Kevin72

Alberto, is the Roman pizza crust you described similar to pizza bianca, or is that a different thing altogether? I'm wanting to track down pizza bianca after reading about it in Cooking the Roman Way.

Will you be going into any of the Hill towns? Any must-eat restaurants or dishes?

I kind of wondered about that when I was watching it. In fact, I learned that from none other than Alton himself.

These are good lists for future reference and I'm surprised how many Plano-ites we have here! I've been wanting to try Jasper's for quite some time.

Trastevere and Testaccio are two neighborhoods that supposedly have a high concentration of locals, though I'm hearing Trastevere has now been "discovered". I'm going next week and when we get back I'll get a thread going of where we went and eating highlights.

I had no idea that the "fractal" was so geometric over there. We get them here and the patterns are noticeable but much less pronounced, and it looks much more like a cauliflower. What's the name of the grassy veg? How were the cardoons cooked?

--And $2 Bloody Marys! We just went to the new Plano one last Sunday.

You've pointed out a number of holes in the dining scene that I've noticed myself. When thinking about the list I suddenly realized I had no Mexican places on it. You've got lots of taguerias to choose from as Richard has pointed out on his threads. Upscale Mexican there's also Lanny's Alta Cocina in FW which I have yet to go to. French I'm not so well versed on so I'm at a loss to point you to a good spot. As for bakeries I've given up and just hit Central Market or Whole Foods.

Here's mine. This is why I put in the caveat that they don't have to be in any order, since I couldn't figure out what order they'd be in (quality? most frequently ate at?). So, sort of but not really in order: 10. Snuffer's (Many locations including Addison and Plano)--This is our once a year, "who needs to live til they're 90?" place to go and just break the calorie bank. My wife and I have both had some not-serious medical procedures done where you had to fast beforehand, and this was our choice both times to go eat at as soon as the anesthesia wore off! Cheese fries with ranch, cheesburger, the whole magilla. Tied or honorable mention in this category is WingStop, which I guess we actually eat at more often, but I just remembered it and I don't want to rearrange my list! 9. Cafe Sarajevo, aka Broadway Pizza (Carrollton)--Haven't even been able to get in the door at Fireside yet, so for now this is my choice for pizza. And really I'm sure they're not even in the same category: this is more the gooey, guilty-pleasure pizza place and not the high end artisinal pizzas at Fireside. The owners are, obviously, from Sarajevo and are making manuevers to overhaul the place to more reflect their heritage. They FINALLY got a bar in there and last time we were there had a number of entrees from that area. I felt guilty just sticking with the pizza. 8. Caravelle (Upper Greenville and Main (Beltline))--We eat here more frequently for lunch, but usually can't resist swinging by on our way back from Houston driving up 75. I love Vietnamese and this is my choice for best in Dallas. 7. The Green Room (Deep Ellum)--"Low" on the list because it's more of a splurge, high-end dining sorta restaurant, so we don't eat here that often, but when we have the means and/or occasion, it and the next two are our three that we most often pick from to go to. Some of the best quality meals of my life have been there. But it is a place where you can definitely tell when the head chef is off that night. The dishes, while well-executed, just don't "sing" creatively like they do on, say, Friday or Saturday nights. Also, the last two times we had been the service was pretty curt and perfunctory. 6. The Grape (Greenville)--Like Green Room, a special occasion type place. Love the seasonal changes in the menu, especially in the Spring. Baked brie is of course the must-have every time we go. 5. Mi Piaci (Addison) --An annual frustration I get to endure when the Dallas Observer does its best of issue is seeing Mi Piaci get snubbed as Critic's Choice for Best Italian. Instead, the honor usually goes to the criminally overrated Arco Doro/Pomodoro. I've been three times and each time have been disappointed to the point of being angry. Anyways, rant over, Mi Piaci is my best Italian pick. It had been in sort of a lull but when we went last summer for the first time in a while it was excellent all around, particularly the service. 4. Jinbeh (Several locations including Frisco, Irving, and Lewisville)--Our go-to for sushi. Regrettably the outlet in Irving is so far from Plano; their range of entrees and appetizers is much more wide-ranging. 3. Dodie's II (Carrollton)--Once the weather cools off I start getting twitchy for oysters, so we head here once every few weeks from November-April. A friend of our's used to work there and introduced us to the owner, who always greets us warmly when we go. 2. De Tapas (Addison) --if there's a "happy place" for me in all of DFW, it's sitting on the patio at De Tapas in fall or spring, a plate of their cured meats, olives, and cheeses laid out before me, and I'm working on our second pitcher of sangria. Nothing mind-blowing but so comforting and homey. It gets authenticity points from me since we've been many times and have only heard Spanish being spoken at tables nearby. Had our rehearsal dinner here and everyone raved. 1. Zorba's (Plano)--Another Dallas Observer frustration is watching them fawn over Ziziki in place of Zorba's. This is number one because this is the first place we think of when one of us says "Let's go out tonight." We've gone here twice a week sometimes. Whenever we've taken visitors or friends here they've loved it. My job was particularly stressful last year and whenever it got too much to handle, that night we'd go here with a bottle of red to kill. Went there last Saturday and saw that they are rightfully expanding, and I think have even applied for a liquor license. I'm a bit ambivalent about it: happy for them and their business, but sad because I love bringing a bottle of my own to places. That's it. Again, a "best of" list would be different, longer, and include a few places not mentioned, and even exclude some of the ones I've got above.

So there's lots of threads here about what are the best restaurants in the DFW area. But where do you go most often when you eat out for dinner? What are your reliable standbys? What prompted this is that my wife heard that when people go out, there's usually a running list of seven (?) places they most often choose from to go to. I've been googling for 20 minutes now trying to word the question right and come up with a source but have been unable to, if anyone can confirm this or has the source handy please pass it along. To make it a little more interesting though let's make it an even 10, and let's keep it as going out for dinner, as lunch and breakfast standbys complicate things a bit. Choose the places you feel are most reliable, places you've been to several times and usually get a good meal. if you can, state why you like them or favorite dishes or memories there or whatever. They don't have to be in any order, and honorable mentions are welcome.

The setup: I turned on the wrong burner, which happened to have a glass-top pasta pot lid over it. Come into the kitchen after a few minutes and realize what has happened. Here's my internal dialogue. I reach for it instinctively and then stop short. "Hoo, grabbing a lid that's been sitting on a burner for a few minutes? THAT would have been one for the 'I Will Never Again' thread on e-G, eh? Okay, just grab it with tongs and put it somewhere to cool off. Better hurry, it's starting to smell like the sealant's melting. Careful . . . careful . . . got it! Now where to put it? The sink! Good idea! " >splash< "Hmm. Maybe I should have let that cold water out first, it may not be good for the glass---" CCCCCCCccccccccccccccccrakkkk! Next ten minutes are spent fishing glass out of the bottom of a sink filled with water. Pretty much was a no-win situation from the start, I guess.

Dammit, even your wildlife photos are perfectly poised! Looking forward to tracking down burrata in Puglia when I'm there. Good to hear about the buffalo mozzarella. I was always wondering if I was missing something when I was unimpressed by it. But like you said, I've also heard the flavor diminishes rapidly after production, even within 24 hours!

What about tapas and mezze, then?

One that I do that never fails to truly stimulate the appetite is to make little stuffed fried dough fritters. Make a recipe for pizza dough, then cut out circles about 4-5 inches in diameter. Put a dollop of ricotta or mozzarella (or both) and maybe oregano and parsley in the center, fold them over and seal them. Deep fry them until golden on both sides. You better have the next course ready when they're gone!

Cool, thanks! I always felt bad not getting stuff at Siegel's but everytime I was down there I had already stocked up at Jimmy's.

Thanks for the kind words, MP! I guess I better get used to this sensation I get around the end of the month where I feel like there's so much I haven't cooked from the current region, and yet I'm really looking forward to the next region. Right now I feel like I haven't adequately represented the Veneto, particularly by cooking so few risotto dishes. Also, since we're backing off of meat for Lent (more just to give us a break from richness of the Holidays) I haven't really cooked much from the inland areas that use lots of wild fowl. One dish I wish I'd had the time to make was peverada, a roasted partridge or pheasant or guinea fowl with a sauce made from its mashed up gizzards, lots of black pepper, and oranges. Likewise I didn't get to cook pastisadda from Verona (see the horsemeat thread for details--but I'd use beef instead!). Or grilled steak topped with mushrooms and radicchio, or duck valle sale, or risotto alla Chioggia, or . . .

I think it's a law of mandoline ownership that you cut yourself in one of your initial runs. I got one last year and I think the second or third time I was using it I was just gliding along without pausing to readjust my fingers (I'm wincing just writing this!). A few months later we were at my parents' and I dug out my mom's never-opened mandoline to use for dinner that night and sure enough . . .

My mom was a great cook and maybe I've defensively repressed her lesser meals, but the one that stands out is a salmon loaf. Inedible, and there was no pretense on anyone's part when they ate it to say otherwise. Even she was perplexed at in what world it was supposed to be good.

I didn't know that had a temprorary location, crap! Need to get down there!

Patience, Hathor, I can't give it all away! Weekend's cooking: Friday was grilled polenta topped with marinated and grilled radicchio and portabello mushrooms. The mushrooms and radicchio were both marinated in olive oil, red wine vinegar, lots of garlic, mashed anchovy, thyme and rosemary. I've been using the squat Verona style radicchio for all my cooking. The elongated Treviso variety are hard to find, $6 a head when I can find them, and fairly small. Saturday's meal: Aperitivo: Spritz Antipasto: Scallop and basil frittata Primo: Baked tagliorini with shrimp, peas, and leeks Secondo: Striped bass with a potato crust Venice has given the world two great cocktails: the Bellini and its cousins, and the far less known and somewhat bastardized spritz. More commonly you see the spritzer which is wine and club soda, but with the spritz you mix in a little citrus juice and a dash of bitters. It is refreshing and really gets the appetite going. The scallop frittata is from a Molto Mario episode based on Paradiso Perduto, a trattoria in Venice that Mario speaks quite highly of. It's along the Miserchordia canal in far North Venice, along with many other interesting looking restaurants. Unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity to go as we were there on its closing day (Wednesday). If anyone reading this has been, or been to any of the authentic little gems we saw near the Miserchordia canal, please share. The primo was baked tagliorini with shrimp, peas, leeks, and bechamel. It was a combination of another Mario episode and a recipe in the da Fiore cookbook: And again, just a taste of the exotic: the bechamel was simmered with just a dash of cinnamon, nutmeg, and bay leaves to give it a more complex flavor. The secondo was baked striped sea bass with a potato crust, from the da Fiore cookbook. Finishing the night off we had frisee and radicchio salad and more of the banana-ricotta gelato from Valentine's. Sunday was a tribute to Antica Trattoria da lAmelia in Verona. We went to Verona right after Venice and found it an excellent counterpoint to Venice and a great way to decompress from the tourist crowds. The people in Verona were the nicest we met on our whole trip. So far, it's my choice for the city in Italy I'd most like to live in. A great mix of modern, medieval, and ancient Roman influences, but small enough to where you feel comfortable and not just part of the tourist hordes. Anyways we were wandering along the Adige river after dinner the night we were there and I spotted this trattoria and checked out the menu posted outside. It looked really interesting (despite the English translations, but more on that in a minute), quite different from Venice's seafood extravaganza; much more robust and fitting of the hilly and mountainous terrain we were in. So we decided to stick around a little later the next day and try it for lunch. The next day we lingered around and pestered the owners a couple times about when they opened and were they open yet, etc. etc. Finally we walked in right on the opening time, while the staff was still eating their lunch, no less. Our hostess was a cross between the German and Italian grandmother archetypes, apple-cheeked and insisting we eat more, more, and more, and then hugged and kissed us when we left. The chef was a gruff grumbly type who spent equal time in the kitchen and stomping about fixing this and that in the trattoria. Really a great place I thought. Incidentally, this is the place I referenced in the menu misprints thread on the General Food board. The English translations on the menu are headscratchers, for sure. The consensus seems to be that it was translated by way of an online site, probably the same ones I'm using when corresponding in Italian with our propective hotels for our trip! Here's the actual website for the place, but again, don't be put off by the translations and check it out if ever you're in Verona: http://www.trattoriaamelia.com/index.html One of the items we ordered was what I made last night: porcini-stuffed gnocchi with a taleggio cream sauce and radicchio. A height of autumn in the mountains dish, everything we went to Italy in the fall for in the first place. Arrgh I can't get the damn focus to work. This unfortunately is the best of the 5 shots I took! So the gnocchi dough is folded around finely minced reconstituted dried porcini and then sauced with taleggio and cream and finely shredded radicchio. One interesting thing I've noticed about the cooking of the Veneto is that they use radicchio almost as one would herbs to garnish a dish, in addition to being part of a salad or as a vegetable component. Wine note: with the meal we drank a 2000 Ca'Pitti Valpolicella Classico which we actually bought in Verona. It was pretty stringent-tasting at first but with the food it mellowed quite well and helped cut the richness of the sauce. It also took on a floral or nectar-like finish later on. Normally I don't notice these things but it was quite pleasant. Wine rant: the store I shop at recently restocked, and now have a number of inexpensive Friulian whites that weren't available to me last month when I was cooking from that region. Finally, I made some Venetian-style bread from Carol Field's Italian Baker book. It's called rossette Veneziana, and while it is normally a recipe for dinner rolls, I kept the dough in one whole loaf rather than breaking it up. Haven't tried it yet.

This pictures are damn near heartbreakingly beautiful. Just a different way of living than I can get in the States, unfortunately. What's the weather like there? How cold is it?

Verona, Italy is known for a number of horse and mule dishes. I saw an all-horsemeat butcher in either Venice or Verona but I can't remember where now. I can't remember where I read this and I apologize if I'm furthering a myth, but apparently the reason Verona has so many horsemeat dishes is that they were besieged in the Middle Ages. Lots of dead horses lying around after the battles, so . . . Anyways, I'm intrigued enough to try it, but I didn't have enough wine in me or my wife when when it was on the menu of the place we were eating at.

Hathor, one last note on saor: I'd be reluctant to say there is one authoritative type of vinegar used, though the most common one I've seen is red vinegar. In the da Fiore cookbook, however, they give a saor recipe with lemon and orange juice in place of vinegar and I'm itching to try it, although I'm not sure I will get the opportunity. I can't believe it's the last week of the month already and there's so, so much left I'd still want to cook. The only other new dish this week has been bigoli con salsa. Bigoli are traditionally a fresh whole wheat pasta that is extruded. In one of my books they show an old fashioned bigoli press which is attached to a bench and you screw down a large press that forces the bigoli through. They come out very rough-edged. The more "modern" method is to put them through a meat grinder with the grinder parts removed. Lacking both, I instead got standard, dried, whole wheat pasta. Salsa is a sauce of anchovies, diced onion, and parsley. Further inland, bigoli are sauced with duck ragu. I ordered these in Verona and was very disappointed to be served a plate of standard dried semolina spaghetti, so I didn't get the opportunity to have the fresh, fat, whole wheat strands. No pictures, brown pasta with a brown sauce isn't very photogenic. And Adam's fantastic compositions in his Tuscan thread are intimidating me.

She buys stuff without knowing what to make with it. Six weeks later I'm digging said item, now liquified in its bag, out of the back of the fridge.

Thanks Adam. I'd heard about the technique of wrapping the loin in the skin or belly before, but now I can't remember where. I usually do a porchetta at Easter and use the loin, also. I got to finally try the real deal at Mercato Centrale but it was minutes before the stall closed and it was served cold.