Mediterranean Pt 3

The next stop on what was quickly becoming our gastronomic tour of the Mediterranean was Sicily.  Home of the cannoli and the Mafia.  I wasn’t sure what to except when we got there.  All I could picture in my head was a bunch of really mean goombas all wearing Gucci suits and dark sunglasses.  Boy, was I wrong.

We docked in Messina and were promptly shuffled on to a bus headed for Taormina.  It is a quaint old hilltop commune whose origins date back to sometime B.C.  Once there, you enter in to the town through and old stone archway.  First stop, the first place I can find that sells cannolis.  And I didn’t have to walk far.  Taormina is known to tourists for two things: cannolis and its close proximity to Mt. Etna.  So, there were two basic types of shop.  Those selling little trinkets made out of lava rock from the volcano and pastry shops, which had fronts that looked like this.

So, we stopped and got a cannoli.  Sicilian cannolis are similar to the cannolis I was raised on, but better than I could have ever imagined.  For those of you who don’t know, a cannoli consist of tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet, creamy filling usually containing ricotta cheese (or alternatively, but less traditionally, sweetened Mascarpone).  The filling is blended with some combination of vanilla, chocolate, pistachio, Marsala wine, rosewater or other flavorings. Some pastry chefs add chopped succade or chocolate chips. They are typically made in several varying sizes, from the "cannulicchi", no bigger than a finger, to the fist-sized proportions typically found in Piana degli Albanesi, south of Palermo, Sicily.  The ones we got had a small amount of succade mixed into the filling, but no chocolate, and were middle of the road in size.  These were the best cannolis I have ever had.  The shell was fresh, flaky and crunchy, yet did not shatter upon first bite.  The pastry seemed to be resilient against the usual sogginess of the filling, not like most of the ones you can get in the States.  The filling was velvety smooth, rich, and creamy.  I never knew any kind of cheese could be so sweet.  I could have sat there eating these sweet Sicilian treats all day.

After the wife had to pull me away from getting another one (and thereby possibly ruining my appetite for more treats to come), we headed down the pedestrian street to check out the rest of the city.  It was an overcast rainy day, so we dashed in and out of several store fronts.  Coincidentally, shopping makes me thirsty.  So, we stopped to get a beer.  We found a nice and somewhat busy outdoor café right next to the main entrance to the town.  We grabbed a table right next to the street, and ordered two beers.  Here is what we got.

Two beers, aptly named Baffo D’oro, or the “Golden Moustache”, and three tiny plates of food.  Something about the name of the beer and the fact that I had facial hair seemingly amused our waiter, as he put the beers down, pointed to the label, looked and me, and began to laugh.  At first, I thought he may be playing a joke on me and that the beer was going to be horrible.  It was, in fact, rather refreshing.  It was slightly bitter, but very malty, which balanced the final flavor of the beer very well.  The dishes we received were extremely crunchy (probably several day old) seasoned croutons, some sort of Sicilian style “bar mix”, and the greenest, briniest olives I have ever tasted in my life.  And, in fact, the only olives I have ever actually enjoyed eating.  I know.  I’m Italian so I should LOVE olives, right?  Well, my family stems from the Calabria region of Italy, which is a stones throw across the straight from Sicily.  And these are Sicilian olives.  So, I like the olives of my ancestors.  And they paired great with the croutons.  The slightly crunchy outside of the olive popped between your teeth releasing a rush of salty, almost tart liquid into your mouth.  At first, it caused me to pause mid chew and actually ask myself “Do I really like the way these taste?”  After a few more, I was certain. Yes, I liked them.  So, I polished off the rest of them, and ordered more (with a few more rounds of Baffo D’Oro, of course).  We sat there eating olives, drinking beer, and waited out a rainstorm.  Then, we grabbed a few more cannolis (with pistachios this time) and a cappuccino before heading back to the ship. 

As we left the port of Messina, we cruised past their patron saint, Madonna della Lettera.  Standing tall in all her glorious splendor, she states "Vos et ipsam civitatem benedicimus".  She even seems to follow you with her hand as you leave port.  It was a beautiful end to a beautiful day.  

Mediterranean Honeymoon Part 2

After a wonderful day in Croatia, we cruised overnight to Venice.  I was going to write about our horrible experience with our assigned tables, but it was way to boring to even write.  Let’s just say we were extremely happy to meet Pam & Tom while in Venice.  We ended up dining at their table with two other couples the rest of the trip.  In this dining room.

 

Yup, that is snake skin décor.  And it was all over the dining room.  On the walls, in the ceiling panels, even on the wait stations.  I tried to figure out how it all tied in, but gave up after the first few days.

Anyway, the next day was on to Venice.  Now, for some reason, I didn’t take many pictures of food in Venice, though I remember scarfing down several gelatos.  The one picture I can find of our trips is this one below.  This was taken at the Art Blu Café in Venice.  Pictured are my wife and our new friend Tom and the difference between ordering a small and a large beer in a café in Venice.  As in Italy, Tom, not friggin Oktoberfest.  We also all shared in the joy that is Italian pizza.  It was OK.  Nothing spectacular and I didn’t even get a picture. The crust was thin, just like I like it, but could have used more salt. The sauce was very fresh tasting, not overpowered with spices like we tend to do in the US.  You could actually taste the sweetness of the fresh tomatoes.  The cheese was perfectly melted, not so hot it would scald the roof of your mouth, but hot enough that it almost swallowed up the topping. Ah, the topping; ham.  The ham was just that. Little bits of thinly sliced ham chopped up and topped on our perfectly sized Venetian pie.  I also recall that the beer was cold, and the conversation was filled with laughter.  We had just met our new cruising friends.  We even switched our tables on the ship and ate with them for the remainder of our cruise. 
 

Oh yeah, and huge jars of Nutella.

 

Average Food Guy's Take on Home made Pizza (Thin Crust!)

Home made pizza is a challenge for most people.  I'll admit that I stuggeled with it several times.  Pizza is a complicated food, with several parts all assembled on top of the single item that is most important to making or breaking a good home made pizza.  The crust.  I was born and raised in New England, so I am a big fan of thin crust.  I'm not going to get into the debate of NY style vs. Chicago style.  Everyone is entitled to their opinions.  Plus, neither are my favorite.  I prefer New Haven style pizza.  What is that you ask?  It's similar to New York style, except perfected, and a hell of a lot closer to home.  Here is my quick and easy version.

Ingredients:

Fresh dough (buy from local grocer or Italian deli)

Flour

Olive Oil

Garlic, chopped

Sauce (jarred or home made)

Shredded mozzarella (or fresh if you prefer)

Stick pepperoni, chopped into chunks

Green/Red bell pepper, sliced

Yellow onion, sliced

Italian seasoning (basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme)

Fresh basil (for garnish)

Parmasean Reggiano

So, to start, preheat your oven to 450 with the rack in the middle.   Lightly oil a cookie sheet with olive oil.  Flour your hands and the outside of the dough.  Do not use too much as you will make the dough stiff and chewy.

Starting from the center, knead the dough towards the edges, being careful to keep a consistant thickness.  This is the hardest part and will take some practice.  Try to cover the whole cookie sheet with your dough.  Once satisfied with the dough, stab with a fork all over the surface (to prevent bubbles).  Lightly oil the top of the dough and sprinkle with Italian seasonings.  Bake for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, you dough should start to brown slightly and be stiff, but not dry and crunchy.  Remove from oven.  Spread sauce over dough.  Then evenly distribute garlic and pepperoni.  Add cheese, peppers, and onions to the pizza.  Feel free to add any other toppings you like at this time.  Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Once all the cheese is melted and peppers are slightly soft from baking, remove from oven.  Sprinkle with grated parmesean and broil until cheese is melted.  I like mine just when it starts to brown.  Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes.  

Slice and eat!

Boston Anniversary Trip Pt 2

The rest of our trip to Boston was filled with drinking beer (mostly Sam Adams), eating delicious food, and just leisurely walking around Boston, seeing the sites, and people watching. My digital camera broke, so I had to take all my pictures on my cell phone camera. Kudos to BlackBerry for giving me a decent camera.

Sunset Grille & Tap: 380 beers in bottles and 112 on tap. Mostly microbrews and most I’ve never heard of. They had beers that were 22%, came in 750ml bottles, and cost $30. They even had a tabletop tap (which we did not order). It was a 4 foot cylinder filled with 116oz of beer and a tap at the bottom. It was awesome.

We started with an Alagash White (I didn’t like it but the wife did) and a Hazed & Infused IPA. It was tasty, a bit hoppy, but nice and cold. Then came the food. I ordered the Sunset Buffalo burger with buffalo sauce, blue cheese, jalapeno slices, red onion, lettuce, and fries. When the burger arrived, it was larger than I expected. Nice and juicy and cooked just the way I like it. The sauce had a wicked kick to it, and the jalapenos added to it. I love spicy food, and this was good. However, it did not pair well with my beer. Any of them.


The wife ordered some sort of chicken fajita quesadilla. It came out looking like a mass of food on a plate, just kind of plopped on there. To me, it didn’t have much taste to it, and you could taste too much of the grill on the chicken. Nothing special, and I wouldn’t order it again.


These are two more of the beers we had. The wife had an organic Sam Smith’s, and I had something that was supposed to be a red lager (in my mind, similar to Killian’s), but was not even close. It was much darker, closer to a stout, and went horribly with my buffalo burger.


I’ll try to breeze through the rest of the trip. Breakfast in Quincy market: Bacon, egg & cheese on an English muffin with hot sauce. Delicious. And, a coffee from Starbucks, or, as the wife calls it, Starfucks.


After breakfast, we hoped on the T and went down to the Sam Adams Brewery and took the tour. Free beer before lunch. Awesome. They even are growing some of their own hops right outside the building. We got to sample 3 beers, and I bought a t-shirt.

Lunch was at the Purple Shamrock. This restaurant/pub is less than a block outside Quincy Market. What drew us to this place? Several people informed us that they usually have live music on Saturday nights, but it was still the afternoon. So instead, we stopped in for $10 lobsters! Yup, she made me wear the bib.


Later in the day, it starting pouring as we were walking through the open air market just south of the North End. So, we hid out in the Hard Rock Café. No pictures, but we got this huge appetizer platter. It was around $19 and had southwester egg rolls, potato skins, wings, onion rings, chicken tenders, and several sauces. For an over priced tourist trap like Hard Rock, it was good. That night, we went to the Improv Asylum. If you're ever in Boston and want to laugh your ass off, check out this club.

On Sunday, we did breakfast in Quincy Market again. This time we went for some sort of breakfast burrito. It really wasn’t that great. It didn’t have a lot of flavor, but I think the tortilla was freshly made, which made up for some of the other lacking ingredients. After that, we spent some time shopping.


We stopped at the country’s oldest tavern, The Bell in Hand. It was opened in 1795 by the retired town crier of Boston directly across the street from the Union Oyster House, the country’s oldest restaurant. They have their own ale there. We had a pint (or 2). It was very similar to Sam Adams Boston Lager.


Then we went walking around the North End (a.k.a. Little Italy). We would have stopped for food, but the few places that were actually open on Sunday were these fancy looking little family owned restaurants, and we were not dressed for the occasion, nor were we looking for a heavy pasta-filled meal. So, we ended up at Joe’s American Bar & Grille.

By this time I was so hungry I never actually took a picture of the food. However, the blackened chicken Caesar salad was good. It was fairly large and well seasoned. The chicken was a bit dry and it could have used more dressing. The pan fried mozzarella was delicious. And of course, the Sam Adams was cool and refreshing. Having successfully completed the Boston Triathlon (chowda, lobsta, and beeya) and running low on funds, we headed home.

Boston Anniversary Trip Pt 1

Today, the wife and I celebrate our 1 year wedding anniversary. Well, not really. It was actually weeks ago, but we are in Boston this weekend celebrating. Since Boston is such an amazing city, I won’t bore you with the details, historical data, etc... Straight to the food!

The first stop on our city binge tour was Legal Sea Foods. I have heard a lot about this place online and on TV. Legal Sea Foods is a Massachusetts original. And from what I hear, I HAD to try the crab cakes. Whoever made that recommendation, Thank you.

We were sat on the outdoor patio overlooking Boston Harbor. Our order: 2 Stella Artois, crab cakes, calamari Rhode Island style, cup of clam chowder, and a cup of lobster bisque.

Starting with the bisque, it was good. Not my favorite and a tad expensive. $7 for a cup. The lobster was fresh and buttery, however I think my wife got the main big piece in her “taste” of my bisque. And when I threatened to season mine with the “table pepper”, our waiter whisked away the shaker and insisted on fresh ground pepper. He was right.


The clam chowder, as they gloat on their menu, has been served at the last seven presidential inaugurations. If you know anything about clam chowda, you know the best if from New England (If that offends anyone, you haven’t had true New England clam chowder). And it was presidential indeed. The creamy broth was thick and rich. The potatoes cooked to perfection, and the clams cut into pieces big enough to taste but small enough to not squeak against your teeth while you eat the.

The Rhode Island calamari was a new twist to me. Served crispy fried (some sort of breading or batter lightly coated it) with a garlicky butter (or oil) and delicious hot cherry peppers and banana peppers. I’m not sure words could do this calamari justice. It was, by far, the best I have ever had.


And, the same goes for the crab cake. It actually wasn’t much of a “cake”, but more like a deliciously assembled tiny mountain of goodness on my plate. The crab chucks were big and tasty. It was cooked to perfection. Light and flaky and just enough resistance against your teeth to know you were eating some crab. The other ingredients were taste but light, and did not take away from the freshness of the crab. Many places use too much mayo, mustard, or Old Bay seasoning, but not Legal Sea Foods. The have balanced their seasonings to perfection. Now, I’m like Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers; I love crab cakes. And these now officially top my list. In my mind, people in Maryland now have some stiff competition.


Afterwords, we strolled through Quincy Market. There is TONS of good food here, and I have gorged myself within these walls several times. The two must haves of Quincy Market, IMO, are the fresh cut fries (which used to be better in my childhood) and the $2.50 draft beers at the Black Horse Tavern. Next, off to Sunset Grill & Tap. Home to 380 microbrews and 112 beers on tap. Yup, that’s not a typo.

Ted's World Famous Steamed Burgers

I just returned back to the office from a lunch trip to Ted’s in Meriden, CT. And, since I am way too full to actually work, I figured I’d blog instead.

I have heard a lot about Ted’s prior to today. It has been featured on the Travel Channel’s Hamburger Paradise, written about in Connecticut Magazine, US News, and mentioned in Hamburger America, just to name a few. With a place as famous as this practically in my back yard, I couldn’t not go.

So, we pull up to this tiny little building, and I recalled words of wisdom I have heard (on television). It’s the little grease holes like this that usually have the best food. So, in we go, bumping elbows with everyone else in the place. All four of them. From the outside it’s small. From the inside, it’s tiny. Three booths that sit four (two comfortably) and a counter with eight or so stools at it. I ordered the steamed cheeseburger with all the sides and some cheese fries.

The fries came first, and since I had read up on my gastronomic destination for the day, I was not surprised to see that they were in fact home fries. Chucks of potatoes left on a flat top griddle to crisp upon the outside, yet stay nice and soft on the inside. All topped with a hunk of steam-melted cheddar. Kinda greasy. Very tasty.


When the burger arrived, I actually drooled a little. It might have been from the cheese off the potatoes scalding the top of my mouth, but I’m not sure. One bite into the burger, and the juicy goodness that is steamed cheeseburgers began to run down my hand. The burger was very moist, but did not have that much flavor itself. The meat kind of reminded me of when my mother used to microwave frozen burger patties when we got our first microwave, except these were not dried out and didn’t tire my jaw to chew. Or like if you’ve ever browned ground meat in a pan with no seasonings, then tasted it before adding anything else.


My lunch was topped with ketchup, mustard, mayo, onions, lettuce, and another hunk of melted cheese. I added a dash of salt & pepper to complete the seasonings. All in all, a good burger. Definitely not the best I have ever had, but it’s hard to compare. A steamed cheeseburger is something completely different than a grilled burger.

So, as I loosen my belt and return to work I leave you with this. If you are ever in the area of Meriden, CT, I would highly suggest stopping at Ted’s and trying a steamed burger. It’s not the best burger in the world, but it is surely worth a try, and an honorable mention.