Forking Tasty – On a Farm Outside Rome from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

I took a tour and explored the catacombs just outside the city of Rome and after they brought us to a farm for some cooking lessons. We were making Gnocchi that day and the eatin was good. I had a lot of fun watching this Italian women make Gnocchi for us all. She eventually had a few of the guests come up to help out. I wanted to join but there was no more room at the table. When it was asked who would like to help make Gnocchi (she didn’t ask because she did not speak a lick of english) I was busy stuffing my face and missed out. Maybe next time.

One of the things that is great when you’re a crew member on a ship is when you stay at a port overnight. This will allow some of the crew to go out to dinner, which is rare on cruises. We had an overnight in Quebec City, which has a lot of restaurants. I walked around town a little early that day, around 3pm, to scout out and ask some local shop owners about there favorite restaurants in town and the most authentic restaurants. I had a few places that were mentioned a couple of times and they were not to far from the ship. I rounded up a couple people and off we went.

We made it out around 9pm and headed to the closest restaurant to the ship that was recommended. They were packed and the only thing they could offer us was the bar but there was only 2 seats for the 4 of us. They didn’t even say it will be an hour or even a 2 hour wait, they just said they were booked. Off to the next restaurant ….. booked again! We were getting a bit hungry and frustrated at this point and passed an Italian restaurant called il Matto. It was really nice inside and they had a 1 hour wait, not just booked. We put our name down and went off to a pub for and hour and came back. They sat us right away.

Il Matto has a great décor and has been open less than a year. Huge giant pictures covered the walls and really cool chandeliers hung from the ceiling. One of the things I love that more and more restaurants are doing nowadays is having an exposed kitchen and we sat right next to it. Porteger!, as they would say in French.

We started with an very large Antipasto and a bottle of wine as seen above. And for dinner we got the Gnocchi Gorgonzola, Speghetti le keb, Spaghetti aux palourdes en sauce tomate piguante.

I was stuck between the Osso Bucco and the risotto seafood special. After a quick chat with the waitress I went with the special.
It was all delicious.

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

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 88 | Post-meal (1 hour): 109 | Insulin: 5 Units

Port Angeles Washington was my next American port. It is also where they filmed the Twilight movies. There is a scene in one of the movies where Bella and Edward go to a restaurant and Bella ordered the Ravioli’s. We needed to get those Ravioli’s. The restaurant is conveniently named Bella Italia.

My friend Leanne and I made reservations for a bunch of friends and the 2 of us. However, no one came so Leanne and I enjoyed a nice Italian dinner together. Leanne was set on getting the mushroom Ravioli’s in a creamy besciamella sauce that Bella ordered in the movie. She is a huge Twilight fan.

My decision was a lot harder. The special list that night had a lot of great choices. I was going back and forth between the Veal Ossu Bucco and the Parpardelle in brazed rabbit. The other thing I wanted to do was get lasagna for the table. I saw a lasagna come out as I was getting seated and it looked really good. I was not coming back to this port so I needed to make the right decision. After thinking about it and consulting with the waiter I went with the 2 specials. We got the rabbit for the table and I got the Ossu Bucco for my dinner. When in doubt… go with the specials.

Rabbit

Osso Buco

I definitely made the right decision. The rabbit was amazing. There was a crunch that was sprinkled on the top that made that meal delicious. The Osso Buco was tender and all the vegetable underneath made it a good combination. I think Edward made a good choice when he took Bella out to dinner.

We washed it all down with a nice Cabernet while we dipped our bread in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

It has been a really long time for me to go out for Italian food. It was a nice choice and a good company.

Casa Tua – Aruba from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 119 | Post-meal (1 hour): 95 | Insulin: 5 Units

My first time getting off the ship since I arrived was Aruba. We were there from the afternoon to late night so it gave me some time to go to the beach and get some dinner.

The beach was nice and the water was warm. The beach we stayed at for the day was behind Hotel Riu and the Westin. I did a little tanning with some friends before headed back to the ship to get ready for dinner. We ended up going to an Italian/Spanish Restaurant called Casa Tua. Casa Tua has 3 different restaurants, Pizzeria, Barcelona, and Mediterranean. We went to the Pizzeria. It was good, as you will see in the video. We had a table for 12 and we were celebrating a birthday, however the birthday boy left before he got his special flaming birthday dessert. We took care of that for him.

Jay and I headed out to Huntington Long Island to meet our family on the night of the past big storm. Driving was not the safest that night. The wind was blowing the truck all over the place and the rain was coming from all directions. However, we knew when we finally made it to Huntington we were in for a treat. Bravo Nader is a small restaurant that our family loves to go to. The food is always outstanding. We never order our entrée’s off the menu, EVER. Their specials are just that, special. We call ahead usually to make sure they have the Ossobuco special, seen above, because someone at the table has to have one so we can all try it. It’s Killer!! This table had the entire special list that night including two gigantic Prime Rib’s that Mr. Nader himself told us about on the down low. Here is a rundown of the special specials. There are so many I had to put them in a slideshow.

Special apps, dinner, and dessert

After we left the rain was still coming from all directions. Long Island was starting to flood and was loosing their power left and right. We spent the rest of the night in the dark playing a board game. No, I didn’t win but had fun playing one of the games I haven’t played since I was a kid. I wasn’t on my game. My mind was probably still focused on the delicious meal we ate at Bravo Nader.

When you spend 3 years aimed at one goal it is extremely important to recognize the milestones you reach while on your journey to that end. There is arguably no better way to celebrate these events with a great meal. The memory recall of a delicious meal can be savored for years. You know what I mean right? Remember your college graduation steak dinner, that first bite of your wedding cake or the final meal on your road trip across the country? Yeah, I knew you did. Adding taste into the sensory equation has an interesting effect on positive recall.

Last week just such a milestone was reached by one of my favorite, frequent eating companions. Preethi, who you have seen a lot of on the blog lately, landed herself a J-O-B. Being the caring boyfriend I am and a sucker for an excuse to indulge in a decadent meal I congratulated her and asked her to pick any restaurant in New York, my treat, to celebrate. Without hesitation she replied Frank Restaurant in the east village. Her hands down favorite spot in all of NYC is a small and homey space. It is always bustling with regulars and now tourists alike but the vibe is distinctly downtown local. The hosts, guests, bartenders and owners all smile and chat making the experience feel more like a family kitchen then a trendy restaurant in a trendy neighborhood.

We were seated up at the bar that looked over the cramped kitchen. A “drink-what-you-want-honor-system” bottle of barolo was placed in front of us along with 2 glasses of water and Preethi’s standard diet coke. Knowing way ahead of time what she wanted we were quickly settled on an order and got it into the kitchen immediately.

First out was this incredibly fresh stracciatella mozzerella over beautifully ripe tomatoes and crisp basil. Drizzled over the top was a touch of balsamic and some Extra Virgin olive oil.

Next up, a steaming bowl of squid ink linguini and marinara sauce and calamari. Perfectly done pasta soaked up just enough sauce to hold a burst of flavor in every fork twist full.

Our final course was the reason for Preethi’s fast reply when I asked her to choose a restaurant. Over the years this dish has become legendary for its size, taste and tenderness. The polpettone pictured below is one of Frank’s signature dishes. It looks like an over sized meatball but is so much more than that. It’s crispy outer shell protects the tasty and moist beef center of this softball sized entree. Red sauce drips down the ball and pools at the bottom of the plate where you can find a parmesan crusted potato au gratin that compliments the meat mountain with incredible accuracy.

You can tell by the grin on Preethi’s face that the reward was worth the work. Of course the next milestone is passing the bar. For that we might need two polpettones. Stay tuned for that post OMG!

Frank Restaurant
88 2 Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 420-0202
www.frankrestaurant.com

In Sanya China our goal was to hit the beach for a little while. We got in a cab and the cabby was supposed to take us to a close beach. The cabby kept driving and driving and driving. We must have passed about 4 beaches and we still were not where he was thinking of taking us. Finally we had him just pull over and we walked across the street from a bunch of hotels and plopped down on the beach. There was a little Tiki restaurant on the beach and it was the only thing around that was close that had food. This Tiki restaurant mainly sold Italian food. Italian food is the last thing I wanted on the beach let alone having Italian food in China. I should have known this was a sign of a crappy meal. The menu was interesting. It let me pick the noodle and the sauce for my pasta. I decided on a gnocchi Carbanara. Sounded great when I order it….then it came. I honestly had no clue what I was eating. The gnocchi was so large and it was totally a moosh festival. It was horrible and I ended up having to share the pizza my friend ordered which was worse than a frozen pizza. The only thing that was nice was the blue drink and the beach was right there. Ugh, Italian in china… never again. To make matters worse, the cab driver back to the ship kept putting his hand on my leg. The cabby kept laughing and I was also at first but after 4-5 times I had enough. Then he wanted my sunglasses and kept asking me for them. Getting back to the ship never felt so good.

You can’t hate a job that takes you into the heart of San Francisco, buys you a sandwich and lets you “work” in the park over looking the bay for an afternoon. That’s what went down a few days ago as the Buzz Team and I started work on our next set of BIG ideas. This video will give you a peek into where the “magic” starts and how we do what we do.

It was a holiday weekend and I headed up to Quebec City to meet Kelsey for 3 days. The Eurodam had a rare double over night and we took advantage. Quebec City is a fun little town with lots of restaurants, galleries, bars, clubs, a huge fort, and a lot of shopping. It was a beautiful day to just walk around town and there are all these café and bistros with outside seating. We decided to stop and have lunch at an Italian Bistro called Portofino. We started off with some brushetta and Provolone fondue. This was not the same type of fondue you would normally think of. I thought we were going to be dipping breads in melted cheese. The picture above shows what fondue is like in Quebec. It is almost like having a mozzarella stick. Even though it was different it was still really good. Course 2 was all fish. We love our mussels so we got a huge bowel of mussels in a wine sauce and fried calamari. We washed it down with a bottle of Pinot. Italian was a good kick off choice for the weekend and was looking forward to the rest of our meals.

Check out the rest of the pictures on flickr.