Steve's Weird Food for Italy: it was offal.

This time I have to blame the trusty LP Italy. Turn your hymnals to page 487 and repeat after me:

"When Florentines fancy a fast munch on the move rather than a slow Full Monty lunch, they flit by a trippaio - a cart on wheels or mobile stand - for a juicy tripe burger. Think cow's stomach chopped up, boiled, sliced, bung in a bun and doused in hot chili sauce. Yum!"

LP's pick for a traditional trippaio - it's a popular place at lunch time.

There are days (many days) when I wish Steve had kept his big mouth shut, and I thought this would be one of them. I mean... tripe? Eew. However, there it was in the LP for God's sake, so it had to be a sign.

I'd had a nice look at the David in the morning, and was vaguely in the neighbourhood, so off I went and found the place with no trouble at all. Trippa was clearly displayed on the menu, so there was no getting around it. Luckily, also prominent on the hand-written menu board was bicchiere di vino, at a mere €0.80. Phew! I screwed up my courage and ordered from the old guy behind the counter, who turned out to be very friendly.

Friendly man!

He gave me a plastic cup and told me to pour my own glass of wine from the two litre bottle of vino da tavolo rosso on the counter while he dished me up a crusty bun filled with an orange coloured stew-like mixture that looked relatively innocuous.

Innocent enough...

And you know what? It was innocent. Not bad at all, in fact. The texture was soft and not at all stomach-y. The flavour was mild and juicy and a bit tomato-y and perfectly fine. I munched it down quite happily (and with immense relief that this was not another pig ear episode).

Halfway through, and doing fine.

So sometimes things work out, Steve. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that I would have a panino trippa again, especially if it were accompanied by more wine and followed (as it was today) with a trip here:

The best gelateria I found in Florence. I had cioccolato e menta!