北海道親子之旅：民宿篇 Pension & Restaurant La Collina（二）

After we settled down, we went downstair to have our dinner.  From what we read earlier, the pension serves good Italian food.  It was indeed so good that we were all speechless with Muraoka San's cooking.  We really felt like discovering a treasure in Japan.  We could never imagine that cuisine other than Japanese could be so good in Japan.

I believe the menu rotate once every 3 days.  After the first night, we regret we didn't stay for 3.  This was our first night menu:

• The Salad of Furano Vegetables
• Pasta Amatrice or Pasta Genovese
• The Meuni of A Ray
• Pork Loin and Mozzarella Cheese Grilling
• Melon
• Coffee or Tea

The Salad of Furano Vegetables: Simple yet very fresh vegetables.  The crispy vegetable crunched in our mouths.  Amazing.

We ordered a bottle of Furano wine.  A very nice fruity table wine.

The fresh bread was always nice to start a meal.

Jayson has got a Spaghetti with Meat Sauce.  I tried it myself.  Yummy.

Pasta Amatrice: The presentation was appetizing already.  Amatrice is something spicy and with bacon.  It was not too hot for me.  Traditional Italian food give you a pasta as a starter course.  This is to fill up your stomach a bit.  Then you don't need to eat too much meat (expensive) for your main course.  But this pasta further escalated my appetite and expectation for coming dishes.

Pasta Genovese: In another word, spaghetti in pesto sauce.  The pesto was beautiful!  To make such a beautiful green pesto, you need to make it fresh with very sharp knife.  I can still feel the the aroma of the basil in my mouth.

The Meuni of A Ray: The first main dish was a fish.  At first, I didn't understand the menu too well.  But as we saw the dish, we know it meant stingray, or skate wing.  I believe that was the first time I ate skate wing.  The skin was fried crispy and sauteed in a sweet sauce.  The meat is juicy and tender.  Most of the bone was soft and edible.

Pork Loin and Mozzarella Cheese Grilling: When I first read the menu, it said pork loin stuffed with mozzarella cheese and spring chrysanthemum.  I scratched my head and could not figure out what is spring chrysanthemum.  Then my wife said it was 春菊.  It's a very strong punchy flavour vegetable.  It's commonly used in Japanese hot pot.  I doubt it is the same, but similar to our Chinese 茼蒿.  Because of its punchy bitter flavour, it went extremely well with the pork.  It removed the oiliness of the pork and mozzarella cheese.  Not to mention the tenderness and juiciness of the pork loin itself.  It was really a perfect marriage of the ingredients.

Melon: Japanese Melon, as good, if not better than, as any good dessert.  One can tell simply by looking at Jayson face.

A perfect meal ended with a good coffee.  We really could not ask for more.

We could not blame too much on Jayson for him not able to stay focus on his meal.  Afterall, it's an almost 2 hours dinner.  I kept telling him, "Jayson, I can guarantee that you won't be able to eat this again in Hong Kong.  And your dad is not rich and come back very soon!"

No word could describe how impressed we were with the meal.  It was the best Italian I had ever eaten myself.  Actually, it is a shame on me saying that being an Italian restaurant operator myself.  Without exaggerating, there were tears coming out from my eyes.  And it wasn't just me.  Jayson's god-mother has been eating all the good foods.  And if she said the foods were good, it must be really good!  Thank you, Muraoka San.

Wait...  I need to take back.  That was not the best Italian Meal, I'd ever eaten.  The dinner on the next day was even better!  That one was the BEST!



~ Lindberg