Forking Tasty

Eating Barcelona

I could live here.

That’s what I thought after my first visit to this city. Each subsequent visit always reenforces this desire. Barcelona’s bright culture, food, architecture and people can’t help but become infectious. In Barcelona the creativity is loose, curvy, spontaneous, random and risky. Spain as a whole is creative, partially a bi-product of a country that’s seen it’s share of strife and hardship, with everything they do. With a different flair than Italy and a slightly less structured approach than the Dutch, the Spanish have cultivated a culture that emanates energy, passion and excitement for life. Barcelona is the modern Spanish city that best allows visitors to embrace and experience this. I recently spent a solid week in Barcelona enjoying the 60 degree December weather, eating the freshest seafood around and finding creative inspiration in every building, museum or meal…

RECAP-REEL TASTY: King Kong

Talk about a backdrop.

It’s very rare that we pull off a dinner that has such direct connection between the location and the film we’re screening. This was that kind of perfect storm. I moved into my office on 34th and fifth about two years ago. Day two I wandered up to the roof and saw the Empire State Building looking down on me. To my left was the perfect movie screen (found on the side of the building just south). From that moment I’ve been working with the Wework crew, the owners of the building, to make this event happen. A few weeks ago my vision of Dinner with King Kong under the Empire State Building became a reality.

For those who are unfamiliar with our dinners, Reel Tasty is Forking Tasty’s summer supper club where we screen a movie on a 2 story building while our guests sample some of our latest and tastiest gourmet creations. For this one we decided to pick some of our favorite NYC neighborhoods to inspire the cuisine. Although we screened the original 1933 film, no CGI for us, we chose recipes that…

Eating San Francisco

I left my heart and confused my brain!

San Francisco definitely has my heart. I consider it the only other place I have really lived other than NY. I sometimes dream of moving back for the landscape, weather and food. Unfortunately my hyper active, NYC brain quickly reminds me that I love NY for many reasons San Francisco sometimes seems to lack. This struggle will never end. The conflict will flip flop in my brain depending on the season, the day and sometimes even the bite.

This year I have been there a lot. It’s not a cheap city but it is possible to do on the cheap. Below is a mix of those cheap and NOT so cheap possibilities. The itinerary covers a tasty and fun tour of my second favorite city in the US.

I Want To Join A Burger Club… This Burger Club?

The Southerner and I had a tough morning trying to figure out the perfect place for a Brunch/Lunch. The first place we thought of was to far away, the next place was BYOB, the next place was cash only, ugh! We decided to head to Il Bambino which you may remember from our Wich Hunt episode 2. We finally both agreed and were off and we were starving. Then all of a sudden on our way to lunch we hit a street fair….

Moti Mahal vs Tayyabs

You can’t go to London without having some Indian food. It’s so synonymous with British cuisine that it’s referred to as, well…British cuisine. On this trip I hit two semi-famous local spots. They were drastically different in ever way; location, ambiance, food and price. I’m going to take them one by one to breakdown the tasty and terrible but know now they are both outstanding in their own way. First up…

Lil’ Tasties

Now that I’ve been married for a year, the questions about kids have crept back into the Sunday dinner conversation. Little hints pop up here and there like baby carrots in our salad or wine served from sippy cups. You know those subtle Italian and Indian parents, so gentle. Well, unknown to them we have been cultivating our own crop of lil’ tasties. With the help of IKEA, our little guys are pretty grown up and were ready to journey out into the real world for a little adventure. Last week Carmine Carrot, Bruno Broccoli and Sophia Strawberry boarded the Box Express heading off on a world wide tour ultimately landing in Washington DC. They are stopping there to visit their new friends Roman and Vera whom they met earlier in the year. So far they seem to be having a great time and learning a lot about the world. We’ll keep you posted on their adventures and whereabouts from time to time. For now, this is about as close to kids as we are going to get. So take those rubber nipples off the cordial glasses please.

Lobster 7 Ways

This story is all about the challenge to out do last years dinner. Before we get into that there are a few things I’ll quickly clear up so you’re up to speed. Italian Christmas Eve is traditionally referred to as “The Feast of the Seven Fishes”. To understand the history of this Italian tradition and its origins, read this. To understand the Anello’s bastardized version of this yearly feast, review this or this. Now that that’s out of the way let’s get to the meat of the post, or should I say “the crustacean”.

Taking the seven potential fish dishes and focusing them on one fish done seven ways was a formidable challenge. It was first proposed back in September by my Uncle Brian, the ring leader of Anello/Nardone over-indulgence. Taking the challenge under consideration he and I began swapping recipes to attempt a sort of coup de grace Christmas Eve feast. The jury is still out whether we succeeded. Never-the-less, the next page has all the dishes and stories from the front range (electric BTW) on what worked, broke, surprised and wowed…

Thanksgiving in Canada

I bet yesterday was a rough day back. I hope you all had as amazing and as restful a Thanksgiving weekend as I did. I clocked in with an average of 8.5 hours of sleep per night. That’s unheard of in this family. Well rested and well fed I share with you a few of the delicious, authentic, fresh and traditional goodie’s my amazing mother-in-law whipped up for our London, Ontario Thanksgiving weekend starting with the above channa masala.

To set the tone here’s a little video of…

Nuptial Nosh

As promised this post is all about the food at my wedding. Although, it is 3 months tardy. I can’t really believe how quickly the time has past. I am not exactly sure what happened but a little 48 hour mini-honeymoon in Philadelphia this weekend (stay tuned for that post soon) reminded me of what happens when my wife and I are left to plan eating a day at a time. Before we get into all this I feel compelled to give some of you a bit more context on the days events. First off, I married the Canadian. I have been coy in keeping her identity a bit secret over the years in this blog. Now that she is officially in the family you can expect some guest posts.

The Canadian, in case you have not followed the sloppy hidden path backwards to her identity, is of pure Indian decent. Her wonderful parents, my new in-laws, are from Bangalore and Mysore so her South Indian roots run deep. This has everything to do with the day starting with a traditional South Indian breakfast in the Gnesha temple in flushing Queens. The fact that we visited a year prior just to eat in the temple canteen, as did Tony Bourdain, heavily influenced our decision to have our ceremony here. Breakfast was straight from the heart of what South Indians eat daily and the preparation was…

Finally Good Italian Food After 4 Months

Forking Tasty – Philippe’s, San Diego from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

It has been a while since I have had some good italian food. When we port in San Diego there is an information booth across the street and I went in to get a map to Little Italy and asked for some recommendations. I really needed a Chicken Parm sandwich in my life, you know what I’m talking about. The lady at the front desk recommended Philippe’s. Yes, it is the touristy attraction but this place has been around since the 50′s. Little Italy is on India St and you can find Philippe’s at:
1742 India St
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 234-1684