Great Bread and Cheeses from Eataly!

So, here is my last post (at this time) on this fantastic place that is Eataly! We went back to get some bread and some Italian cheeses. It was Sunday and it was packed! This is really a successful concept!

For the bread, we got a classic French baguette at a reasonable price. This bread was as good as the baguettes you can buy in a boulangerie in France! We even got some left that we toasted the next day for breakfast and ate with some butter and jam. That was a great tartine!

After that came the difficult choice of cheeses. Difficult because there were so many that looked so good! We decided to try 4 of them:

• A Talllegio (top) that is made of cow's milk: it is very cream, with a strong and tangy taste. Not too strong though.
• A capriccio (right): goat cheese, sweet and tangy.
• A Blu di buffala (blue cheese): made with pasteurized buffalo's milk. Its texture is semi-soft and becomes creamier at room temperature, with a very mild taste.
• Burrata: outer shell is made of solid mozzarella and the inside is cream. I added some kosher salt and some olive oil to it. This tastes so fresh!

To eat with the cheese, we picked a pear jam! It was awesome! The sweetness of the jam will counterbalance the strong taste of the cheese. You can also try to put butter on the bread if you do not like strong cheeses!

Last, I will mention the packaging of the cheeses that was very convenient: some kind of boxes. It is better than film, especially when you try to repackage what is left!

I am now a big fan of Eataly! There are some many choices for great meals that I will probably be there often...

Enjoy (I did)!

And remember: I just want to eat!

A taste of Eataly in New York City!

Eataly is a new market place in New York dedicated to Italian food. One of the partners is Mario Batali, a great Chef with a personality larger than life! His appearances in Iron Chef America are memorable and showed his excellent knowledge of Italian cuisine. 

Eataly is a huge place where you can either eat or buy Italian products. In fact, if you go there, you do not even need to buy! Just walk in the different aisles and discover the different products, mainly coming from Italy! They have meat, fish and seafood, bread, pasta, pizza, cheeses, sauces, cookies....They also sell books and kitchenware.
So, of course, I checked the bread: they have a wide variety and are even selling a very good French baguette for a reasonable price! I even saw an Epi (bot)! Then the cheeses! There are many: from goat to cow milk. A lot of them I did not even know!

If you are not in the bread and cheeses, they have amazing looking desserts. I did not try them yet, but they look amazing! I tried a crema cannolo though: crispy puff pasty filled with vanilla bean pastry cream. I was simply delicious, especially eaten with a nice expresso from Lavazza!

There are also restaurants: sandwiches, pizza or formal places.

We decided to try the sandwiches. Boy, were they good! The first one was peck & Tallegio (smoked prosciutto and Tallegio cheese) from North Italy. Tallegio is a cow's milk cheese that is creamy, strong and tangy. Apparently it is the perfect cheese for grilled cheese. This sandwich was awesome: the smokiness of the prosciutto paired very well with the creamy and strong taste of the cheese. And that bread! It was so good and crispy!
The second sandwich was a Funghi & Tallegio sandwich: it was made with four different kinds of mushrooms sauteed in garlic and thyme. The mushrooms were cut in small pieces that made it easy to eat. The sauteed mushrooms and the cheese were a good vegetarian alternative and tasted very, very good. I was scared at first that the mushrooms would overpower the taste of the cheese, but they did not!

Eataly is definitely a place to go to! And we went back, but it is another story...

Enjoy (I did)!

And remember: I just want to eat!

Great Dinner at Home ! Thank you Mario Batali!

I am a big fan of Mario Batali! I discovered him on Iron Chef America on the Food Network and he blew me away! Very creative, lots of humor, extremely talented. I got the chance to try two of his restaurants: Del Posto in New York and B&B in Las Vegas and it was a great culinary experience.

We went to Eataly in New York, the new marketplace of Mario (yes, I call him Mario) and I think I was drooling in every aisle (they were moping behind me)! I'll post something soon on it! 

So, wandering around in this market, we decided to buy some products to make a nice dinner. We picked whole wheat tagliatelle and a truffles and mushrooms sauce. The pasta were freshly made. I am not a huge fan of the whole wheat pasta, but these were good! In the instructions, they said to cook them for 2 to 4 minutes. I cooked them for 8 minutes.

Then there is the sauce. Imagine that: truffles and mushrooms! It was simply delicious! It had a delicate flavor, with a very subtle hint of truffle (with the price of truffles, they are of course not put a lot in it).

Definitely worth to try!

Great Italian Food at Morandi in New York, NY

I love Italian food! That's true that for most people, Italian food is associated to pizza, pasta and risotto. There is so much more (a good veal liver...). Now, the food has to be tasty and fresh, otherwise, I can make it myself at home, especially considering that lots of supermarkets or grocery stores sell delicious fresh pasta. By the way, for those who do not know: when cooking, you do not put the pasta in the water unless it boils!!!

New York has great Italian restaurants and it is not in Little Italy that you will automatically find them. Morandi is one of them. What is interesting is that the owner, Keith McNally (very Italian), opened many restaurants that have nothing to do with Italian food, but are very popular for New Yorkers: Balthazar, Pastis, Pravda... 

I really like the atmosphere of the restaurant: spacious, warm, rustic with its wooden tables and the bricks on the wall. The service is efficient and nice. 

Now, let's talk about the food: I went once for brunch and it was delicious. They have a mix between brunch standards (waffle, eggs...) and Italian specialties. This time, we went for dinner. We started with the burrata that is a cheese made of mozzarella and cream (the outer shell is made of solid mozzarella while the inside is made with mozzarella and cream - very creamy). It was served with roasted cherry tomatoes on the vine, some olive oil and a hint of balsamic vinegar. While eating it, you could feel the crystals of kosher salt. I really love the creaminess of the cheese inside: it is so refreshing.

For the main course, we tried two dishes:

• Pici al Limone that are hand rolled spaghetti with lemon and parmesan: first of all the pasta were awesome. Based on the taste, I would not be surprised that they make them. The sauce was very good too with not too much lemon, but enough to taste it (too much would have tasted like dish soap).
• Linguine alle vongole: pasta with clams,white wine and green garlic. This is my favorite. When I try a new Italian restaurant, I always try this one. It is a good test. Morandi definitely makes it perfectly. First, the clams are real clams, not from a can! There was a good quantity and they were very fresh. Second, the sauce was outstanding: I ate some of it with a spoon! It had a perfect texture (not too liquid) and the green garlic was not overpowering at all. The last part is the pasta: cooked al dente. Overall, a very, very, very good dish!

We finished the dinner with a Tiramisu. Unfortunately, it was not that great. The layer made with egg yolks and mascarpone did not have that much taste. Despite this, I will definitely go back to Morandi and recommend this restaurant!

Enjoy (I did)!

And remember: I just want to eat!

Restaurant review - Remi (NYC)

I LOVE Italian food. I know: I love any type of food! New York is a great city for italian food and there is no need to go to Little Italy to find a good one!

Remi is one of them. Located Midtown, Remi serves North Italian cuisine in a decor inspired from Venice (there is a big fresco of Venice on one of the walls). It is important to mention that they serve homemade pastas! I am always disappointed when I go to an italian restaurant and the pasta are not fresh: I can cook them myself! 

The menu offers a large variety of italian dishes that will satisfy all the palates: meat lovers, fish lovers and vegetarians. In term of appetizers, their Tuna tartare (First photo), served with avocado and cucumber is refreshing. The pairing of the tuna and the avocado works very well. For the main course, their Fazzoletti ai funghi selvatici, that you all understand is wide hand cut pasta with mixed wild mushrooms, garlic and white truffle sauce are worth the visit. Look at the color on the middle photo and you will understand that this dish was very appetizing! The gnocchi are good but a little heavy (not easy to find a restaurant that makes good gnocchi - try Forgione). I also tried the calf liver served with polenta and it was delicious. The polenta was creamy, not dry, and the liver cooked to perfection.

For dessert, the Tiramisu (last photo) is very good as well as the Ricotta cheese cake that is served with caramelized pears and a raspberry sauce (yum!). 

I definitely recommend this restaurant, but be aware that its prices are on the high side.

Enjoy (I do)!