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| "I'm going to be a slight rip-off." "That so?" |
Ordinarily you can't go wrong taking dining advice from winemakers.* Where I miscalculated after our visit to Francesco Rinaldi e Figli might have been that I hadn't been speaking with the actual winemaker. Or perhaps there simply aren't any good lunch options within the price range we were seeking** in the town of Barolo itself, which, alone among towns we visited in the region, my friends and I unanimously found to be a self-parodic touristic moneypit.
The main street of the tiny town is lined with tasting rooms, all charging for tastings. There's a "Museum of the Corkscrew" that appears to be just a baroque beard for yet another shop selling wine, t-shirts, mugs, and other wine-ish memorabilia. And the castle that dominates the town houses a Museum of Barolo, which the Native Companion and J's wife C incomprehensibly decided to visit after declining to join us tasting at Francesco Rinaldi e Figli. (At lunch they insisted the puppet shows and hammy videos in the tour at the Museum of Barolo had been very amusing.)
J and I had planned to just get paninos somewhere. But the sandwich café in Barolo that day was unconscionably hot, hotter even on the tarped-over terrace than inside among the candy bars and Lotto tickets. So we had the NC and C meet us on the pleasant terrace at La Cantinetta, a place that was probably most notable for some absurd Batman Eating Pasta With Child On Lap artwork on the wall.
