I ride to eat, I eat to ride. It's a pretty happy existence. Eating well is important to me, I research good restaurants in much the same way I search for hotels. I want authentic food, passionate owners/chefs/waiters, In much the same way as I would hope to serve food to friends at home. Europe for me is food heaven whether it's the flakiest, light as air, pane au raisin in Paris or a simple mushroom and garlic tapas in Spain. So far though if I'm honest (and when am I not?) until Italy we've only had GOOD not great food. As Wobbly Wheels said 'it's not called Austrian Food Safari for a reason'. But in the past few days we've had the kind of run where you'd happily entertain never eating again if it meant you could savor a particular dish for the rest of your days. At Lake Garda we had truffle risotto, the kind of delicate, creamy risotto that you drink in with your eyes, before inhaling the scent deeply and then nibbling at the dish one grain at a time in an attempt to make it last as long as possible. Last night in Soave we had fabulous seared tuna with sesame seeds and a fillet of beef with Parmesan and rocket. Tonight's meal at Al Porta, in Padova, a small trattoria overlooking the square of the same name, we had pork and eggplant ragu (with wheel pasta) and zucchini flower stuffed with pearl barley, prawn and avocado salad. Lip-smacking satisfaction. Simple, fresh and honest food- 'what you see is what you get' - there are no tricks or gimmicks. There are though fabulous English translations for pre-meal entertainment. There's been several 'lukewarm' dishes (which one waitress kindly explained as 'not hot') and 'sort of' pasta, that is ultimately, pasta. This evening's menu took the cake though. There were 'cold sluts of pork', dried salt cod with 'fried mush' a 'Beef's hamburger' and a 'Fried little hen'.