After spending an hour in the Antwerp Art Museum, we were ravenous. It is hard to find food in Europe at 5 p.m. Our first choice was an Argentinean steakhouse, but they weren’t serving until 6pm. Across the street, we spotted this small Italian restaurant. Nuova Era was a great find, with excellent food in an Art Nouveau setting.
We were welcomed with crisp bread served with garlic butter and little
ramekins filled with black and green olives. This was definitely a
positive beginning. Once we had our Primus Pils, we were ready to order
our meals.
We began with an Insalata Mista. This might be one of the best salads
we have ever had. It was served with cruets of red wine vinegar and oil
and spicy oil and balsamic vinegar, which we poured over a huge pile of
lettuce, carrots, onions, olives, green beans, cucumber, and Parmesan
cheese. It was excellent and the spicy oil was wonderful.
I had penne with spicy sauce; to call it spicy was a definite
understatement. It had a blast of heat that had me grabbing my Pils. I
loved it. Al and Joe had the Bolognese, and it was very meaty. Bob
ordered one of their pizzas, which came with a thin crust, and it was
delicious. As usual, we shared our meals.
The portions are so generous here that there is no way we could have
had anything more than a decaf for dessert. Service here was fast and
efficient, but not overly friendly. Who cares, the food was great and so
were the prices.
