We woke up at 6:30am to get ready for our day trip to Segesta and see the romantic Greek ruins, we had timed ourselves to arrive at the Central Station in Palermo 45 minutes earlier as we knew that finding the right transport would be difficult! And indeed it was very very difficult because by 7:50am, when we should have got on the bus, we were still looking for it! No-one seemed to know where the bus to Segesta was!
Soooo our initial day trip plan was ruined and we decided to spend the day in Palermo, thinking back this was a good plan as we still feel that we haven’t spent enough time here! There are so many restaurants we want to try or re-visit!
We waddled along in the cool heat to Spinnato where partner in crime was laughed at, nicely, by the waiter when he tried to order a pasta dish. Waiter nicely informed him: “In Palermo, we do not eat that until later, kitchen opens at 12:30 but you can have cake, brioche all this other things!” I looked on bemused because I knew this already but he failed to listen to me. Breakfast today was brioche ice cream, freshly squeezed lemon juice and arancini! BTW they give you sugar to add to the lemon juice, but I didn’t know this until I had drank half of it…….well bad for teeth but really makes you wake up. I mean really zests you up.
We decided to roam around and walk about in Palermo, it was a sunday meaning that most places are shut. But during our aimless wonders we came across Mazzara! One of the recommendations I took from Katie Parla blog, so excitedly I quicken my pace in hope that there is air conditioning to cool me down a bit, but HEY I WAS GREETED BY LOTS OF CAKES and no air con.
We grabbed a crema sponge cake which was very very very moist and shared it between us since Palermo style of breakfast seemed to be very filing.
Sugar energy filled we walked around Palermo and visited the Teatro Massimo, Four Corners and did some light shopping before we headed back to the apartment for a siesta. Like a real Italien. I even stopped off at the nut/bean shop around the corner from our apartment to pick up some pistachio for our little siesta break.
Siesta it was until 6pm………our planned dinner for tonight was at kursaal kusharl! EXCITED!
Though we made 1 mistake by leaving our apartment too early, we forgot that dinner started at 8pm for most places in Palermo! So future Sicily, Palermo going people don’t be too determine to have dinner early because they don’t open till 8pm!
Anyway, we spent the hour wandering around the beach and the bookshop they have before making our way to the restaurant at 8pm. To access this restaurant you would need to pass this dimly lit but bool bookstore where there are stairs on the side going up towards the restaurant.
We were abit wary going to this restaurant because it was SO QUIET! The restaurants we visited before all had a buzz to them, this was romantically quiet. Not sure whether it was a good thing or not.
We ordered deep fried prawns, squid stuff tomatoes and aubergines, zucchini flower risotto and prawns wrapped with fish. The starters of deep fried prawns and squid stuff with tomatoes and aubergines were okie…..and then it started to decline…badly.
Partner in crime risotto came out and it tasted okie, decent. However my main part of the meal was just disaster. Firstly, they got my order wrong which is forgive-able because it’s easy to get an order wrong if their is a language barrier. BUT after correcting my main dish it came out raw.
On the outside it looked fine, but on the inside it was raw. Just completly raw…….I thought maybe the dish is meant to be like that but when we asked the waitress, she promptly whisked it away and told us that we didn’t need to pay for that dish. She was nice and offered to either let me choose to have that dish again or change to something else……but by this point partner in crime had finished his dinner 30 minutes ago and I just lost fighting spirit to carry on.
We paid a hefty sum for below par food, it was trying too hard to be a fine dining restaurant. It was a disappointment. It might have been a bad day for them, I don’t know, but I would not recommend this place unless you wanted headache.
Worse meal in Palermo so far.
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