A nice finish for the cousins...

Last night was the end of our "summer of hosting" and we decided to go out in style. We took Jenny and Benoit to one of our favorite restaurants, Il Giardino. It's considered to be one of the best places to eat on Corfu, (but unfortunately has a very "modest" internet presence!) The cuisine is definitely Italian, but not the spagetti/pizza type of Italian, at all!

We arrived 'early', which is to say 8:30 pm, and they were just finishing the set ups on the tables. (As we left around 11 pm, groups were arriving for their dinner!!)

We had a wonderful silly evening and ate marvelous food and washed it all down with delicious wine.

The restaurant is located just across the street from the entrance to the Archaeological Museum of Corfu. It has a rather unprepossessing narrow front, and the interior is simple, tasteful, and not very large (where you eat in the wintertime). The real attraction is the garden in the back, open in the summer, which is enclosed by the surrounding buildings and quite lovely. The restaurant is open all year round (but NOT the garden) and the service is always superior.

The prices DO reflect the great service and excellent cooking. I believe the rating system of their internet link is a bit out of date as with drinks and wine- a starter, main dish and dessert can more realistically run you 45-50+ euros/person. It's IS possible to eat for less there, but you'd feel cheated if you couldn't at least imagine you could order what you wanted!

We ordered specialites of the house (my favorite standby: the Il Giardino Salad with Brie cheese and pears and a lovely vinaigrette)


T had the always delightful paper thin Proscutto with melon, and Benoit chose the fresh Mozzerella with fresh tomatoes.


Jenny decided to try the Baby Marrows with Parmesan and they were delicious!


For the main course, Jenny had a tagliatelli tossed with marscapone, ham, and Parmesan creamy sauce. Benoit had a lovely rosy Penne with tomatoes and vegetables.



I decided on a take off of the "fresh", off the menu, serving of the day and went with a linguini with mussels and baby clams in a white wine and garlic sauce. It was as delicious to savor, as beautiful to look at!

T had a medium-rare, fillet with a wonderful balsamic sauce.







To wrap things up, since T had the dessert honors last evening (with the flaming Crepe!) I splurged on dessert and had the homemade Gujarat chocolate ice cream with hazelnuts - Benoit had the panacotta with blackberry sauce.

(Sadly, it was so good we all gobbled it up before I could take a picture!!)

We finished up the meal with cups of espresso and cappuccino, and fortunately, as T had to park at a bit of a distance, had a gentle slow promenade by the sea to get back to the car.
I know a good time was had by all; I was there too!


This morning T took them to the airport for their flight home to Brussels. The charter flight might be a little bit of a hassle, but I know they went home with great memories of a lovely vacation with us.

~~~

the eaglet has landed

And is safe back in the arms of his loving family...

Grandson's father (my oldest son) actually remembered to send me an email to tell me he arrived safe and sound and a little bit 'wired' from the long journey. (23 hours of continuous travel is still 23 hours, no matter how old you are!)

The first thing T and I said this morning at about the time Son was writing the note was "I bet he's already showing them the card tricks!!"

~~~

Today I remain at home and putter around with "things" and "things I haven't finished."

These include:
- making up a batch of BBQ sauce
- cooking a pot roast in the pressure cooker
- finishing the laundry (which is clean and wet and in the basket, but needs to be hung up outside in the hot)
- cleaning the grandson guestroom
- putting all my clean clothes- that have been neatly folded since my last attack of laundry- away
- playing with the dog, who follows me soulfully from room to room
- and I suppose- finally- trying to write something intelligent for the blog.

~~~

Meanwhile, T (tour guide'par excellance') and the Belgian cousins have gone off again, back to Nissaki, today, so that Benoit- Jenny's husband- can go skin diving around an old wreck off the north east coast. (I told T to stay OUT of the water!)

I am amazed at T's stamina. Last evening, I picked him up at the airport at 7 pm, after his wild and boring 24 hours in Athens seeing grandson off- wild because of the taxi strike the evening they arrived, boring because after grandson left at noon yesterday, he just sat around in the airport for 6 hours til his plane left to come home.

From the airport we went to pick up the cousins who had spent the better part of the day shopping and excursion-ing.

+++

So we decided to go out dinner!

From the foot of the old fortress (completed circa 1550's) where they waited, we went to the foot of the "new" fortress (completed circa 1645) , to have dinner at - I think- one of the best restaurants in Corfu: Retro Nuevo . The food is simply wonderful and the prices will reflect that - about 37.50 euros per person (including drinks and wine). Though for the rest of Europe that's a bargain!

True it was Wednesday and yes, the economy is hard hit--- but I couldn't believe we were the only customers!!

It's become my second favorite restaurant. As we'll probably visit my first favorite and my third favorite with the cousins, I'll write about them later. I will ALSO include pictures, but unfortunately they're on the camera that's with T for the day, so they'll go up and be posted later today.

We started with cocktails- and they have a wonderful selection: T of course had scotch, I had Campari and soda and Benoit has a Mai Tai!! All were served with panache.

We had wonderful starters shared by all of us - shrimp and mango rolled in Kadaifi pastry, little seafood pouches to dip in teryaki sauce, a lovely salad with spinach leaves, wild greens, strawberries and walnuts with paper thin slices of serrano ham.


For our main courses we all picked vastly different things to eat: T had a pasta with smoked salmon and a delightful vodka sauce, Jenny had pork fillets with a lovely Corfiot citrus-y kumquat sauce and Parmesan pureed potatoes in a croquette shell, Benoit had the Retro Nuevo salad with a variety of greens, speck and Parmesan with a brilliant balsamic, cream and poppy seed dressing, and I had "Greek specialty" of mixed grill souvlaki with lemon oil sauce and yogurt dip- it was the best I've ever tasted- juicy, seasoned just right, fire-browned from the grill, and the homemade chips, that were like golden coins on the plate.

We washed it all down with a really nice South African pinot grigio.

For dessert we left it to the able Panos (the owner/proprietor), to bring us a plate of the "tastes" of dessert, which included basically a little chocolate souffle which we all dug our little spoons into and jenny finished, a lemon cheesecake mousse which benoit finished, a white chocolate panacotta with strawberry syrup, and yogurt-cream in fruits of the forest sauce in a crunchy pastry nest both of which T and I made significant inroads into but couldn't quite finish.

Fortunately I had a button on my pants that I could open and my shirt flowed handily over it so no one knew!!

We walked to the entrance of the new fortress a ways "up" on old cobblestones, from the restaurant, which was a good thing as we all needed to move a bit and get some exercise after that huge feast!

Then back down to the car and all tucked in bed by 11 pm.