Small Delights: Luxembourg

Excerpt from travel log...

When it comes to Europe our thoughts jump firstly to the grand adventures it has to offer. The great romance of Paris. The blazing Tuscan sun. The imperious castles of Germany. But there are good reasons to make a holiday of a daintier place, such as that bite-sized delight called Luxembourg. You can take your time and savor the local flavors (gastronomic and otherwise) without rushing around worrying about missing out on the Sistine Chapel or the Louvre. You can see (and taste) it all in one amazing weekend.

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The crowning glory of my trip to Luxembourg was the last dinner at Il Fragolino, a restaurant at the foot of the Petrusse Valley. I had just learned that the largest immigrant populations in the Grand Duchy are Italians and Portuguese and had had good reason to drool over the prospect of an authentic Italian dinner with my Italian family and friends. This bit of imagination-induced salivation was nothing compared to what came after the waiter brought out the “degustazione pasta”, a pasta sampler.

The four of us at one end of the table who ordered this behemoth platter of carbs had to move our plates and glasses into a position of delicate balance (between the edge of the table and our laps) to make way for the long silver vessel. The “plate”, quotation marks necessary here for it was more like a little boat set afloat on the table, was filled to the brim with generously-sized and colorful pastas. From my vantage point I looked down th table at one delectable row of penne arrabiata, ricotta ravioli (each one almost the size of cha siu bao), prosciutto ravioli, spinach ravioli, and mushroom fusili. From this point on I lost coherence and cognition and could only engage in a primal feeding frenzy. But I do remember that it was here, at this sumptuous table, that I raised my glass and drank to the health of my companions, to the best Italian food I’ve ever tasted, and to a small gem tourists often neglect on their grand forays intoEurope – to Luxembourg!