Échi Ponte Vecchio - Japan 2017

My mother and I had a delightful lunch at Échi Ponte Vecchio, a Naples, Italy-style pizzeria in Osaka, Japan.

The restaurant was a part of Osaka-based Italian restaurant "Ponte Vecchio" family that also contains Modo di Ponte Vecchio that J and I visited some years ago. As a pizzeria, Échi Ponte Vecchio was a slightly more casual than Modo di Ponte Vecchio, with a long sharing counter table and a open kitchen. Either my mother and I didn't order pizza, though. If J were with us, he would order fresh pizza from a wood-fired oven, I thought. We started lunch with an antipasto - roasted eggplant with fig, which was very refreshing and tasty. Our main dish was handmade fresh Tagliolini with Hamo (pike eel), Matsutake (pine mushroom), and Sudachi (a small, round, green, Peruvian and Japanese citrus fruit). In short, super delicious! Also, it was enjoyable to see the Japanese traditional combination of Hamo and Matsutake in an Italian dish. Surprisingly the pasta dish was boldly spiced with red chili peppers. The spicy touch worked beautifully. J would love the pasta.

Coffee for my mother, tea for me and a couple of little chocolate cubes were served at the end. What a superb lunch experience!