If you travel a lot, and if you back-pack off the beaten path, you'll understand there comes a…read morepoint where the restaurants become un-Yelpable. It's like that scene in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" when the entire village serves Harrison Ford's 'Indy' a plate of, what was it? Four seeds and a dead horse-fly? You just can't give the village zero stars.
That's how I felt when I checked in at Pub Number 17, a renovated bed and breakfast with 1,400 year old slate walls three feet thick. You couldn't even tell it was a restaurant; it had no name anywhere on the front, no menu, no specials, no one to even greet you. I immediately expected the worst: that swarthy, unventilated, refridgeration-less, mud-on-concrete floor eatery where the vegetables are colder than the beer, rancid meat is served with finality by grieving staff, and cubes of cigarette smoke can be carved out of the air with a butter knife. Think Hungary, 1992.
But I was amazed.
The owner was bartending, so his wife seated us: 20 tables past a labyrinth of halls in the back. It was awkward for a moment: no menus. Someone said in Italian: "Spaghetti?", she said "alle olio?", we said "ok". That's code for "we have no sauce prepared". The spaghetti was homemade, and a revelation of "al dente", the best alle olio I could imagine. I forgot about coodies and finished everyone else's plate. Each bowl after the meal was 5/8 inch deep in oil and we hit it with the appetizer bread. After the spaghetti, she appeared again and said "Carne?". We said "Yes." We received a foot long sopressata sausage cut into inch long bits and a cheese plate of two provolones and a caciocavalla.
The wine sealed the deal. We asked for a "rosso" and got "Montepulciano d' Abruzzi" which I have added as a new wine on my Vivino app. My favorite montepulcianos are La Berne's 2004 which I buy for $200 a bottle. This was better. And it came as the house red. They tacked on $14 to the bill. Simple meal. Magical moment. Five stars. Put iPhone back in pocket. Have a nice day.
