rather than waste your money on a cheap glass.

Stay away from restaurants at famous corners, like some Piazza designed by some post Renaissance sculptor, like Gianlorenzo Bernini or something. They generally have bad food at high prices they pedal to tourists. Also, good restaurants don’t open for dinner before 7 p.m.

Oh – and stay away from restaurants that invented something, like yet another pasta shape. They use that as their claim to fame and divest from actual quality to save money.