Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

Ciao amici! Yesterday we felt the warm hospitality of Italy at the Ospitalita'Italiana: The Authentic Italian Table.  The event was hosted by the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce at the Metropolitan Pavilion.  We had an amazing and classy evening and we got to witness all the best of Italian culture all in one room without having to hop on a plane. When we entered, the first thing I saw was a dimly lit room full of beautiful and beautifully dressed people.  Certainly check the box off for handsome Italian men in suits.  I wasn't too  badly under-dressed, but it had been raining and I looked so silly clomping around in my rainboots.  People were clinking glasses and double-cheek-kissing all around.  It all felt so Italian! I got to sit on a Vespa, so that was fun! Then, we quickly made a beeline for the food, of course!  Imagine if you will all your favorite dishes in Italian cuisine, and chances were they were served at The Authent...

At long last, we meet you Marta! Marta is an Italian restaurant in the lobby of the Martha Washington hotel in Gramercy/Flatiron.  It opened a little over half a year ago, and it was nearly impossible to get a reservation.  Marta was the talk of the town.  I read a review in Time Out New York that brought tears to my eyes and saliva to my mouth; I want to know what pizza crust shattering like fine blown glass tasted like!!  I follow them on Instagram and all their photos are mouth-wateringly enticing.  We tried getting a table on a walk-in once in January and were told it would be a three hour wait.  Was the hype worth it?  Turns out...YES! Reservations are a little easier to come by now.  We popped in for lunch today and were greeted with a sexy/dark/minimalist aesthetic and massive cherry tree branches in vases sprouting to the ceiling.  The wait between ordering and pizza reception was a little longer than I anticipated...

In New York City, you often hear the names of hip and popular restaurants being thrown around.  One of these hallowed eateries that I've oft heard but never tried is Locanda Verde.  It has been featured on plenty of Food Network shows and highly rated on Yelp and Eater NY and all that jazz.  It had been on my NYC foodie bucket list for a while, and we finally had the opportunity to dine there!   Dinner at Locanda Verde was a highly cherished occasion for me.  Apparently, reservations at Locanda Verde are also highly cherished, since it was packed on a weeknight and it took a lot of sweet-talking to get us in. We had dinner with Alex's gregarious and wonderful cousin Sam and Sam's beautiful and talented girlfriend, Jenn - both of whom are very dear to me.  It was one of those meals you hope would never end: romantic, delicious, and shared with good company. Locanda Verde rocks a very sexy vibe, if that makes sense.  It's dark inside, eve...

Last week, yours truly and yours truly's co-blogger had a molto romantico dinner at Osteria Morini in NoHo.  You will frequently find me enthusiastic about Italian restaurants ( Otto , Tommaso , Giacomo , etc.) because Italian food is just so gosh darn delizioso (okay, I'll stop), but Osteria Morini is on a whole different level.  Yes, it's a little bit more expensive than the standard Italian fare, and it is probably very crowded on the weekends, but so worth it. We were seated in a nice quiet corner in the back, between one couple who could have been Chinese dignitaries and another couple who could have been Italian celebrities from the way the waitstaff came to ask them repeatedly how they were finding everything.  Meanwhile, we splurged on a meat and cheese plate (speck, bresaola, felino salami, pecorino, and squacquerone) and buttered spinach.  I had the Garganelli pasta dish and Alex had the Grigliata Mista di Carni. The meat and cheese plate...

In our part of Bensonhurst, very little remains of the old days of the neighborhood.  There's Alex's dry cleaner that is closing down shop after fifty-two years in that same spot in the strip mall next to Food Dynasty.  There's Mona Lisa Bakery, but we don't talk about that anymore .  There are a few good no-frills-but-delicious-food Italian restaurants and bakeries on 18th Avenue: West End Bakery, Il Colosseo, and the like.  But right on the corner of Bay 8th Street and 86th Street is Tommaso's Restaurant, an unassuming but quaint storefront that's been there for as long as I can remember.  In twenty four years of residence in Bensonhurst, never have I stepped foot into Tommaso's until now, and boy was I missing out! It was date night.  Where, oh where, can we grab a nice meal that's not Paco's Taco's or Outback Steakhouse?  We ventured past Tommaso's tiny outdoor patio and into a very homey, rustic-looking restaurant space.  Instantly...

Today, I had a beautiful lunch at Otto Enoteca Pizzeria and it made me realize and appreciate how life-changing good Italian food can be.   In pictures ripped from my Instagram: We had a few cheeses to start, accompanied by my favorite truffle honey .  Gladly, no one else in my dining party was such a fan, so I hogged the whole dish and proceeded to drizzle it on absolutely everything!  I had a delicious arugula prosciutto pizza, which oddly means I had pizza a grand total of four times this week (and lasagna twice more...YOLO).  In hindsight, I'm in awe of the fact that I had Italian food so frequently this week by some random coincidences, but it's all been delizioso . Posts from our other Italian eating adventures to come!

Tutti a tavola a mangiare! Famous sign off phrase of Lidia Bastianich, Italian chef and TV personality, meaning "everyone to the table to eat!".  (Fun fact: Though her cuisine is Italian, she's from a region of Italy that is now in Croatia.  I dunno, I always thought this trivia about her was so interesting, and an insight into how country borders can change so arbitrarily.) Lidia (I pretend I'm on first-name basis with her) has a very cute restaurant in Manhattan's Theater District.  As you walk down West 46th Street, you realize why it's nicknamed Restaurant Row: dozens of restaurants and bars stacked upstairs and downstairs and all next to each other.  I say "upstairs and downstairs" because most of the restaurants are three steps down from street level and upstairs are beautiful brownstones.  It's all quite romantic in the evening hours, with twinkling lights and the people milling around. Becco is one such restaurant that Lidia o...

Shout out to my girls, Christie and Julia! When one of my girlfriends said we were going to have dinner at a place called Tommy Lasagna, the image I conjured in my mind was of a rustic stone chamber with a rickety wooden table and splintery chairs, a kindly portly grandma serving us pasta with her famous Sunday sauce and pouring wine from a jug of grape juice she fermented in the cellar, and the candlelight casting long shadows against the wall.  Y'know, something romantic and picturesque and smacking of Italia . Tommy Lasagna was sort of the exact opposite, but the food was equally as delicious and the whole experience was divine.  Tommy Lasagna is in the Gramercy neighborhood of Manhattan.  Its decor is sleek, modern, and minimalist - nothing like the rustic, rural Olive Garden-esque wannabe I had in mind.  My dining companions were starving by the time I arrived, so we ordered quickly and we maaaaaay have experienced that "your eyes are bigger than your ...

If a place sells baked goods, there's a good chance Alex and I will pop in for a whiff and a taste of its goodies.  One of our favorite places to visit is the traditional Italian bakery.  I'm fortunate to have a few of these near me in Bensonhurst, and we've gone around to Ferrara's and Veniero's in Lower Manhattan.  Another cutesy Italian bakery right near NYU is Rocco's. As per the Rules of Italian Bakery-ship, there is a vast glass counter filled with a huge variety of pastries, cakes, cookies, and nibbles.  The sensory experience of an Italian bakery is unmistakable and intoxicating; the eyes take in the glistening pastries, the nose picks up whiffs of dough and powdered sugar and sweet almonds, and the mouth starts to drool.  The staff bustle behind the counter, taking orders and packaging goodies. This trip, we had a napoleon and a key lime mini pie.  I liked the napoleon, though the cream was too sweet for my taste, and the key lime pie ...

Alex lives down the block from a local neighborhood-y place called Mona Lisa Bakery.  They are known primarily for their Italian pastries (my family used to buy cheesecake from their old storefront on Bath Avenue and it was a joy for little ol' me to stand and gawk at the beautiful cookies and cannoli in the glass case), but they also serve sit-down meals of pizza and pasta.  I've eaten here a handful of times because it's so nearby, the prices are decent, and sometimes you just crave Italian food like someone's nonna makes it.  This weekend, however, having dinner at Mona Lisa Bakery was among one of the worst ideas ever to strike a human's brain. When we entered the restaurant, it was Live Music Saturday.  Not like a saxophonist playing jazzy tunes in the corner.  Rather, like a busty 50-something blond lady in a red sequin dress (which had an inappropriately-high slit) singing karaoke in front of spinning strobe lights.  We were a party of five ...

What more could you ask for on a Friday evening than the company of your closest friends, beautiful weather, pizza, and ice cream? Last Friday night (TGIF), I had just those four things as I dined at Peppino's in Park Slope.  Peppino's is a brick oven pizzeria with an intimate, rustic-looking dining area.  Eight of us were gathered around a table, practically salivating after a long walk to get there.  We split a meal, family style, consisting of an antipasta dish, two salads, and three small pizzas (margarita, alla vodka, and diavolo). The food was pretty standard Italian cuisine, which reminded me how good simple food with unpretentious ingredients can be.  I had a bite of mozzarella, a bite of sundried tomato ( very  good), some Caesar salad, some mixed salad with balsamic dressing, a slice of margarita pizza, and a slice of pizza alla vodka.  I had all the quintessential tastes and colors of Italy: tomato, basil, cheese, balsamic, vodka (just ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX! In celebration of my favorite co-blogger's birthday, and in enjoyment of today's beautiful weather, Alex and I ventured around Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in search of a suitable place for dinner.  We were content to slowly stroll through the peaceful, tree-lined streets of Bay Ridge, stopping in Middle Eastern bakeries to peek at the baklava and watching in curiosity at eyebrows being threaded. Finally, Alex settled on Giacomo's, an Italian restaurant with a brick pizza oven.  The wait staff was very friendly and the ambiance was inviting and classy.  We were seated quickly and our food came in no time. Since we were in a celebratory mood, I craved something hearty and indulgent: spaghetti carbonara.  My plate had a heaping pile of spaghetti and a puddle of carbonara cream sauce, complete with pancetta bits, onion, and black pepper.  I was a little afraid at first that the pasta would get clumpy and the sauce would form a film over it on...

Where I work, we have a sister office around the block and their staff orders lunch from Lioni’s every week.  The result is a giant cardboard box of foot-long logs wrapped in white paper.  Lioni’s is an Italian specialty store in Bensonhurst (i.e. my neighborhood) that is famous for mozzarella di bufala and prosciutto, not to mention its literally hundreds of heroes.  Once, I was about to throw in an order for a sandwich for lunch, but reading the menu took way too long so I missed the opportunity. How can you have hundreds of items on a menu?  Their heroes are named after Italian and Italian-American celebrities and contain endless permutations and combinations of toppings.  At a glance, the toppings include prosciutto di Parma, mozzarella di bufala (imported from Italy), roast beef, cappicolla, mortadella, salami, turkey, ham, bologna, sweet and hot Italian sausages, pepperoni, roasted peppers, olives, chicken and veal cutlets….  Hundreds, I’m tell...