Best free meal ever! Thanks, Rick Steves!

If you don't know who Rick Steves is, click here:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Steves

I got back from a wonderful overnight trip to Arezzo and some surrounding towns in Tuscany and Umbria. More on that great trip tomorrow. This is just a quicky before I go to bed.

Once I got back to Assisi, I decided to go to a restaurant that I had tried to get into once before, but they were booked up at that time - Trattoria Pallotta (also a hotel).
http://www.pallottaassisi.it/new/int/eng/trattoria_home.htm

I was able to get on a waiting list tonight by using my charm and my mad Italian skills (saying "Can you find a table for me? There's just one of me and I'm small.")

After about 15 minutes, I was sitting at a table. I ordered the following:
Ravioli agli Asparagi di Bosco  (Ravioli with wild asparagus)
Here's a photo:

Filetto di Maiale al Marsala, Pere e Parmigiano (Pork medallions with a marsala sauce and cooked pear slices, topped with fresh shredded parmesan cheese)
Erba Campagnola - (Chicory greens sauted with garlic, oil and peppercorns)

and 1/4 liter of the famous local wine Sagrantino di Montefalco

Yes, I was hungry. Don't judge me.

The food was hands down the best meal I had in Italy so far on this trip. As I was waiting for the asparagus ravioli, who should walk into the restaurant but Rick Steves. We made eye contact (me with my jaw dropped) and I waved at him. He came over to say "Hi." He said he needed to check up periodically on the restaurants he recommends and this is one of them. (It's how I had heard of it.) We chatted a little (I told him John and I had run into him once before, four years ago, in Rome) and then he went to his table in another room of the restaurant.

A little bit later, while I was finishing the first course of asparagus ravioli, he came back over to chat some more. As I was raving about the ravioli, he managed to get the owner to come over to the table so she could hear what I had to say about the food. I then raved about it in Italian to her. (Seriously, it was to die for.)

The pork medallions with pears followed and were also delicious. At the end of the meal, I went to pay and the waitress told me that it was the owner's treat!  I have a feeling she was grateful for what I had told Rick. (I call him just Rick now that we're buddies.)

So thanks for the free dinner, Rick old buddy!