Well, that is perhaps a slightly dramatic title. End of Italy, certainly. We had decided to take a trip down to Sicily for Christmas, covering the whole of Southern Italy in just 10 hours. As soon as we crossed the tiny gap from Reggio Calabria to Messina, Sicily (costing us a distressing 75 euros) the weather seemed to jump about 10 degrees. It was like summer again. Maybe that should have been a warning of strange things to come but we happily ignored it and basked in the suns glory. Well, it was night time when we arrived, but we parked the car next to the beach and enjoyed the fact it wasn’t that cold.
We slept in the car that night, and woke up to see the beautiful clear waters of the sea- it’s basically paradise, FYI- before heading to Mount Etna first thing in the morning. Etna! What a revelation. I thought I’d seen everything. The scorched black earth, the mad craters. It’s like what I imagine being on the moon might be like. Except less terrifying. I mean, it never erupts, right? We marched up some of the craters, took a million photos and ‘selfies’, and tried to play in the snow. It was fantastic.
And then, to Catania. Now, after a day climbing up mountains you can bet that I was hungry. What did I have a hankering for? You guessed it. Luckily, Sicily is much more multi-cultural than the rest of Italy and just a few steps away from our hotel (after a night in the car we thought we’d treat ourselves) we found exactly what we wanted. Mister Kebab, purveyor of ‘American fast food’, apparently, nestled on the hideously busy main shopping road in Catania. We ordered a falafel wrap each and a portion of chips to share. I had already had some pretty terrible falafels in Italy so far, which in turn made me remember all the appalling falafels in Spain. It really is traumatic. Sometimes it brings me down, you know?
Anyway, I wasn’t really expecting much so I was pleasantly surprised when I was actually asked what salad and sauces I wanted (Chili sauce and all the salad) and if I wanted CHIPS inside the wrap (yes!) I took a bite into the wrap and it was actually delicious! It had a curry style sauce which was really tasty and the falafel was freshly fried, the salad was crispy and it had a satisfying crunch to it. No hummus of course, but the sauce kept it from being too dry and I loved the chip addition. I love my fast food to be as fatty as possible and this really felt like it was getting there. This falafel wrap was absolutely huge and I was left feeling full for a very long time. Although, come to think of it, that didn’t stop me from eating an entire take away pizza later that night. It was Christmas, don’t judge.
Anyway, not only did Mount Etna erupt for the first time 10 years just hours after we left it, there were 6 earthquakes in Catania as well (but I was in a food coma so didn’t notice).
On to the review
Falafel – 4/5 – crispy, fresh but not green, I like it green.
Bread – 3/5 – standard bread.
Salad – 4/5 – no olives
Intoxication – 0/5
Price – I can’t remember, not expensive.
Minus points for lack of hummus.
Total 3.75/5 – very good.
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