Il Girasole Toscano, Elche

Italian Restaurant Il Girasole Toscano, C/Daoiz 17, Elche, prov. Alicante, Spain

When you think about Italian, you are looking for some authentic food; amongst some pizza and pasta, but also meat/fish and other dishes. Not to forget starters like bruschetta or antipasti platters.
Well, coming to this restaurant in sept. 2014, rated as one of the top Italian Restaurants in this area, we had high expectations. When you enter, it looks pleasantly clean, open and nice.
But looking at the menu, we had trouble to find ''real Italian food''...

We ordered a focaccia; authentic bread, usually with olive oil, rosemary, occasionally sundried tomatoes and olive oil. What we got was a thin pizza with some greenish-undefined cream (cheese? saucy like stuff, which was called ''focaccio agglio queso''.  It did not even resemble focaccio.

For main, my partner ordered solomillo de cerdo (pork fillet) in port sauce. Italian cuisine would rather cook with wine, marsala or vin santo. Not with port. The sauce was loaded with thickeners and artificial flavours; not pleasant in the mouth and certainly not pleasant to eat the lot. It was accompanied with fries and pimientos (spanish fried small bitter peppers). Nothing italian to it.

My dish was their favourite pasta dish with porcini. A little bit like ravioli, but in a different shape. It was disappointing; the first bite tasted ok, but was immediately followed by an aftertaste: again, here no fresh stuff, but food factory prefab non-italian quality. The so called directly imported real porcini? Guess, they came out of a pot. Dried, and maybe of chinese origin. Strange taste.

Looking at the menu, you would expect on soups a minestrone; they had (spanish) gazpacho. Or take the bomba (classic spanish tapa); why not arancini? Or bruschetta? Ciabatta instead of spanish bread?  Ok, they did had mortadela and parmesan as an (expensive) starter. But why only meats with pepper/port/roquefort/mushroom sauce and no classic dish like Chicken cacciatore or scallopine or involtini? No risotto? Real italian food? Fish dishes spanish - not italian style. For desserts? I only heard fruits, flans etc. Where are the tiramisu's and panna cottas?

If this is the best rated Italian around this area, then stay out of it.
99% of the guests who frequented the restaurant that same day for lunch, took the daily menu, for 11,00. Cheap, filling but not italian. Well, some pizza's looked that way. But that is about all to say.

We keep on looking for an authentic italian restaurant; sometimes I like to go out myself, want to be pampered and enjoying good food, the rare occasions, I'm not cooking it at home myself.