Vacationing for a meal in Italy
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Almost. It's actually Eataly. It's actually Heaven... at least for us it was. As only other Italians can fully appreciate, Linda and I will do just about anything to shovel stinky cheeses and cured meats into our faces as often as possible. So there's a place called Eataly and it is a glorious, fresh Italian farmer's market that's a square NYC block. Peppered throughout are restaurants that use only ingredients from the market. You can get fruits and vegetables, meats, cheeses, pastas, cookbooks, wine, cooking tools, coffee, desserts and more. Since there are restrooms; all I need is a cot and I see no reason to ever leave. Think of any 5-year old you know and picture them in their favorite section of Toys R Us and you can imagine me in Eataly.
They don't sell furniture but we found a fantastic Italian throne. I now have 3 tasks - find how the buy the throne, figure out where to put the throne, convince Linda to let me do both of the above. I may need to rethink the order of those events. Although she seemed to enjoy it.
Isn't she adorable?
We decided we wanted to shop and bring home deliciousness, but... we were very hungry. Unless I suddenly started making triple the amount of money, we needed to eat first so we could have some self-control. We chose La Pizza La Pasta and got on the 45 minute waiting list. Good time to do some recon around the market, but first, let's stop by wine bar for cool, refreshing glass of verdicchio. With wine in hand we roamed around, making mental notes of what to go back for later.
We got buzzed that our table was ready. Empty stomachs, big glass of wine and menu with fresh Italian meals - one of everything kept coming to mind. In the end, we got 2 antipasto dishes to start. One included slices of 4 meats - salamis and prosciuttos and the like. The other was 3 cheeses and a honey mustard with almonds. As an aside, I've recent fallen in love with sweet mustards on either stinky cheeses or soft goat cheese. Try caramel mustard on a smoked cheese. Anyway... take a look at these culinary delights. Don't ask me what's what.
They don't sell furniture but we found a fantastic Italian throne. I now have 3 tasks - find how the buy the throne, figure out where to put the throne, convince Linda to let me do both of the above. I may need to rethink the order of those events. Although she seemed to enjoy it.
We decided we wanted to shop and bring home deliciousness, but... we were very hungry. Unless I suddenly started making triple the amount of money, we needed to eat first so we could have some self-control. We chose La Pizza La Pasta and got on the 45 minute waiting list. Good time to do some recon around the market, but first, let's stop by wine bar for cool, refreshing glass of verdicchio. With wine in hand we roamed around, making mental notes of what to go back for later.
We got buzzed that our table was ready. Empty stomachs, big glass of wine and menu with fresh Italian meals - one of everything kept coming to mind. In the end, we got 2 antipasto dishes to start. One included slices of 4 meats - salamis and prosciuttos and the like. The other was 3 cheeses and a honey mustard with almonds. As an aside, I've recent fallen in love with sweet mustards on either stinky cheeses or soft goat cheese. Try caramel mustard on a smoked cheese. Anyway... take a look at these culinary delights. Don't ask me what's what.
Then we went on to have pumpkin ravioli in a brown butter sauce and pizza with spicy salami and buffalo mozzarella. We were so excited that we couldn't manage to get pictures.
What kind of Italians would we be if we didn't finish up by stopping by the dessert bar? I got some trio of chocolate cake, she had a mini tiramisu and, of course, we both had espresso.
Well sated, and still in the clouds from our earlier event - see Details if you don't know what that means - we set off to shop for more deliciousness to bring home. We exercised some self control and came home with two kinds of fresh pasta, a couple blocks of cheese and a small variety of dried, cured meats. Yes that's with self control.
What better way to finish a day like yesterday? It was the food adventure that was the pretense to get her in the city in the first place.