Soda & Swine

I haven't been in San Diego for very long, but I already have my go-to places (obviously). I also already have a list of restaurants that I want to try out (suggestions always welcome!) One of my go-to places, specially to take visitors to, is Soda & Swine.
This first time I went to Soda & Swine I was craving chicken. That is something that never, EVER, happens to me, so I was feeling very weird about myself, but also - craving the chicken. It was the day after our three-day car ride, where we ate a lot of... shit. I don't know how else to put it. We had VERY limited options, some days consisting of only McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell. We ate at McDonald's (which was horrible - except for the Oreo McFlurry which was awesome!) once, a bad mistake. Deciding not to do it again, the next day we went to Carl's Jr and I swear to God, Carl's Jr. turkey burger tasted like heaven compared to the quarterpound I got at McDonald's. Ew.

Menu

So, the next day I am craving chicken. As I got to Soda & Swine, I looked at their super-cool menu written on a black chalkboard. And I saw a chicken meatball option! And, AND, it was served with mushroom sauce and provolone cheese! I could not have been happier.
The deal over there is: you can choose one (or more, I guess. I'd never thought about that... hum) out of four options: get your meatballs on a sub (2 meatballs), over pasta (3 meatballs), on sliders (1 meatball per slider) or just the meatballs and the sauce (3 meatballs). Considering the fact that I had just completed a trip where every single meal I had consisted of bread or pasta of some sort, I chose the "a la carte" option, as they put it. Just the largest amount of meatballs, no carbs.

There is also another chalkboard next to the one in the picture with a list of their sides, which must be like 15. So many sides to choose from! You don't HAVE to pick a side. But why not? Why would you not do it? It makes no sense. Anyway, I chose the bacon brussels sprouts because I am smart. Also, because my family decided we should each pick one side so everyone can try everyone's side (we do that a lot.) So, in reality, I had brussels sprout, asparagus and polenta as sides. Hum, where should I begin?

Meatballs to the left and asparagus to the right

So, the meatballs come in this mini iron cast, swimming in the mushroom sauce, with the provolone cheese melted over on top. It's beautiful. And you look at it and you think: "is this going to be enough food?" but what you don't know is that the meatballs are HUGE. They are. They are so filling. But most importantly, they are made of chicken and they blend perfectly - just perfectly - with the thick, creamy mushroom sauce they come with. Seriously. It's so good, I was moaning the whole meal. If you've never experienced chicken meatballs, that is the way to do it. I cannot imagine anyway that chicken meatballs could taste any better. On marinara sauce they would be RUINED. Ruined. Ok, maybe not ruined, but definitely not as good.

Brussels sprouts

The brussels sprouts come with bacon, so there's that. It's not like it's going to taste bad, ever. It's made with bacon. No, but really, they were cooked to perfection and tasted incredible. For realz. The asparagus comes with a little bit of cheese on top and it's also cooked to perfection and delicious in the subtle but unique way that only asparagus can be. The polenta, unfortunately, for my unending sadness, was meh. But just order something else, like, for example, they mac-and-cheese! Or, or, the goat cheese mashed potatoes (yum!). Better yet: order the crispy chick peas. They are divine! They are crispy and salty, and crunchy and delicious. I never knew chick peas could be so... crispy? It's super well-seasoned too, so it's really tasty, and you can't eat just one. It's like popcorn... you eat it and eat it until there's no more to eat.

#crispyanddelicious

After my very pleasant experience, I have made a point of taking everyone that comes visit me there. And it's been approved across the board. Because it's delicious!


Restaurant: Soda & Swine
City: San Diego, CA
Service: Great
Food: Delicious
Price: $

Kiko's Place

One month ago I dropped everything in Houston and moved to San Diego, California. The beaches, the sunsets, the palm trees, the weather... everything about San Diego is beautiful. That includes the food.

In San Diego, the amount of Mexican restaurants is incredible. And I thought Texas had Mexican food. Here, with the border only a couple of miles away, you can really feel the Mexican influence in the restaurant scene. It's more than just "fusion" Mexican (like Tex-Mex), here you can actually get original Mexican food, and it's everywhere. More importantly, it's always delicious.

Appetizer

I haven't been here for long, but I already have favorites. Kiko's Place, a food truck on Texas St, is one of them. My boyfriend took me there once, so that I could try the mixed seafood taco. He told me I would only need one, to which I agreed to, very suspiciously. Tacos are usually small. I am used to having two to three tacos in order to feel satisfied. How could I have a meal consisting of one taco?

We ordered our mixed seafood tacos, which are $4 each. We were offered a cup of soup while we waited. The soup is a seafood, tomato-based broth with pieces of green bell pepper, celery, onion and tomatoes. If you're lucky, it could have a shrimp or piece of fish in it (I have never been lucky :( ) It's always super hot, which means I may or may not have burnt my tongue a couple of times. It's a nice little appetizer, and I would even go as far to say it's a palate opener (yes, I went there. Deal with it.)

Biggest taco EVER

Then, the tacos arrived. And it was the biggest taco I have ever seen in my life. I don't even think that could be called a taco. It's huge. So, I did the only thing I could do: I picked up a fork and dug in. And it was so. Good. There were shrimp, scallops, a mussel on the shell, octopus, marlin... all of the seafood inside of two corn tortillas, stacked on top of each other. The seasoning is similar to the broth, but more concentrated. Very concentrated. It's super well-seasoned, to the point where there is no need to add any salsas, or lime, or anything. It's ready to eat. And so delicious. The seafood is cooked to perfection, the shrimp is crunchy and tasty, the baby scallops are all over the place, the octopus... YUM. I may or may not go there today... hum...

The only bad thing about this taco is the celery. I am not a big fan of celery - I will eat it, but it bothers me when there's too much of it. In the taco, the amount of seafood easily overwhelmed the amount of celery, but I still took most of it out. 

I loved it so much, I went back two days later to try the other options they had. I found out that the spicy mixed seafood taco is better than the normal mixed seafood taco. The amount of "kick" is perfect! It complements the rest of the seasoning so well. Amazing, amazing, even more amazing.

Then, a couple weeks later, I tried their fish taco. One breaded fish filet with pico de gallo on top and some kind of white sauce. Delicious! But smaller - consider yourself warned.

Kiko's Place

Fish tacos - YUM

A couple of fish tacos will suffice if you're not THAT hungry, but if you are, I would order more. It's $1.75. It's so cheap! And so worth it! Every bite.

"Restaurant": Kiko's Place

Food: Great

Service: Great

Price: $ 

Osteria Acquacheta #tbtmeal

I did it again! I disappeared. No more. NO MORE I SAY. Hopefully coming back for real now, with some new ideas. The first one is the throwback Thursday meals. Basically, #tbtmeal posts will be posts about places I have been to more than six months ago. I know, that was a clever way of keeping from dying of shame for not posting anything. 

Oh well. The first #tbtmeal of this blog will be one that I have been dying to post about... and one of the best meals of my life, from when I was in Italy. 

Montepulciano was incredibly empty. After visiting Siena, Pisa, and other tourist-filled cities, Montepulciano actually looked a little bit like a ghost town. There was no one in the streets! The day was not that pretty when we got there, it was super cold and cloudy, which contributed to my impression. That was the only city we decided to spend the whole day at, I don't even remember why anymore – probably because my mom decided it was the most interesting one.

Wine and cheese tasting

We had a tip going in the city – the best part about traveling with my mom is that we are both suckers for gourmet tips, which means that if someone recommends a restaurant in a city we have never been to we will most likely tailor our visit around finding said restaurant and eating there. It wasn’t very different with Montepulciano, where we were recommended the Osteria Acquacheta. First thing we did was go to the tourism office to get a map and find out where the restaurant was. After spotting it on the map, we went into the city gates (these medieval Tuscan cities almost always have a gate). The day was basically spent going into churches and into wineries, where they provided FREE WINE/BREAD/SAUSAGE/OLIVE OIL TASTINGS. Yes. I would have gone into every single store if we weren’t so easily guilt tripped by free tastings. Since every store we went in we had to buy something, we only went into three or four I think – anyway, it was worth it.

The entrance

And then we reached the restaurant. It was a small little door at the end of a narrow street. We were very surprised noticing a full house, when the city seemed so empty. We asked if we needed to do a reservation – they only had a 2:30pm appointment. Stunned, we accepted it and proceeded to look at old buildings and go to tastings. At 2:15 we got to the door of the restaurant (need I say famished?) and still had to wait around 40 minutes to be seated.

The restaurant had one rule: each person had one glass to drink wine or water. If you want to drink water, finish your wine. If you want to drink wine, finish your water. No fanciness! I was already excited about it – I love simple places. We shared a big table with another group, which never bothers me because I usually speak a language no one understands anyway, so it’s not like I have no privacy (although I don’t think I would be bothered by it if they did, honestly.) The kitchen of the restaurant was at the back and completely open. They had a huge brick oven in there, where they grilled their meat.

Appetizer

The house specialty was bistecca fiorentina. I posted about bistecca before, on the Totò post – check it! – we ate it as part of our New Year’s Eve meal. Well this one was different; better, tastier, more delicious, amazing, wonderful… sorry where was I? Oh yeah, house specialty. But let’s start in the beginning. For some insane reason that I cannot fathom right now – it has been more than a year after all – we decided to have a four-course meal. Maybe it wasn’t a decision, maybe it just happened. All I know is I started my path to happiness with fried goat cheese balls paired with artichoke cream. Fortunately, no one in my family really likes goat cheese, so I got to enjoy all of that amazingness by myself (excuse me for being selfish). It was just... so delicious.

After we had the appetizers (each of us had one), we went into the primi piatti, a.k.a. the pasta. I ordered Pici pasta with duck ragù. Pici pasta is similar to spaghetti, but thicker and with a hole that runs in the middle of it. Doing a little bit more research into it, I found out it’s a hand-rolled pasta that originated in Siena and is typical from that region. HA! Learning about other culture while eating = ultimate goal in life. I ordered duck ragù because I wanted something different from all the truffle sauces that I was eating. I liked it, but I also found it slightly overwhelming – I seem to have had amnesia at the time, since I don’t like duck that much. I don’t really know why I ordered that plate. Well, I did, and it didn’t let me down, I let myself down (drama).

Pici pasta with duck ragù

The owner and the bistecca (whole)

After eating an entire plate of pasta, we said: “Why not have some meat?” and ordered the bistecca. The bistecca is ordered by its weight, and the server (usually the owner of the place) brings it raw to the table for you to evaluate its size. It was a beautiful cut of meat. Beautiful. The owner was so cool too, he walked around the table, serving, talking to people, mocking his friends (I guess) and being nice. He even let me take a picture of him getting ready to cut a piece of the bistecca (oh yeah they’re freshly cut, ahem). Then the meat came in all of its glory and it was raw. It was so raw it was cold in the middle. I am not a fan of raw meat (I order meats “medium”, as opposed to the generally Brazilian preferred “medium-rare”), so I was worried. Maybe I wouldn’t like it after all. And then I took a bite. And then…

I died.

LOOK AT THIS

The meat tasted amazing. I never tasted anything like it. I noticed there was barely any seasoning to it, just a little bit of salt and pepper, but it was extremely tasty nevertheless. It was very quickly seared in the oven, which left the outside almost crispy, but the inside soft and juicy. JUICY AND DELICIOUS! It didn’t matter I was full, I had just eaten a plate of pasta and really, I wasn’t that hungry anymore. That meat was SO GOOD. It was so good, there was no way it would be left behind in my plate. Excuse me for not wasting amazing food.

Get this: the meat came with a side. A side of CHEESE - yeah. Grilled cheese topped with pears. It is a match made in heaven. The sweetness of the pear complements the cheese so perfectly. It looks pretty too!

Grilled cheese topped with pear

Dessert

And then we ordered dessert. I think we got several different things: a ricotta cheese cake thing covered in chocolate and nuts, another covered in caramel and I ordered biscotti and some type of liquor cause I was dying and I needed help making the food go down. After a shot of espresso, off we went to a loooong walk so that we could digest all that amazingness into our bodies’ system.

Honestly, I have no idea how much that entire meal cost. I’m guessing maybe a lot but it was worth it? Dad? Hehehehe

They have a website where you can check out a sample of their menu if you plan to go there (which you should!)… It seemed reasonable to me. It is a small place, so it’s less likely you’re going to get ripped off? I guess? In any case, it’s worth it. Absolutely worth it.

City: Montepulciano, Italy

Restaurant: Osteria Acquacheta

Food: Amazing

Service: Great

Price: €€ (?)

Mamak

It's been forever since I've updated my blog, mainly because I felt like it served a better purpose while I was traveling, and now that I'm not it's pointless. I moved to Houston about six months ago, and then got a job. Traveling became very limited to going to San Diego to visit my boyfriend, and so I thought maybe my food adventures weren't that interesting anymore. Lies!

Houston has many flaws, but lack of restaurant diversity is not one of them. You can find food from everywhere around the world here, along with loads of "fusion" cuisines as well. I admit I appreciate that about Houston. So, to make the most of my time here, how long might it be, I set out from the beginning to try new places to eat. FUN!

It's good that I work at a location that has several other businesses around, while it's also incredibly close to Chinatown (yes, we have one - at least Brazilians call it Chinatown). Now, that part of town can be very overwhelming and scary to go to - there are so many little cafes and restaurants to go eat at, some of them hidden, others with huge signs. Some restaurants don't have English menus, at others the waiters don't speak English. But once you get over your (I don't wanna say fear)... doubts, it is a whole new world and it is amazing.

Roti Canai and tea (left); noodle soups (right)

After being taken to some places, I've been feeling more confident to try out others on instinct. Mamak, however, was not an intuitive choice, because someone recommended it to me (along with what I should order). Mamak serves Malaysian cuisine, although there are other Southern Asian influences - Singapore, Indian etc. It was very cold day in Houston, and my coworker and I were craving some noodle soup. I was told the Singaporean Laksa Noodles were very true to their country of origin, so I was dying to try it.

First, we had an appetizer called Roti Canai. This is some kind of dough that is slightly fried, like a very thin pancake with a little bit of crustiness, that you dip in a curry sauce. So delicious. I mean, the little bread/pancake/crepe/pastry thing (seriously it's a mixture of all of these) by itself is already delicious, but the sauce gives it an uniqueness that I just love so much. Every time I go to a Malaysian restaurant I order this. So, so good.

Then, I got the Laksa noodles, as instructed. It's basically a curry noodle soup with pork, tofu, shrimp and egg. Yes. I know. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? I didn't know if I wanted a whole bowl of it, but because of the price ($7.99) we agreed that it probably wasn't that big and we should just order one each. Oh, the mistakes we make. The bowl was enormous. You can't really tell from the picture, but it was huge. I freaked out a little bit when it arrived and then I tried it.

The enourmous bowl of Laksa :)

Let me just make it clear that I love curry. I love it. And I was very excited for a CURRY NODDLE soup, because it's two things I love in one bowl. And the soup was great. Awesome. The curry tasted different, but delicious, the noodles were yummy, the tofu was squishy but good, the shrimp had great texture and the pork... well. The pork was a little bit of a disappointment. I was expecting saltiness, and it was sweet. It had a very distinct taste and I tried getting used to it, but I have to say I didn't really love it. I mean, I ate it, but compared to everything else, it was just not as good. The first bites were interesting, but towards the end it became too weird so I left a couple of pieces behind.

My coworker ordered a bowl of wonton noodle soup which she loved, except for the pork. All in all, I would definitely go back for that same exact meal, only I would share the Laksa, for sure. I ate all of it, but it was definitely too much food for a working day.


Restaurant: Mamak Malaysian Restaurant
City: Houston, TX
Food: Great
Service: Great
Price: $

Enoteca Corsi

I am procrastinating. 
I haven't been posting lately basically because of the ridiculous amount of work I have for the next month and a week until graduation. But today I had to procrastinate a little. I mean, I needed to. Whatever, I want to. It turns out writing about food is much more fun than writing about Colombia's drug trafficking problem, Cuba's relationship with the U.S. or U.S. intervention in Latin America. And also waaaay more fun than applying for jobs. And less stressful, might I add.

So, today I write about the day I spent by myself in Rome. Beautiful Rome. After two delicious weeks in Venice, Florence and Tuscany, my family and I came back to Rome, where my parents needed to catch their flight back to the US and A. My flight got out of Paris only two days later, so I stayed in Rome for one last day. It worked out perfectly because I would get to see the Sistine Chapel - which I hadn't done five years previously when I had been to Rome for the first time.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

You know what? I was a little disappointed. I must acknowledge that my experience was probably something uniquely disturbing but by the time I got into that Chapel, I was so mad I didn't even enjoy myself. It turns out they only open it during certain times of the day. BUT they don't let you know that. Oh, no! They make you go on and on, always pointing in the same direction, which leads into a circle that never ends BECAUSE THE CHAPEL IS CLOSED. They could've just told me that. Instead, they decided to make me walk the same exhibitions five times! I was so hot from walking around the museum I took off my sweater and eventually LOST IT. So, as I said, by the time I got into the Chapel I was just mad. Plus, you have to look up to see the most famous painting one - which is minuscule! The one of David's finger touching God's? Yeah, small. 

I don't know. Maybe it was the result of hunger (of course) and the being tricked thing, but I saw things that were much more appealing to me. Monet's paintings at the Musée d'Orsay, for example. Or his garden at the National Gallery. Honestly, I am not as moved by art as I probably should be. Live music does it much more for me than art does. Although I do like going to museums, I am not as emotional as I am when there's a band playing. Stop judging me!

But what is important is what happened after I got out of that horrible place and went straight to eat! I went to a place called Enoteca Corsi, right next to the hotel I had stayed with my parents, close to the Pantheon. From the name, one already infers that it is a wine place. I read in an article from the 90s (which was framed and hung right next to my table) that around then there was a move for enotecas to start serving lunch, which were generally homemade meals for a much cheaper price than local restaurants would charge. They only serve meals during lunchtime, however, which is what makes them different from regular restaurants. 

I was there at the right time then (1:30 in the afternoon). From a very appealing list of choices, I decided to go with the homemade meatballs with peas and roasted potatoes, all with extra olive oil to top it off (you can actually see it in the picture.) I have to say one thing first - I don't like peas. After I ordered this dish, I was asking myself what was wrong with me that I just ordered meatballs with stupid peas? Why not pasta?! (probably because I had already been eating pasta every day for the past 3 weeks but shhhh)
Turns out - you guessed right - the peas were actually a great addition to this meal. Since the meatballs had so much flavor and the potatoes were seasoned with rosemary, I would go for the peas almost like they were a palate cleanser. Seriously. The potatoes were delicious. They weren't crunchy nor mushy, and the rosemary worked perfectly with the meatballs. It did taste like a good home-cooked meal. 

The restaurant

The place was small, but not claustrophobic and the service was great. Although I must say I didn't really understand how exactly these places are supposed to have a more agreeable price. This plate, although simple it may seem, certainly wasn't a bargain. From what I remember it was around 14€, which sincerely is expensive.

Hidden little place

After dropping my stuff at the hotel, I decided to go for a walk and then back to a gelato place I had visited when I was with my parents. Happy decision. San Crispino is a small, almost hidden "gelateria" two streets down from the Fontana di Trevi. Their gelatos are divine. Simply divine. 

I decided to get a pistachio (I love pistachio gelato) and grape ice cream. Which were heavenly. Delicious. Delectable. Tasty. The shit. However you wanna put it.

I love Italian gelato.

The inside 

Yes - I took a picture of my gelato. I'm not even sorry.

The rest of the day I spent strolling around and doing sight-seeing. I got to see this around sunset:

Saint Peter's Basilic - NO FILTER 

Great ending for our Italy family trip. I miss it - the food, the time we got to spend together, the picture-taking, the making-fun of my mom, the beautiful cities... But especially the food :)

Restaurant: Enoteca Corsi

City: Rome, Italy

Food: Great

Service: Good

Price: €€

Also featured on this post was Il gelato di San Crispino - holy gelato! 

City: Rome, Italy

Gelato: Divine

Service: Super-friendly

Price: Cheap!!

Recipease

Ok, this is embarassing. So school has been kicking my ass and I actually almost forgot I had a blog and a lot to post about. And then I remembered I haven't even talked about my amazing time in London yet!

I went to London mid-December to visit a friend and some family and it was great! I ate so many delicious things, and visited so many places I had never even dreamed of seeing in my life. Now that i think of it, the entire time I was traveling (read: all 4 months I spent in Europe) everything felt so dreamlike that it seems very distant now. But I've only been back for a little more than a month, which is crazy - feels like forever.

Street art at Brick Lane

Back to what I saw and ate. For me, the best thing about London was the Brick Lane Market. My friend took me there on my first day and she could not have made me happier. The "market" is basically a flea market all over the street (Brick Lane). They sell everything and anything. But the best part is the big warehouses in the middle (or sides) of the market. Inside each warehouse you find dozens and dozens of food stands. From all over the world. It's insane. Right next to one another, you have Venezuelan food, Vietnamese food, Turkish food, Chinese food, Japanese food... the list goes on with much more exotic "food" than I could think of. I loved it and at the same time hated it.

YUM

 I loved because, duh, there it is, the most diverse selection of cuisines I will probably see in my entire life, and all of it is cheap and looks delicious. The environment is super chill, even though it was really full you never feel overwhelmed - unless you're like me and love food then you were just overwhelmed by the amazingness of the existence of such a place. 
But I HATE it. I hate it because it's so far from me now. And also because there is no way I could've chosen what I wanted to eat. Thankfully, my friend already had two places in mind, a Turkish crepe and a Japanese omelet. Sweet Jesus. I don't have any pictures because honestly I was starving and wanted to eat that so bad. But trust me: they were delicious. The Turkish guys at the crepe place were really funny, they would shove samples of their food into other peoples mouths... hilarious! Stuff like that could never happen in the US... :(
For dessert, we shared this beautiful and delicious carrot cake, from a booth called Sweet Food. The rest of the day we spent walking around the area, taking crazy pictures in a photo booth and designing our own Christmas cards...

Big Ben and Parliament

My last day in London we decided to go for a walk around Notting Hill. I love the movie and was really curious to see that part of town. My friend knows every single thing there is to know, including the best bookshops! We also went with a tip from a Brazilian blog, Escapismo Genuíno , to go visit Jamie Oliver's Recipease.

Recipease is a store/market/restaurant/kitchen where everything is happening at the same time. It is beautiful, its outside walls are all made of huge glass windows. When I walked in, the first thing I saw was food, basically sandwiches and small bites for sale. Beyond it, there was a huge kitchen island with chefs in the hollow middle. Around the island, on the countertops, there were several place-sets full of ingredients, tools and containers - for the class that was about to take place. Recipease offers cooking classes for everyone, and has a variety of options on what cuisine you can learn about too. And afterwards you get to eat what you cook, with a glass of wine. I thought it was really nice, but kind of expensive - for special occasions, I would say. It must be an amazing experience.

I wanted to dive in.

Besides the finger food and kitchen, there was also a market of fresh imported produce AND a kitchenware store (sold everything kitchen, from aprons to knives - there was even a heart-shaped chopping board.) Upstairs, There is another huge kitchen island like the one downstairs, and the restaurant. First, the decoration of the whole place is genius. It is so cozy and comfortable inside, even at the market and shop parts. The restaurant part has little niches full of sofa pillows for people to get comfy in and shelves full of books (by Jamie Oliver and others.) 

The decoration

More decoration - restaurant part

The choice was hard to make, but I wanted something different and inexpensive, so I went with carrot pancakes with hummus, feta and mache (or flowerdale sprouts?) salad. Delicious!!!! The meal in itself was filling but not stuffing and I loved the presentation. I like hummus, but too much of it can be dangerous, because I feel it can get tiring. However, the feta cheese and the salad balanced it out perfectly and the meal was delicious! For around £8, I thought it was reasonably priced. Definitely recommend it! 

Preeetty

Restaurant/Market/Cooking Lessons/Kitchenware shop: Recipease
City: London, England
Food: Good
Service: Good
Price: £

Totò - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year (22 days late)! After a long break, which was spent in lots and lots of restaurants acquiring new information for my blog, hence eating, I have the pleasure of writing this post. I hope I will accomplish my goal of awing everyone with this new post. Not because of my writing skills, which haven’t changed much, but by the food I have to present. This meal, ladies and gentlemen, was epic.

First, I must say I come from a culture where every single type of food can be sold in “all you can eat” style. In Brazil, we have the famous churrascarias, where meat is served to your table during the entire length of your meal – I know, amazing! This concept evolved through different kinds of cuisine, so now we have “all-you-can-eat” style sushi, pizza, pasta, and even beer! How crazy is that? You pay a certain amount and you sit at the bar and they keep the beers coming. Again: I know, amazing!

I recounted this to demonstrate that I am used to eating a lot. I love eating (big news), and I also like to get my money’s worth, so I would always dive in – who are we kidding? I still dive in!  So it was surprising that I – my extremely glutton self – would be impressed (and a little scared) of the Italian-style meals.

Me and my handsome "baby" brother

My dear family and I reunited on Christmas’ Eve in Rome, to start a trip of a lifetime through the beautiful country that is Italia. After Rome, we went to Venice and then to Florence for New Years. Our most pressing problem when we got to Florence was to find a good restaurant (we had an extensive recommended list) to have our celebratory capodanno meal on the night of the 31st. After seeing a lot of crazy-priced deals, we bumped into this little place called Totò which had a long list of plates and wine and champagne included in the 65€ per person fee. I know it seems like a lot, but the prices were not going any lower than that in the other restaurants. The place looked very Italian and smelled amazing when we walked in at 4 in the afternoon to make our reservation, so my parents decided to go with it. The menu was at follows:

·      A cart of antipasto

·      Gnocchi with truffle sauce and porcini mushrooms

·      Potato tortellini

·      Bistecca à la Fiorentina (T-Bone steak their style)

·      Florentine sausage

·      Deep-fried artichokes

·      House salad

·      House dessert

·      Wine

·      Champagne glass

·      Coffee

Let’s begin: the cart of antipasto was actually a cart! In the middle of the restaurant! With dozens of choices of antipasto! There was shrimp cocktail, octopus ceviche, prosciutto rolled in a breadstick, deep-fried olive-stuffed olive (!!!!!!!), chicken salad, roasted eggplant slices, boiled shrimp… and many other things that I couldn’t even try because I knew there was more food coming. And it did.

Genius!

The second part of the meal, also called “first course” in Italy, is almost always pasta. Amazingly enough, in the menu they had two different pastas listed – from which I assumed we would pick one, but no! Both came. Happiness… I have to say, the Potato-filled Tortellini (one of Tuscany region traditional plates) was delicious, but I am a sucker for mushrooms, especially when they are in a truffle sauce. Seriously, what can compete with that?! Mushrooms AND truffles. On colorful gnocchi. Beautiful! 

The third part of the meal, called “second course”, is generally a type of protein of some sort, such as beef, lamb, rabbit, sometimes fish. In our fortunate case, we got half of a T-bone steak grilled in Florentine fashion – a.k.a. wonderfully – and a Florentine sausage. The beef was very tender and cooked to perfection, still very red on the inside (they way it’s supposed to be) but almost crispy on the outside. It wasn’t the best we ate, but it was pretty good. The sausage was very different to me, used to the American southern usually over-processed sausages, because you could kind of feel the meaty texture in it. It was also divine. To accompany our outrageous meat selection we got fried artichokes and salad, which I obviously didn’t even touch – I was in too deep to care.

For meat lovers only

Artichokes

By the end of this, we were all on the verge of a food coma. Imagine pairing all of this with some bread and wine… two whole bottles of wine for three people (my mom barely drinks). But there was still dessert! The house dessert of choice was profiteroles. And then the glass of champagne came. I couldn’t drink all of it. Swear to God. I just couldn’t. There was too much in my system.

After this eating marathon, we had to walk somewhere, just to make this settle a little. The city was packed and there were free concerts going on in six different squares in the city for the 3809834723 tourists that were there (approximate number). We found a nice little spot in the Republic’s square, where there was a band playing bossa nova and then a jazz band came up. Dancing in the below freezing temperature of that Florentine night, we celebrated the coming of a new year, happy to be together.

Restaurant: Totò

City: Florence, Italy

Food: Great

Service: Good

Price: OK