Food the way it should be

I allocated a budget of ~50 EUR per day for meals for my Italy trip (more or less are both ok for me, it's just a draft plan anyway). That was for daily coffee, lunch, dinner and gelato since I stayed mostly in B&B and breakfast was included in my hotel price too. My friend said it's already a high range of budget but I think it's just the right budget for me. I have a motto to not being skimpy on food and it's Italy, it's a crime if you're being skimpy on food.

Best looking breakfast in Verona

It's... 1 EUR for each espresso, 1.20 to 2 EUR for cappuccino, 3 EUR for gelato. 1 or 2 cup of coffee, 1 gelato a day. Water is free because you can take drinking water from fountains around the cities. Anyway, in some places, I still had to buy bottle water since it took to much afford to find the fountains. I still had around 40-45 EUR for lunch and dinner everyday. It was a good budget, I recognize, generous enough for me to have a quite bites for lunch and 3 courses meals in ristorantes or hostarias around the cities.

Favourite city (food wise, of course): Tuscany area is famous for food and wine. True to its fame, I love the ristorantes and hostarias in Florence. But do you know Florence is actually famous for their meat course? Their T-bone fiorentina and bistecco are to die for. They are very thick cut, the fire was just enough to give the meat a crispy layer outside and a still bloody red thick layer inside. Meat heaven!

Meat heaven @ my favourite ristorante in Florence

 And don't forget, Italy is famous for the cured meat and cheese, too. I had one of the most wonderful cured meat and cheese flank in this tiny hole on the wall place in Florence, too. It was not a ristorante nor hostaria but a prosciutteria (yes, you're right, it's what they call the place where they cure meat). They had a small notice board that they don't have restaurant license and cannot serve food to the table, so please "self-service". The cheese was just so wonderful, melt in my mouth and full of flavour. The prosciutto... I think it could be a very difficult task to find prosciutto in Italy's eateries. They were all so good at the places I tried.

The best flank of cured meat and cheese I've tried

Funny thing that I didn't have as much of pizza as I thought before the trip. One of the reason is they served whole pizza in restaurants and it's too hot and dry for me to have pizza for lunch so I didn't try the famous pizzaria by slice around the cities. But pasta... I had pasta and so many type of pasta around, from simple spaghetti to traditional ravioli, from seafood linguine to cheesy lasagna. Do you know that the Italian will scowl at you if you sprinkle cheese on some certain types of pasta? Yeah, when you're in Rome, do what the Romans do. Don't ask for cheese and don't slatter your pasta with cheese if they don't serve you cheese (it's US style, not Italian style, please). They don't forget it, it's just not for that type of pasta. But you have to pour lots of olive oil on your pasta if you're told so.

Another tip: Do you know you have to dunk biscotti in scented wine before eating it? Yeah, don't try to break you teeth with the biscotti, the Italian have all kind of wine for each type of food. And I know I love limoncello. It's just so good. Burning hot and settle your stomach after a heavy meal.

And I can at least differentiate a good wine with a not so good one now. How can I not, after all the wine I had around Italy?