Bistecca Fiorentina

Yo is travelling with her family to Melbourne and I wanted to pass her some of my daughter's stuff. While going through her closet, I saw her Chloe bag and on a hunch, checked the small pocket. There they were, two memory cards that I thought I'd lost and have been fretting about for weeks. Now I've got the photos of the bistecca fiorentina to show you.  I've copied my previous post on the same subject with some amendments:

I read somewhere that there are 5 things you must eat in Florence: bistecca alla fiorentina, crostini (toasts with liver pate), ribolita (beans soup), pappa al pomodoro (tomato soup) and trippa alla fiorentina (tripe). 

One evening we passed by a restaurant and I heard a guy say "This is it" and after a minute another guy and girl came along and said the same thing and went in too. While we waited to be seated in the tiny packed restaurant, we had a fun time chatting with 3 men who were eating their salami, prosciutto, cheese and wine. The setting was so Italian: legs of ham hanging on the walls, wooden tables,  busy waiters who had time to smile (one gave us a slice of salami that he was cutting). Chaotic, noisy and crowded. Forget romance when you dine in trattorias. You go there for good food and a home atmosphere.

The guy nearest to the camera was having a minestrone which looked pale, like the cook had forgotten the tomatoes. Maybe that's how real minestrone should be.

Yi had a lovely salad (4 euros) and I had a ribolita soup (5.50) that wasn't as tasty as I imagines and it was so thick I could stand my spoon in it. Wish I had the minestrone soup instead.

Have you ever seen a thicker piece of steak? This was another diner's bistecca and it was a good 5 cm thick slice of meat. The chefs were weighing the steak after chopping it off from a huge block.

 Full of beef and burnt meat flavor outside, tender (not as tender as wagyu but chewing of meat is necessary to release the flavors), juicy and sweet with lots of tasty, flavorful fat here and there.

Our steak was about 3.5 to 4 cm thick only (bistecca fiorentina has to be cooked rare and 5 cm thick to be considered authentic) because I had ordered a 500 gm steak (the minimum weight) and the whole porterhouse block from which they chopped off my steak was so big they had to make my slice thinner. The waiter came with the raw steak on a plate, 600gm (the smallest he could chop off) of beautiful meat. I nodded, he retreated back to the open kitchen, no questions about how I wanted my steak done because there's only one way--rare. It was fun to watch Italians cook. So much drama.

 Every bite of the steak made me shake my head in delight. Yi made "Yummmyumm" noises that embarassed me. Other diners probably to thought that we'd just dropped in from some starving country.


Charred and caramelized on the outside but soft and juicy inside, the steak at first didn't seem so rare. A glass of red helped refresh our palate for each bite.The two of us easily cleaned the plate up, all 600 gm except for the small blade of bone.

Near the bone, the steak was soft and bloody. Yi said she felt like a lion.

Vin santo and biscotti

We ended the dinner with a glass of vin santo served with plenty of biscotti  for only 3 euros. What a meal. Yi said she felt very pampered and blessed. That's one of the nice things about my girl, always appreciative and doesn't take her blessings  for granted:))

 Bistecca fiorentina is usually sold by the 100 gram, usually 4.50 euros/100gm in touristy places. Everywhere I went, I sought out places where locals eat for the most authentic food and reasonable prices and  Le Mossacce was one of them.  Bistecca in Le Mossacce  was 3.40 euros/100gm. Our steak was only 20.40 euros (RM82/US$26). There's no way you can have a porterhouse steak for that price here, especially a 600 gm, 4-cm thick porterhouse. Le Mossacce is a cramped and noisy trattoria (family-run restaurant) that serves good food at reasonable prices. The waiters were super nice. There was a coperto (cover charge) of 1.50 euros each, mainly to cover the bread but when I dug into my wallet for  loose change, the waiter just waved the 2 euros off. Instead of me rounding up the bill, which is normal in Europe, he rounded it down. Love the Italians!

Trattoria Le Mossacce (Via Del Proconsolo, 55 R. Telefono: 055 29.43.61)