One of the cool things of sailing is that nearly every day you end up in some different place. A different bay, a different island, and a diferent city that is closeby.
In Sardinia one of the islands that it is known for is one of the 'Maddalena archipelago islands'. Protected for the nature and the marine life in general, but it also has some bigger island where there are even cities built on there.
Docking around Maddalena island that means there is also a new level unlocked when it comes to food. Making the right choice on where to go to isn't even that easy because there are so many good places to choose from.
I guess having fresh food from the sea next door makes the quality something else right!
Amberjack sashimi and a creme of basil
We decided to venture to a place called 'The Bistro' from where you can find the coordinates here as a true sailor ;)
Love for tasting menus!!
I am not good at all on making decisions on what to eat as I always want to try everything and tasting menus are the perfect solution for that. Here are 'The Bistro' there was even a full tasting menu from the sea!
Small portions and a lot of different flavors, that is the coolest thing to always check out.
Take this mussle soup which has a cream of the same mussles as a soupbase as well. Delicious and totally something else that I would never take if this was a solo dish.
But it was actually super tasty and really something else. Also the Amberjack sashimi as a starter was really a flavor bomb. If it was a true sashimi I am not sure, it tasted more like a salted Amberjack...as in where in the Netherlands you have salted herring.
And there was more...
Or what about this polpo (squid legs) which had been cooked hours at low termperature so all of the chewyness was cooked out of it.
I had never had such tender octopus, but that is also such a distinct texture that it almost tasted like something else.
Super cool dish!
As often the main course was my least favorite one of the tasting menu as that is often way too big and a lot less of the extreme tastes in there.
On the other hand, this fregula had a lot of bottarga in there (which is like a dried fish flake and that gives a lot of umami flavor) and it was almost a bit too bitter because of this. Or ... was this just not my personal preference?
These little balls are called fregula and I would call it a bit of a mixture between couscous and pasta. The texture is awesome though!
And of course the banger at the end
And a dessert also with seafood style? I was really surprised on how this would turn out, as matching sweet with something salty is tricky and you have to think it through carefully.
This was a pompia (which is like a local fruit in Sardinia which has hints of grapefruit and pompelo aka very bitter) with white chocolate mousse, a crumble and lump fish eggs. The lump fish eggs like the sweet version of caviar and that adds some saltiness to the dish a.d that suits it perfectly.
Ow yeah, did you see the limoncello there? Yummie!!
Booooom, so that is it! A full tasting menu from the sea including a desert. Such a nice combo of new thing that I had never had before.
The only thing that was a downside? The portions were way too big for a tasting menu and because of that I didn't eat everything. And that I don't like.
Keep the portions small, so no one has to throw anything away. It is for the tasting at first and getting stuffed is not the goal of it all.
But wow...those flavors. And Maddalena island in general and even Sardinia in general. Just wow!