Whoever here has already tried beef tripe? There used to be a time when I only knew tripe - or "babat" as the Javanese community in Suriname knows it - to be an Asian delicacy, until I came to the Netherlands, where I learned that it's also used in the Caribbean and Latin American kitchens. And then imagine my surprise, when I learned that it's also known in Italy and Spain.
Especially in Napoli (Naples) it's considered a staple, so when we were staying there we made it our mission to find a good spot and to try it out. On one of those days we went out of the city to visit nearby villages, we worked up an appetite and decided to give one of the local restaurants a chance.
The restaurant we found happened to be specialized in tripe and when the owners became aware of our presence they tried to explain this to us in their local tongue - didn't know or understand much English words from what I gathered - and tried to suggest pizzerias or other restaurants to us nearby. Knowing only the basic words like "grazie" and "buongiorno" it was difficult to explain to them that we sought them out intentionally for the tripe and weren't interested in the "mainstream" Italian dishes.
Fortunately there was another guest who understood both parties and explained it to the owners. We were then seated and we ordered a spaghetti with potatoes and tripe and tripe in a tomato sauce. The spaghetti was creamy and the tripe was clean, juicy and tender. We were surprised that the tripe didn't need any pepper - how it's usually made in Suriname - to enhance its flavors. To eat the tripe in tomato sauce on its own was a bit heavy, so the complimentary bread helped to balance out the flavors.
Furthermore, the ambiance was warm, noisy and inviting and we could see that there were some regular customers in the way they conversed with the owners, which only confirmed the reputation of the place to us. Service was on the other hand a bit chaotic, because of having only two servers. They made up for it though by offering more bread and the good quality of the food.
