Day 45: The Butcher Of Panzano

We had one activity for today. Eat copious amounts of meat from Dario Cecchini, the famous butcher in Panzano. On the Michelin guide and featured on Anthony Bourdain's super weird Tuscany episode, we booked ourselves in for a meaty, meaty lunch feast.

Let's ride.

We got to Panzano a little early so decided to check out the butcher beforehand. As soon as we walked in, we were given a glass of red wine and offered bread and meats. We weren't even customers! This place was already off to a good start.

Not my finest photo, but here we are enjoying FREE WINE in front of the butcher. This is my kind of butcher.

This is probably the most expensive bottle of wine we've ever purchased from a winery. Sure, it was only €35 but that is expensive for us so we decided to take advantage of Dario Cecchini's free BYO policy and enjoy it with meat fest.

We were sat at a fairly large communal table. When we got there there was just one older Italian couple we were sitting next to. We thought more people would show but it ended up being just us four at the table for lunch (the wife of the couple was also vegetarian so couldn't eat much of anything that was bought out - don't worry, they had a special menu for her). Oh well, more food for us? This was muzzle and lemon served with a mug of broth. It wasn't as intense as I expected to be and the broth was fantastic.

Called "rosemary up the bum" these meatballs were served almost raw, which could freak out a lot of people but with meat grown especially for the butcher and it being super high quality, it's not an issue.

Thinly sliced roast beef. So good. Let me put this on all of my future sandwiches!

Drinking our fancy pants wine out of tumblers.

Meat just doesn't photograph well. Or maybe I just can't photograph it well. This boiled beef with vegetables was super tender and the vegetables reminded me of a stir fry... A dish I haven't had for months.

And the meaty finale. Braised meats... fall apart, rich and perfect for running my bread through.

Dessert, was an orange cake made with their own olive oil, which sounds odd but was super moist (sorry I had to use that word). I'm going to try and cook this when I return to Sydney.

Lunch only set us back €30 each (including pretty much all you can drink wine). I was so full for the rest of the day that I didn't even eat dinner. Now that's full.

My bulging belly retired to the pool for the afternoon trying to digest and to extend my tan.