Octopus Pasta - Trattoria la Scogliera

by Katherine

Key Words
Good Seafood, Good Pastas, Reasonably Priced
                 
Would We Come Back?
Yes, this is the only place I've ever seen octopus in a pasta (and it was good!), and to me that warrants a return trip for sure!

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          With seafood being so prevalent along the coast, I started to wonder if there was a such thing as putting octopus in pasta. Octopus was certainly all over menus everywhere in Cinque Terre, but never had I seen it in pasta, which to me seemed like an obvious and delicious combination. So I started searching the interwebs for such a thing, and amazingly, I fond an octopus pasta that a couple had had and written about on their blog. And the restaurant just happened to be in Manarola (yet another reason why Manarola is the best of the towns!).

          The pasta with octopus had a spicy red sauce, not normally something I would ever really consider at a restaurant, but with octopus, there was no way I was gonna pass it up. Luckily, it wasn't too spicy, but just really flavorful. And once again, Italian red sauces are really awesome compared to what I'm used to. I loved having octopus chunks in the dish, and it was cooked well too, as usual in Italy. 

Octopus Pasta

          Brad got trofie with fish. The fish was super flaky and just fell apart, oozing into the pasta, giving it great flavor. Everything just melted in your mouth. I really love trofie and am always more excited to eat the trofie dishes!

Trofie with Fish

          For the first time in Italy (not including the Florentine Steak, that's a whole other kinda meal), we ordered an "entree". I thought this would be a good place to order a plate of octopus and really see what an entree was all about in Italy. The waitress made it seem as if it would be a hefty portion, but when it came it was really just an app sized portion spread out on a large plate.  After all the pasta, I was kinda glad that it wasn't too large and didn't have any sides. But, it was nice to know that we weren't missing much by only ordering pastas. The octopus was grilled, tho. and that was super tasty!

Grille Octopus