Flavor Boulevard

I never expected to eat Italian food while staying in Seoul, but according to my friend, it is one of the more popular cuisines here. Since she is a vegetarian, my friend also said that she likes eating Italian food while living in Korea because most of it is vegetarian-friendly. While Primo Bacio Baci was friendly towards vegetarians, the server was definitely not friendly towards hungry eaters!

The story is actually pretty funny. My friend and  I were definitely hungry, but as a food  writer/blogger, I also like to order a lot of food  just to have the opportunity to try different  items across the menu. And with a restaurant  like Primo Bacio Baci (the location in the linked  blog  post is Hongdae, but the one my friend and  I ate it is located in Myeondong, a popular  tourist shopping area), where I am not sure  when I will be able to return again, I definitely  wanted to try a lot of their menu!  Well…apparently this type of ordering doesn’t go  over too well in this restaurant. My friend and I each ordered an entree and then we decided to  try an appetizer and a pizza. The waitress, shocked, said “4 items???” And we said, “Yes, 4 items.”  After she took our order, my friend spotted her whispering to another waitress with something  along the lines of “Wow those girls ordered 4 items!!!” with a hand gesture indicating the number “4.” Whatever, I just shrugged it off and we polished off the entire meal. No way will I ever be shamed by having a large appetite and a penchant for trying different menu items!

Somewhat rude service aside, the menu is pretty easy to navigate and really cute as well (actually the entire decor of the restaurant is super cute – I love how the photographs on the walls convey a sense of comfort to the restaurant). There probably are many tourists who eat here because each menu item is photographed and the ingredients are all written out in English.

Garlic bread is complimentary and my friend warned me that Korean Italian restaurants like to add honey to their garlic bread. I love the taste; it was not weird for me at all. The sweetness matched well with the garlic and I love honey so I gobbled down the bread pretty fast!

Another quirk about Korean Italian restaurants that my friend warned me about is that pickles are always served alongside pasta dishes because Koreans find pasta sauce (particularly creamy ones like alfredo) to be too rich to eat on their own. It makes me wonder why not just eat kimchi alongside the pasta. I love pickles though so this didn’t really weird me out too much except that I didn’t really understand how pickles came to be representative of Italian cuisine! These pickles were mild and slightly sweet and went along well with my pasta, but first I’ll talk about the appetizers!

We started out with a caprese salad, which came with its own side salad. My friend said that this is the best mozzarella she’s had in Korea, and while I haven’t eaten mozzarella in Korea up to this point (or for the rest of my trip), I could definitely see that being the case. The cheese and tomato were super refreshing and while I normally don’t like the taste of balsamic vinegar, I found this sauce to be very complimentary and pleasing to the tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella. I didn’t really understand the extra cheese on top as it didn’t really add anything to the dish. The side salad was pretty forgettable.

We also ordered a gorgonzola and honey pizza to share. I wouldn’t really call this a pizza, but they do have more traditional red sauce pizzas that probably tasted more like pizza. I loved loved loved this dish – it totally satisfied my craving for sweet savory foods! The crust on the pizza resemble more of a cracker than anything and with the lightly melted cheese and drizzled honey, this was one addicting plateful of food. And before I knew it, we had eaten it all!

My friend ordered an alfredo pasta which I didn’t get to try, but it definitely looked addictingly rich and creamy. It’s also vegetarian friendly!

I don’t remember the name of my pasta but it had tomato sauce, bacon, and spicy pepper inside. The peppers were a little too spicy so I ended up leaving them behind on the plate. Pasta was well-cooked, but the tomato sauce was a little too sweet for my taste and the bacon was soggy. This dish tasted good with the pickles though as the pickles definitely helped to refresh my palate. I wasn’t too impressed with the pasta dish, but if I do go back, I definitely want to try more of their pizzas! They are also famous for pasta bread bowls, which I almost ended up ordering. I decided not to because I was afraid of falling into a food coma that I wouldn’t be able to awake from (bread + pasta + cream sauce is a little too much!), but I ended up in a food coma after all, so next time I’ll be braver!

Our dinner ended up with a complimentary mango sorbet, which really was more of a mango ice because of the texture. Delicious and soothing, I didn’t think I would be able to eat anymore, but I ate all of the sorbet too. I can’t even begin to imagine what our waitress thought of us!!! Not only did we order way more food than she thought we were capable of eating, but we finished it all too!

Lastly, Primo Bacio Baci has puppy toilet paper. That is just ridiculously cute.

None of the secondi struck our fancy, but we did order a substantial number of dishes. So substantial that instead of ordering by the names, I curled my index finger and thumb into a square bracket and pointed on the menu “we’ll take these four and these four, and the potato, and the asparagus please.”

That was 10 out of 25 “dishes” on the menu, if olives and salads could count as dishes at all.

Three years ago, I had a bite of pork belly sandwich from Corso. I remember nothing of it, except that it was memorably good. I vowed to come back, but my cravings are always either rice noodle or pancakes (although every time I get pancakes, their texture is gravely disappointing), so for these three years, the vow stayed as a vow and didn’t happen. I kept hearing from multiple sources near and far about how good Corso was, though, so my confidence for this Italian restaurant increased. When I picked Corso for dinner last Friday, I didn’t expect the restaurant to wow us, but I felt confident that the meal would be solid and comforting, that we would be well fed by the end.

The high note: the server replaced our plates and utensils after each course, yay for a clean platform to taste new dishes.

The low note: how low would you like to hear?

In general, this Asian does not have paramount hope for Italian food (to me, Italian food is pasta and cheese, both of which I find to be comforting yet boring), but there’s a reason Italian food is comfort food: assuming that you start from boiling dried pasta and that you have any sense of taste at all, it’s easy to cook an edible plate of pasta. Not perfect, but edible. Guess what, the tagliatelle al sugo at Corso was NOT even edible: it was pungent, muddy and in dire need of more tomato sauce and minced carrots. Each of us took one single bite, then a drink of water and that was it. The plate looked untouched when the server later cleaned up the table.

As far as bad restaurant experiences go, Corso had set a new record the moment they managed to screw up pasta and ground meat.

Were we well fed by the end? Well, we were fed up for sure. Why am I not trying to be nice with this review? Because I decided on this restaurant for dinner. I feel responsible when my friends couldn’t enjoy the meal, thus a positive review would be akin to lame excuses to sugar coat my poor decision. In fact, Corso left such a disappointing taste that it doesn’t even deserve a longer title in this post.

Bonus story: the table next to us ordered the butter-roasted chicken. The lady, who appeared to be in her 70s, looked over when our pastas had just arrived and said to her husband, who was signing the bill, “Look, they got the tagliatelle and the cavatelli. It looks good”. So I turned around, smiled with her and asked how was her chicken. She said it was laden with so much butter and cooked perfectly. I replied “It looked ah-may-zing.” (Chicken breasts never excite me, but I figured the situation called for a diplomatic comment.) In hindsight, did we just order the wrong dishes? Nah, it’s much harder to make white meat succulent than to make pasta edible. But I’m glad that at least one customer was happy with her meal.

The APPETIZERS (antipasti)

Marinated carrots – $5
Tasty level: banal (in any decent banh mi can you find equivalent carrots, with less oil)

Tuscan chicken liver pate – $8 – with sage, anchovy and capers.
Tasty level: Mud (I blame it on the overtone of anchovy)

Crostini – $8 – mussel ragu on toast
Tasty level: Good.
Why is it yellow? Beat me.

Grilled shrimp – $11 – in chili oil and parsley
Tasty level: Horrid.
The shrimps taste metallic. Was it overgrilled on open gas flames?

Salumi – $14 – spicy coppa, sweet coppa, toscano, ciccioli on toast, finocchiona.
Tasty level: Meh.
There’s no difference between the spicy coppa and the sweet coppa, or anything on that plate for that matter.

The SIDES (contorni)

Asparagus – $6
Tasty level: banal
I like the asparagus and I would have ranked it higher, but the sauce… They call it “fontina-tartufo fonduta”, which sounds like a chant to me, is so pungent because of the truffle.

Fries – $6 – One of the few edible items.

The first MAIN COURSES (primi)

Cavatelli – $14 – pasta with garlic pork sausage, kale, olives and parmigiano
Tasty level: Good
It’s not all that different from your homemade macaroni and cheese, but we could eat it happily.

Funghi e polenta – $15 – wild mushroom and polenta.
Tasty level: Meh
The polenta seriously needs more salt. There’s no taste in this dish at all. (The mushroom was faintly sour actually.)

Trippa alla Florentina – $9 – tripe stew with pancetta, spicy tomato, parmigiano and mint.
Tasty level: Okay. But it is too monotonic with the tomato sauce.

Tagliatelle al sugo – $15 – pasta with braised beef and pork.
Tasty level: Inedible.
What did they braise the meat with? Mud?

The DESSERTS (dolce)

Panna cotta – $6 – vanilla custard with spiced vino Lambrusco and Mission fig sauce.
Tasty level: Meh. (The custard is tasteless. The fig sauce is okay, though, it was neither too sweet nor too tangy)

Affogato – $6 – gelato with espresso
Tasty level: Good
If they had screwed up ice cream too, I don’t know what I would have done.

I like the vertical theme

Kristen studying Corso menu.

Kristen also reviewed Corso on her blog, Put It on Kristen’s Plate. We shared the same meal, and her review shows the same grave disappointment but with more thorough consideration than mine.

She also raised a good point: when the server approaches you with the question “Is everything okay?”, how do you respond when the food, in fact, is not okay? Do you say the common “yes” to just send the server away from the table? Do you explain what tastes bad? Do you ask to speak to the chef?

Address: Trattoria Corso
1788 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 704-8003
Dinner for 4: $172.77
Reservation is advisable. Despite its surprisingly horrible food, Corso continues to thrive in North Berkeley. All tables later than 5:30 pm on Friday were booked.

Sometimes you just have to cast away all manners and enjoy a day in town like a tourist. After a few cups at Teance, Kristen and I were famished. As student I’ve gone lunch-less almost daily without problems, but drinking oolong without lunch is definitely the quickest way to wake up the hungry beast in you. We planned on gorging down pancakes at Bette’s across the street but we missed it by 6 minutes (why on earth do they close at 2:30 on a Friday?), so we dashed back to the other side of the street to Zut with exclamation mark and chose an appetizer and two entrees before the waitress could ask what kind of drinks we wanted. This, in our book, was record fast. However, despite our effort, the food didn’t come out fast enough. On a normal day, we would say the appetizer indeed got out in a really reasonable time, but one thumb-sized stuffed squid plus our extreme tea-induced hunger plus the lack of bread commonly served at Western restaurants really brought out the best of us: we stared longingly in the direction of the staff and the kitchen. The waitress caught our eyes.

Chorizo-stuffed squid ($9) – too expensive, the spinach is good, the sauce is good, tender squid, but the pepperiness of chorizo offsets the savoriness for me.

The first time she came back: “Do you need something?” Glances exchanged. “No…” *innocent smile* Longing stare continued… The second time she came back: “Would you like some bread with olive oi..” “Yes PLEASE!” *big wide grin* Four slices. Don’t know if they’re good because they’re good or because we were hungry, but they were gone after 2 minutes. More longing stare… This time our waitress intentionally avoided eye contact. We understand, but would we give up? No. Young as we were (we think), we were desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. We waved at another waiter, said, somewhat alarmed at our own temerity: “Could we have some more bread?”

Sausage and egg pizza ($15) – pizza’s okay, runny egg yolk on soggy pizza is waste of brain power

Zut! burger with white cheddar ($14) – the beef patty needs salt, the pickles are fresh, good crunchy fries

We were more fortunate than Oliver Twist because the waiter was much nicer than Mr. Bumble, as evident by the 6 slices following our request. Unfortunately, they arrived at the same time as the burger and the pizza, so instead of devouring them, we devoured the burger and the pizza. To discover that neither had enough salt.

Pear cardamom bread pudding ($8) – couldn’t taste either pear or cardamom. There were some kind of grapes which Kristen thought were fresh grapes and I thought were raisins. Ice cream would have been 56 times better than crème chantilly, but the airy crust on top saved the day.

So that solved the mystery: there’s a thing of salt on every table (not a salt shaker, mind you, but a sort of porcelain cup shape-wise akin to the thing that contains the tea candle, no lid). Without the bread we had no idea why it was there. Anyways they have good fries and good pickles. Dessert menus brought out, the waitress no longer avoided eye contact. Pear cardamom bread pudding looked good. So did grapefruit sorbet. We were really full at this point (Kristen finished only half of her pizza) so we said bread pudding please. Then we thought hey a palate cleanser would be nice because we needed to wash the fries off our palates… what next was only inevitable: “Can we have the grapefruit sorbet before the bread pudding please?” The sorbet dissolved the fullness (maybe it was just an illusion, but it lasted long enough for us to finish the bread pudding). How wonderful is the power of cold citrus things.

Grapefruit sorbet ($8) – with ginger snap. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

On a normal day Zut (exclamation mark or not) wouldn’t make the cut because we’re not into risottos and paninis, and we like our foods well seasoned, but that pink sorbet made our soul glint, an instrumental version of Memory was playing, the dangling lights on the trees were getting brighter as the sun got lower. The holidays drew nearer. We stood outside for a good five minutes just watching the lights. Silly girls. 🙂

Address: Zut! on Fourth 1820 4th Street Berkeley, CA 94710 510-644-0444 www.zutonfourth.com

The 7-year-old Antica Osteria is much too young to be one of “the nurseries of our legislators”, but it sure feels like one: warm brick walls, dark wood work, an old house nested in the green, sleepy residential area northwest of Rice University, and a patronage mainly composed of old white men. The smell of books might have been replaced by the smell of pasta and cheese (this place was previously a bookstore), but Chef Velio Deplano and his partner Ray Memari have kept Antica Osteria in that hidden, rustic, peaceful feeling of a bookstore. The gentle orange light made me excited like a drifting sailor seeing a lighthouse.

Normal bread and butter, not bread, vinegar and oil, accompanied our post-ordering conversation, followed by some airy garlic bread. A tiny voice in some little corner in my mind whispered that the garlic bread was waiting for the salad to travel down the pipe, but who could resist such beautiful orange color. We made sure that the garlic bread’s presence on the table was as fleeting as its texture. 😉

The insalata campagnola was great by itself anyway. The buffalo mozzarella, plain with a nutty lightness of marshmallow, deems superior to mozzarella from cow milk. I grew up hearing that water buffalo meat is leaner and “whiter” than beef (as in white meat vs. red meat, no racist joke here), so I was appalled to learn that water buffalo milk is much richer (higher levels of protein, fat, and minerals) than cow milk. (To produce 1 kg of cheese, 5 kg of water buffalo milk is needed versus 8 kg of cow milk.) The richness really doesn’t show in this cheese ball though, it’s like eating air.

I guess Varun didn’t feel particularly adventurous that day, as if one could ever be adventurous in an Italian restaurant, seeing that he got grilled salmon. As long as he’s happy…

I got petto d’anatra al pepe nero (black pepper pan-fried duck). It’s good, but again, not adventurous either.

The most exciting thing of the night was Aaron’s choice, also a special del giorno: cappellini aragosta, or angel hair pasta with lobster. Not that it was anything few people dare to eat, but the battle between Aaron and the lobster tail was captivating. Battle Aragosta. I can imagine directing a dinner date scene where the heroine of my movie has such trouble eating lobster and the guy finds it both uncouth and endearing at the same time. 😀 That said, I never order lobster.

Address: Antica Osteria
2311 Bissonnet
Houston, TX 77005
(713) 521-1155

Dinner for three: $95.26

Jen‘s been pushing me to push this post out of the drafts, just as I’ve been pushing her to publish her very first post on Where’s the Seitan?, her blooming, Chicago-based vegan food blog. Her lively, conversational writing draws you in, just as Jen herself. 🙂 When she reaches a million views per month, I hope she’ll still like to share a meal and talks about movies with the humble me.

During lunch break on Tuesday, after a fantastic plate of fresh fruits and cucumbers at the cafeteria (if I eat at St. John cafeteria long enough I’d turn into a fruitarian), we could hardly wait until dinner to eat something real, so we dived into Yelp and Google Maps in search of a “good but inexpensive” place (Jen’s request) closed enough to the bus stop. Coins were tossed, rock-paper-scissor was played, phone calls were made, decisions were revised, and a reservation was confirmed: 7:15 pm at Andiamo.

Our group has diversity: one strict vegan, one vegetarian who loves goat cheese, one omnivore who is allergic to all dairy except butter, one omnivore who doesn’t like goat cheese and doesn’t really care about any cheese, and one omnivore who loves potatoes. We start off sharing some Roasted Beet Salad ($7.75) and Caponata Bruschetta (eggplant bruschetta, $7.5). Cheese on the side.

The soft but not mushy eggplant, sauteed and deeply seasoned with balsamic vinaigrette, offers a nice contrast with the toast. Nonetheless, it loses to the refreshing simplicity of the roasted beet.

Even more points for the beet salad is the tapenade on the accompanying focaccia slice, which reminds me of pâté, and anything that reminds me of pâté reminds me of joy.

I asked the vegetarian who loves goat cheese to rate her Chilled Gazpacho (vegetable soup, $5.5) from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, and her response was a shrugging 3. I forgot to ask about her main course, but judging from her smile eating that slice of Pizza Margherita (mozzarella, parmesan, basil and tomato, $8.25), I think she would give it a 4.5.

The omnivore who loves potatoes ordered, surprisingly, the Chicken Marsala with roasted fingerling potatoes ($16.5). I would admit that for a second, I was wondering why an Italian place would serve Indian food, but the Marsala with an “r” is the name of the wine used to make a stark, rich wine reduction sauce for this braised chicken. The potatoes were good, of course.

The omnivore with dairy-‘cept-butter intolerance offered me to try a tentacle-full squid head in his Spaghetti Puttanesca with Calamari ($14). The tentacles are the best because they soak and store up so much sauce in their bundling-up state. I didn’t try the pasta, but you bet it was some tantalizing red sauce.

The omnivore with an indifference toward cheese treasures the Crispy Duck Leg. I went with the smaller order ($14.25 vs. $19.75), and it was plenty. The meat fell off the bone, the spinach sleek and sodden with a sweet sauce, the turnip al dente. If I had to complain, it would be about the unnecessary softness of the grilled polenta, it’s simply too homogeneous, like cheese.

The vegan customized herself a cheese-less pie with portabella (I like how the Italian name has a grander ring to it than “button mushroom”), arugula, roasted zucchini, roasted garlic, basil and olive oil. I can’t describe her pizza better than her, so I won’t even try. The most interesting thing is that she has found a combination on pizza that tastes “almost as good as cheese”.

And I’ve found a combination that makes Andiamo stand out in my mind when it comes to Italian food: steal potatoes and squid tentacles from the friends’ plates, eat out on the patio in the summer Santa Fe evening, watch the sun sink behind the adobe cake-like houses, and let out a sigh over the empty street, then good food becomes exceptional, and you really feel the lazing peacefulness of this town.

Address: Andiamo
322 Garfield Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 995-9595

In Santa Fe, a student-friendly 15-dollar 3-mile cab ride can bring you to a student-sophisticated 15-dollar 3-course prix fixe lunch. It’s just a matter of trusting your cab driver.

We were too lazy to read the maps downtown or to plan a lunch spot, sorta in the picky mood for good food in a refined atmosphere, and hungry. We blankly browsed through the recommended list given to us when the conference started, but everything looked oddly the same: just black ink. It wouldn’t hurt, so we asked our taxi driver. At first, she mentioned a couple of Mexican fares, but Bumble Bee’s burrito was still fresh in our mouth mind from the night before. Then she brought up Il Piatto, a cozy resto italiano a few blocks away from the buzzing Plaza. Her sister likes to go there. So did we.

The 15-dollar prix fixe lunch must be the draw-in factor of Il Piatto, but its patronage crowd remains the middle-aged-and-overs, who can nonchalantly drown the Wednesday afternoon sun in their wine glass, gleefully talk about their family for hours without worrying about their family, that sort of things. In that manner, Il Piatto reflects the atmosphere of Santa Fe as a whole: relaxing yet cultured.

Its food matches its ‘sphere, from the crunchy starter bread and the salty olive oil, which receives a stamp of approval from Jen, the olive oil lover. Hyunmi’s Tomato Mozzarella salad brings forth the simple but well-paired mix of basil pesto and briny parmigiano, which is topped with melting soft roasted bell pepper and a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette.

Jen’s Zuppa del Giorno is a chilled tomato and basil soup. (Ah yes, Il Piatto’s prix fixe allows the patron to choose any three dishes on the menu for a total of $14.95). Here’s an embarrassing story. At the table, Jen and I asked each other what “giorno” means. She’s been to France and I once studied Spanish, we both felt that “giorno” sounds utterly familiar, but clueless we still were. Just now, as I’m typing this post, the light bulb turns on: giorno ~ jornada ~ jour = day, so zuppa del giorno is just soupe du jour. :-/ Yeah… *hands cover face*. Anywaiz, me likes Jen’s soup.

But my Grilled Calamari was pretty munchtastic, too. With the plumpness safely tucked in, chewy squid and crunchy bell pepper couple like butterflies and wild flowers.

The second courses arrived soon after. I went with my gut feelings and ordered the chicken liver (no pun intended), sauteed with pancetta and shallots in a red wine vinegar reduction. Liver always tastes like chocolate to me, so I’ve never had a disappointing liver dish. Hyunmi confirmed that this one is good and that “it tastes like liver”. Its accompanying grilled squash and bell pepper were the best seasoned grilled squash and bell pepper I’ve ever had. Jen’s eyes lit up when she took a bite. It’s okay, Jen, your garden salad was tossed with some darn good lemon vinaigrette!

Hyunmi chose the Italian classic: spaghetti and meatballs. ‘Cept these meatballs are said to have beef, lamb, and pork altogether. I like Koreans because they like meat, among other things. 😀

Il Piatto needs to have vegan desserts, though. Jen was munching more bread and olive oil while Hyunmi and I shared a zabaglione (egg custard) and a caramel & raisin bread pudding.

Personally, I prefer the bread pudding for its burnt corners and spongy texture, but the zabaglione is just so easy to eat, like yogurt, that it’s hard to stop digging in.

If we come here again, one of us will have to try the tiramisu to cover all three desserts in the dolce section. 😛 It’d be economic too, because Il Piatto absolutely refuses to let you pay the $14.95 without getting 3 dishes, even if your 2 choices total to $15.58. You have to get more to pay less. It doesn’t make sense, but there’s no harm in taking a to-go box either. 🙂

Address: Il Piatto (The Plate)
95 W. Marcy Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 984-1091

Lunch for three: $52.44