Today on Food on Fridays we consider one of my favorite things about Italy: the primo course, which usually involves a plate of pasta.

With apologies to my readers, I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job this week of taking photos of our more memorable meals. However, we did have many — including many memorable plates of pasta.

But here at least are two dishes that I did take photos of, though: the first is bigoli (the local spaghetti noodles) with a sauce the included pieces of cavallo) and the second a spicy dish with the local Monte Veronese cheese shredded on top:

A plate of bigoli pasta

Another plate of pasta with a spicy sauce and shredded cheese

As good as those were, they weren’t the only tasty dishes we’ve eaten this past week. We’ve had our regular order — bigoli con ragu d’asino — as well as a seasonal special with fresh pasta and asparagus,  at our favorite restaurant here in Verona (the one that’s across the street from where we’re staying).  The photos above, though,  are from another often-favorite restaurant that unfortunately seems to vary in quality depending on the time of year.  At the moment, though, I’m happy to report that they are doing a great job – the pictured dishes were excellent.

Of course, two of my favorite pasta dishes were just things we had today, at a new-to-us restaurant that we stumbled on while wandering around a hillside on the other side of the river from where we’re staying. The pasta dishes were really outstanding: a fresh pasta with artichoke hearts and olive oil (simple, but delicious!) and a penne pasta dish with bits of sausage in a creme-based sauce that had a hint of curry. An unexpected ingredient that added a really wonderful flavor to the dish.

I didn’t take photos of these dishes, though, as we were trying to seem like something other-than-tourists in this non-touristy neighborhood of Verona. What can I say – we delude ourselves that we can blend in even when the rest of the clientele are probably really locals.

However, not only was the food spectacular in this part of town, the view from the hillside above the restaurant was also something to see. And that, at least, I did take a photo of. It’s not a photo of the food, but it is at least related to some really great food that we ate on a Friday.

View from a hillside above Verona (click to see a larger version)