La Pinetina In Appiano gentile

25/10/2023: Wir waren mal wieder froh, überhaupt noch etwas zum Mittagessen zu bekommen, da in Oberitalien alle Speiserestaurants mittags relativ früh schliessen und sassen im Freien auf der Terrasse des unscheinbaren Lokals. Die bestellten Pastagerichte waren jedoch in Ordnung und kamen bald, die Inhaberfamilie & Angestellte sassen anschl. nebenan am Haustisch und liessen es sich auch schmecken. Die Preise sind akzeptabel, wenngleich nicht günstig angesichts des doch ziemlich einfachen Ambientes. Eigentlich liegt das Ristorante ausserhalb von Como kurz vor Cernobbio und ein riesiger Gratisparkplatz befindet sich günstigerweise schräg dahinter.

08/10/2023: Dropped into this restaurant along the waterfront after another local restaurant refused to serve us due to unknown reason. I checked the Google reviews and was a bit skeptical whether to try it. But we’ve been traveling for over 20 hours to finally get to Lake Como so we were tired out and just wanted to grab a meal and head to bed. The host/waiter was very attentive and welcoming. He greeted us immediately and had us seated immediately. We saw the place was pretty packed with people speaking Italian so we assume they’re either locals or tourists from other part of this country. That was a good indicator the food must be pretty good. We ordered a chicken salad, grilled sea bream, and an arugula pizza. The food took awhile to come out since we asked them to bring everything together. The pizza came out great and certainly did not disappoint. The crust is much like Indian nann, which I absolutely love! And the grilled sea bream were well seasoned and texture. It definitely was a lot better than the frozen fish I’m accustomed to eating in the states. The salad was good but I wasn’t expecting so much lettuce versus the greens I get with most other Mediterranean salad. There were only two of us but we finished all the pizza and sea bream. We didn’t finish the salad because we ended up swatting a mosquito that landed on it and it had some blood spattered over the salad. So we just left some of it uneaten. But clearly there were more food than our stomachs can accommodate. We were stuffed but the food is worth stuffing. I wish we had room for a tiramisu since they looked really good (cake like). Prices are really cheap but food is definitely wonderful. I’d strongly recommend giving this restaurant a try. They even have ample of free parking behind the restaurant. Well done, guys! Thanks for the wonderful food and your hospitality!