Birthday dinner at Champetre

I decided not to have a big party for my 40th birthday this year. Instead, I choose to just have several smaller celebrations. This one was an intimate dinner with my wife. I had a great time and food was excellent. Below, a photo of the wine I had brought for the night. I have to thank Noel for letting me drink one of his bottles of Domaine Bandol Rose. This was just perfect for the food I had. I was really craving for this.




For starters, Salmon salad with cheese. The salmon was very fresh and great combination of the cheese, Salmon and arugula.




Next, Escargot Bourguignone. I love this, specially if paired with a Domaine Tempier Bandol Rose. This is a classic pairing and the wine, probably the best Rose wine in the world in my opinion.




For the main course, we had Marc's Algerian Couscous (good for 2). I've been looking forward to having this for quite some time now. With the Rose wine, it's a magical pairing. The dish is basically 2 plates. First the Couscous with lamb and merguez sausages..



Then a stew with chick peas, beef, chicken, and many other goodies. Another important factor is the Harissa, a spicy chilli paste.




One of my favourite dishes in Champetre. Chef Marc really does this well. It a perfect dish for a typical Sunday lunch, served with Rose wine. Delicious.

I had a great time. Thank you to my wonderful wife!!

More birthday celebrations to come!

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Latteria San Marco, Milan

This is probably one of my favourite restaurants in Milan. Small neighbourhood restaurant. Literally sits just around 25 people max. You have to come early if not you will have to wait a while.

Started with some Culatello di Zibello and some ravioli stuffed with mozzarella and a butter sauce. Delicious!







For main, we had risso venere with julienne vegetables. This is some kind of black long grain wild rice served with vegetables and a little truffle oil. So simple yet so good.. And seemed to be healthy.

My dish: Egg, Butter, Bottarga in a silver pan (Uova al burro con Bottarga de Muggine in argento)




Look at that beauty! Such a simple no nonsense dish. 3 ingredients a voila! I could have easily had one more of this.

Definitely San Marco is a place I will always return, in fact I wanted to return the next day but unfortunately, that was their last day since they were going on summer vacation.

I'll be back there soon.

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Asador Donostiarra, Madrid

I've been wanting to eat at this restaurant for quite some time now. I jut never found the right time. It's one of those classic restaurants in Madrid that ha e been there for ages. Apparently t us also the favourite hang out of Real Madrid players and many celebrities.

For starters, I had some sherry with some chorizo and olives which is a standard starter for Asadores. We also had a platter of Jamon Iberico. We just had this to start, since we knew the Chuleton was coming next and it was going to be huge. We had this with the wine I chose also for the steak, a 2007 Muga Reservation from Rioja.






Then came the main attraction: 1 Kilo of dry aged beef which they call 'Chuleton'. Normally around 2 inches thick or even more, this is slightly seared, sliced them served. A hot plate is provided to cook it more of you like. I just put it in the hot plate for around 10 seconds to warm it up. The Steak is still rare which is how I like it. Here some pictures of the Chuleton:









The meat was one of the better ones I've tried lately. The dry ageing really gives it more flavour and taste, buttery and nutty. Served rare and with good wine, this is one of the finer things in life.

We managed to finish the steak and had no more room for anything else. We did have room though for some 'chupitos' of Pacharan and Licor de Hierbas. This is a typical digestif served in many Spanish restaurants.




This is one of the better restaurants I've been to in Madrid. Very highly recommended.

Hasta la Proxima!

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Frankfurt, Germany

I was in Frankfurt for a couple of days for business. Did not have much time to go around, but was able to try a few typical dishes and sone local beers...

For lunch, Herring. I think this is more a Dutch speciality but this one was excellent. Very buttery texture.




Typical platter: sausage, sauerkraut, meat loaf, haxe (pork knuckles), etc... With lots of Kartoffen (potatoes)



All this washed down with a couple of glasses of applewein (German cider)

Some curiosities, a german mobile bratwurst vendor:




Many stalls selling chips and pretzels(very popular around here) and for some reason, popcorn too is quite popular.






Hefeweizen beer...had a few of these ...




That's all the time I had here. Til my next trip...Auf wiedersehen!! Prost!

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Spontini Pizza in Milan

My favourite pizzeria in Milan. This one though is thick pizza, topped with a ton of Mozzarella. This is the only thing they serve in this place.

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Salumeria Roscioli, Rome

Lunch today was at Salumeria Roscioli in Rome. This was recommended to me by blogger KatieParla, who knows where all the good food in Rome is. I suggest you check out her blog if you will be travelling by that area.

It's not the first time though I try try this place. I was there a few months ago, but unfortunately did not try their Carbonara. What a huge mistake!! As some of you may know, I'm obsessed with carbonara. Making my own, trying it all over, I've even made my own Guanciale (there will be a separate post on this) and soon I'll probably make my own pasta.

Hands down for me at least, the carbonara in Roscioli is the BEST I've had. Before we get into the pasta, some pics of the other food we had...

First photo, some cheese, olives and sun dried cherry tomatoes. I must say the tomatoes are delicious. I think they make them in house. We also had a plate of mixed salumi: Parma ham, Mortadella with truffle, salami and others. All were delicious. I had this with a glass of their house red, which was a Chianti.


Now for the main attraction, the Carbonara. The menu says Spaghetti Carbonara, Guanciale, Pecorino and Paolo Parisi organic eggs. These eggs come from goats milk fed hens from Livorno. They're quite famous in Italy and I think that's what males this dish.

Anyway I order it and it comes after 5-10 minutes:


Hands down the best Carbonara I've tried. It's hard to explain, since many may think that Carbonara is such a simple dish, but this was perfection. The pasta was coated with egg yolk probably mixed with some cheese (since it was quite thick) and small cubes of crunchy Guanciale (as on really crunchy, but still soft and tasty). The Gianciale really adds the another dimension to this dish. I know this could also be do be done with pancetta, but it does not have that deep, earthy strong flavour that Guanciale has. The Pecorino Cheese, sharp and saltier than Reggiano is also a winner.

This is another shot of the Carbonara half way through:



Look at that creamy golden yolk!! Needless to say I wiped out the whole plate, egg yolk included. So far this is the best I've had, but I'll continue my quest on finding better ones if they exist around here.

Ciao! More posts from Italy coming soon.

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Home made Bacon

I've been quite obsessed lately with bacon. A few weeks ago, I did my first batch of home made Guanciale (still no results since this has to be cured 45 days). Since the Guanciale takes so long, I decided to try making regular bacon (thank you to my friend Charlie for the tips).

I'm not going to go step by step on how I made it since this is not really that type of blog, so I'll just go over generally on what I did.

For starters, I got a good piece of pork from Santis. Basically I mixed salt, peppercorns, rosemary and garlic and massaged that piece of pork for about 30 minutes. I put the it in a zip lock bag and kept it in my refrigerator for 3 days. After 3 days, the bag was full of liquid (from the pork) so I discarded the liquid. This is how it looked after 3 days:






I then added maple syrup (real maple syrup) not the flavored syrup they sell in the groceries. I kept the meat one more day in the zip lock bag.

The next day I removed it from the bag and let it rest on a elevated plate to let all the excess water drip out and kept it for 2 more days like this.




After 2 days, it was time to rinse the rub out. I rinsed the pork really well for about 15 minutes under running water. Then I let it dry for an hour or so.







The pork after days of curing had a much firmer consistency and a much darker color almost like a Jamon Serrano. The next step was to smoke it but I did not have the proper equipment so I decided to turbo it for about 30 minutes a la baño Maria.



What I did was pour a whole bottle of English Stout beer, put the turbo on high until the beer started boiling then set the turbo to the minimum temperature and added the pork. The pork was in for around 40 minutes (until internal temperature was 150 degrees)

Once done, I let the pork rest for 2 hours, wrapped it and left in the refrigerator overnight.



The next day, it was time to slice this baby. It was quite easy since it was very firm and easy to cut. this is the result after slicing:



And last, the final test was to cook this, after almost one week, I really was dying to try it.



And the final result:



How did it taste? Well it was a bit salty since I think I put too much salt in my rub, but honestly this is much better than any commercial bacon around and the bonus is there are no preservatives, additives, etc...

The Stout beer gave the bacon a hint of smoky, creamy, coffee taste and without having to smoke it. It was also a bit salty but at the end both flavors complemented each other very well.

The kids and I had it for Saturday breakfast and we all loved it. I will definitely try and experiment with other recipes soon. Will post them here once I have results.

Next though is the Guanciale. It's been curing for almost 25 days already in the chiller. I'm excited about this one. Will keep you all posted.