The best credit card to take overseas

On a farm in Italy, I was served lake fish, roasted potatoes and sauteed greens.

If you travel overseas, most credit cards will charge you an extra 2% or 3% as a foreign-currency conversion fee. That may not sound like much, unless you spend $2,500 on restaurants, hotels, transportation and gifts, as I did in Italy last month.

The one card that doesn't charge such a fee is Capitol One's Visa, which I carried along with an American Express card that charges a conversion fee. The Capitol One card also rebates 1% of everything you charge on it. 

And when both cards were stolen by a pickpocket in the Milan subway, I found Capitol One's customer service far superior to that of American Express. 

The former sent a new credit card to my hotel by overnight mail, while the latter made me make two long visits to an American Express travel office. When I finally got the new card, I couldn't buy American Express traveler's checks with it or get a cash advance.

Interest rates don't concern me, because I always pay off my balance in full each month and collect hundreds of dollars in rebates every year. I received my Capitol One statement recently and got a better idea of how much I spent in Italy for specific meals and other expenses.

The weak dollar was a thorn in my side during my trip to Milan, Venice and Gallarate. When I left the U.S., a dollar was worth only 78 cents in euros. Then, the dollar fell further, to only 70 cents in euros.

The Capitol One card used a conversion rate ranging from 76.2 to 77.7.

All the meals I ate in Italy seemed expensive, though tax, tip, wine, mineral water and bread were included. Portion size varied, so I sometimes over-ate and over-spent. My priciest meal was at Noblesse Oblige, a seafood restaurant in Milan, where two courses were 35.5 euros or $45.65

I spent about  $91 on diesel fuel for the Alfa Romeo 159 sedan I drove from Milan to Venice and back, and that didn't even fill the tank completely. I spent about $50 on highway tolls, too, but public transportation was relatively inexpensive.

So the best strategy is to avoid staying in the big cities, and use the train or ferry for day trips. 

My hotel room in Milan was half the size and twice the price of the one I had in Gallarate, where the food was just as good but cheaper. 

In Venice, I stayed in a new hotel on Lido island for about $125 a night, with a full breakfast and a panoramic view of the enchanted city, and took the small passenger ferries three or four times a day to reach the Jewish Quarter and other attractions. 

From Gallarate, it was easy to make a day trip to Lake Maggiore, where I had a bountiful lunch on a farm.

Dining out in Gallarate, Italy

This vending machine in Gallarate, Italy, dispenses unpasteurized milk.

 

Two highlights of dining out in Gallarate, Italy, were an unusual lasagna in a fish sauce and a whole branzino grilled over a wood fire.

I spent my last three nights in Italy in Gallarate, a bustling commercial center north of Milan that is near Malpensa International Airport. Hotel rooms and restaurant meals are far cheaper in Gallarate than in Milan.

You certainly don't sacrifice quality when eating out in Gallarate, which is in the province of Varese. 

And I found that employees behind the desk at the Hotel Astoria on Piazza Risorgimento were far more concerned for my welfare than the preening desk clerks of the Best Western Hotel Galles in Milan, where I paid more than $200 a night for a tiny room with a bathroom too small for a bidet (not 200 euros, as I wrote originally).

My first dinner in Gallarate was at the Galaxy Grill, a restaurant run by an Iranian chef and his Brazilian wife, with jazz tunes filling the dining room. It's best known for grilled meat and fish.

I ordered a whole branzino and grilled vegetables, and it was far more than I could finish. The chef agreed to make me a sandwich with leftover grilled vegetables and cheese for my day trip the next day.

I arrived early for dinner, around 7, after driving to Gallarate from Venice in a downpour. I was the only diner at that hour, and the chef had to start a wood fire to grill my fish. He gave me a cup of soup to start, but more than 30 minutes would pass before I got the branzino, which was stuffed with herbs and lemon.

It was worth waiting for -- about 12 inches long, moist and flavored by the wood fire. I demolished it, alternating bites with grilled zucchini and eggplant. The meal, with the complimentary sandwich and an after-dinner drink, was enough for two, and cost 31 euros, or about $44 at an exchange rate of $1 to 70 euro cents.

My next two dinners were at one of the most popular restaurants and pizzerias in town -- Compagnia delle Cozze or The Mussel Company, which was on the same piazza as my hotel. 

My first meal was on a Saturday night and I walked over to join the line of people waiting for the two-level restaurant to open for dinner at 7:30 -- mostly family groups and young couples. Not long after I was seated, the place was full and people waited inside for tables.

I started with a wonderful seafood salad, which was made to order and served warm with potatoes, olives and a little pesto sauce I wiped up with bread. The mixed seafood was fresh and tender. 

I followed with a wonderful lasagna with fish sauce and creamy bechamel -- just two by three inches -- and ended with a mixed salad, which was twice the size of the salads I ate in Milan. Wine, bread and water brought the meal to 33 euros or $47.

I cut my bill almost in half the next night with my first pizza of the trip, a mixed salad, wine and water for 17.20 euros.

The vegetarian pizza, brought to the table unsliced, was oval, and about half the size of a small pizza in North Jersey. There were more fresh vegetables than fresh mozzarella cheese, and the soft, chewy dough was deliciously scorched by the coal oven.

Restaurant food is expensive in Italy, and often, there is a long wait between courses because your dish is being made to order. To make matters worse, I usually ordered too much food and had no one to share it with. Perhaps all that food was meant to soothe me because I was traveling alone.

But if you consider that the tax and tip are included in the total bill, the meals seem to be a better value. And the quality is always high.

Grazie e arrivederci. (Thank you and see you soon.)

Galaxy Grill, Via Tenconi, 12, Gallarate, Italy; 0331-245662.

Web site in Italian: Galaxy Grill

Compagnia delle Cozze, Piazza Risorgimento, 8, Gallarate, Italy; 0331-776933.

How I lost weight in Italy

Image by gruntzooki via Flickr

Today, for the first time since I returned from Italy on Monday, I weighed myself and was surprised to see I had shed four to five pounds on my trip Sept. 8-20. 

I was surprised, but also pleased that I had followed the advice of my trainer at the gym to cut down on bread, pizza and other carbohydrates. 

In the past, I've always gained weight. In Greece, I blamed the retsina wine and incredibly fatty yogurt. In New Orleans, I blamed just about everything in one of the great food cities of the world.


I ate well in Italy -- fresh fish and seafood, seasonal vegetables, a salad with almost every meal, pasta, lasagna, risotto, sparkling mineral water and wine -- but I didn't do that three times a day.

In fact, I tried to eat only two meals a day and relied on granola and soy bars, nuts and espresso to tide me over. I never had dessert. If I ate a big lunch, I'd skip dinner. Or I'd have a big breakfast and a big dinner.

Sometimes, I would tell my server I didn't want bread, and ate the bread sticks I found on every table or settled for one or two slices of the seven or eight in the basket. Bread sticks are "grissini" in Italian -- as in Grissini, the expensive Italian restaurant in Englewood Cliffs.


I ate pizza only once, on my last full day in Italy. The vegetarian pie was an oval, about half the size of a small pizza here in New Jersey, and had more vegetables than cheese on top of the soft, chewy dough, which was scorched by the coal oven. 

Pizza is brought to the table unsliced -- you use your knife and fork to make pieces as big or as small as you like, and in whatever shape you like.


I not only ate well, but I was full when I left the table, even of I had only two courses from a fixed-price tourist menu.


I also walked a great deal. From my first stop in Milan, I took a train north to the city of Monza and then a free shuttle bus to the autodromo -- the track where the Formula One race was being staged. I did that three days in a row, and on two of those days, I had to walk more than a mile each way to the race course.


The walking never stopped. I drove to Venice on Monday, Sept. 13; parked in a garage and for four days, relied mostly on ferries and my own feet to get around.

(Photo: Fish display at a Milan restaurant.)

Lunch on a farm in Italy

Eating out in Italy is both leisurely and expensive, but it pays dividends in the freshest seafood and seasonal vegetables. Even if you're avoiding poultry and meat as I am, you'll still find a warm welcome and plenty of choices on menus.

This past Sunday, my last full day in Italy, I took a train from Gallarate, a bustling commercial center where I was staying, to Arona, a town on Lake Maggiore, in the lake country north of Milan. A five-minute ferry ride to the other side of the lake deposited me in Angera, where I began the long walk up to a hilltop fortress with a doll museum and gardens.

As I walked and walked and walked on this warm, sunny day, the town's name, Angera, reminded me of the word angina.


When I saw a small farm, I stopped to photograph the view and a couple of ponies. A dozen sheep were nearby. I began walking again and saw a sign that said "Agriturismo," and realized the farm took overnight guests or at least served lunch.


It was 11:45 in the morning, but if I waited until 12:30, I would be seated for lunch, a young woman in the restaurant said. I walked around, photographing chickens, grape vines, and an old oxen yoke.


The woman directed me to a table on the terrace, and soon the place was full, including a second level. She rattled off what was available -- antipasti, a starch course and entrees of fish and meat. I thought it was a set meal for a set price, but as it turned out, I was ordering a la carte and could have skipped the tagliatelle I ordered (photo).


In Italy, portion size varies with the restaurant. I often ordered three courses, fearing there would be too little food with two dishes. But sometimes, portions were big enough to share.


It was a wonderful meal, among the best I had. There were a dozen appetizers "della casa," only two of which were meat. I went back for seconds.


I enjoyed grilled eggplant, vegetable fritters, a plain omelet, fresh goat cheese, roasted red peppers; small, sweet onions; polenta with tomato sauce and anchovies, and then I enjoyed them again.



Risotto, gnocchi and pasta were offered, but I chose the tagliatelle with zucchini and zucchini flowers. An elderly server brought me an oval platter with enough pasta for two, asked me if I wanted grated cheese and then forgot to bring me any. The noodles, which could have been hotter, were dressed in cream and butter, which I never eat, yet I polished them off, and tried not to feel too guilty.


My entree were oven-baked salmon trout fillets from the lake I had just crossed, roasted potatoes and a sauteed green that resembled a cross between escarole and celery. I washed down my meal with a quarter-liter of wine and sparkling mineral water. Espresso was included, but wine, water and bread were extra.


The lunch took an hour and a half, and the Italians around me happily chatted away between courses. My bill came to 28 euros or $40 (the U.S. dollar was worth 78 cents when I left on Sept. 8, but  fell to 70 cents a few days before I flew home on  Sept. 20). 


Societa Agricola La Rocca, Via Rocca Castello, 1, 
Angera (Varese), Italy; 0331-930338.

I'm off to eat Italy

Image by Montanaro Maurizio™ via Flickr












Chef Mario Batali and his partners have opened another Manhattan emporium of Italian food they call Eataly, but I'm going them one better with a trip to Milan and Venice.

I know the food will be fabulous in the north of Italy, but I've already had a great summer filled with delicious, wild-caught seafood and farm-fresh fruits and vegetables right here in North Jersey.

I plan to take notes and regale you with descriptions of my meals, and I'll try to drop into food stores to see what Italians are buying to prepare at home. I'll be back in under two weeks. 

Italy is where the Slow Food movement began, and the first Eataly opened there as a showcase for the many antidotes to fast food -- a combination market and cafes.