Tag Archives: italian cuisine

The Stinking Rose in SF and their bagna calda

Bagna cauda garlic in olive oil appetizer

At The Stinking Rose (325 Columbus, SF) they have an appetizer called ‘bagna calda.’  This is something I really like, so I make my own version at home all the time.  It tastes best with fresh garlic, but go ahead and use that large tub o’ garlic from Costco.  This is more or less a dish of garlic confit that you eat by sopping it up with hunks of crusty bread.  You need:  many whole cloves of garlic, extra virgin olive oil, black pepper, anchovies (if you like), red pepper flakes (if you like), a piece of lemon and a glazed clay sauté pan (or any heavy-gauge sauté pan).  If you have a flame tamer, use it.  You do:  put the garlic in the sauté pan and pour olive oil in to cover the cloves completely.  Add a bit of black pepper and a pinch of red pepper flakes.  Set the pan on a very, very, very low flame and let her rip for about an hour and a half – until the garlic is soft and golden brown.  You do not want to fry the garlic!  Check it often to make sure you are not frying the garlic!  If you like anchovies, chop up a few and toss them in whenever you like.  If you want them liquefied, add at the beginning.  If you want them macho, add at the end.  If you don’t use anchovies you will need to add salt to this dish.  Squeeze a little lemon in right before you serve it.  Note:  you can place the ingredients in a casserole and bake in a low oven until the garlic is soft – but not the lemon, which should always be added right before service.  Have a bunch of baguettes and some hearty wine available.  Once you make this a few times you can customize it to taste, as I do.  The version I photographed as it was on the stove has a few green olives and has a ways to go.

Strings in El Cerrito

Found a place in El Cerrito that has good, reasonable, chicken parm.  Matthew and I were driving around looking for some food this afternoon and thought we’d try Strings (11720 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito), a place we passed many times while driving but never trusted.  I think it has to do with its strip-mall-type locale and nondescript name.  It turned out to be a comfortable, diner-like place with respectable food.  We both had chicken parm, which came with a side of pasta alfredo, cafe salad and bread.  The cafe salad is a mixed green salad with raisins, sunflower seeds and a couple other oddities tossed in a creamy Italian dressing.  It’s a cut above the throwaway salad most places serve and fairly addictive at that.  The chicken parm was generous and had the right flavor — the result of the chicken, sauce and cheese hanging out together and melding.  $9.25 each.  Nice people run Strings; there was lots of repeat business eating lunch.

Grande’s not so good in Binghamton

The restaurant known as Marinelli’s (not sure if I am spelling this correctly) had closed awhile back.  My understanding is that this was an institution of sorts and that they had good sauce.  Apparently the sauce lives on at Anthony’s (4 W. State Street, Binghamton, NY) where the former Marinelli’s chef is now in residence.  This is not something I confirmed, by the way, just what I was told tangentially by our server while dining at Grande Bella Cucina with Matthew this evening.  Grande’s, as it’s known, sits on the former site of Marinelli’s (1171 Vestal Avenue, Binghamton).  I can’t say the meal was grande.  The mixed hot appetizer we ordered came right before the entrees and was no great shakes.  At $22.95 you’d expect better.  The chicken marsala was good, but the mashed potatoes it came with were merely OK.  It is not difficult to make great mashed potatoes, so I don’t get it.  If you can manage to make a good marsala sauce and not overcook chicken breast, how do you destroy mashed potatoes?  My main gripe was the salad, though, which had so many mushy green and brown parts it should have been in the trash.  Yuk!  Never again.

Wal-Mart chix and Little Venice

Vestal new york wal-mart sign

If it wasn’t for the old school Southern Italian dinner, the visit to Wal-Mart, and the 102 F. temperature, it would have been like another day in Berkeley.  Oh, forgive us, Bay Area, for shopping at Wal-Mart!  We bought some underwear and chicken strips. 

Wal-mart chicken strips

Wal-Mart chicken strips

 Then we staggered across the parking lot to Barnes & Noble for iced coffee.  Thanks to computer networking of the highest caliber, we were able to use our discount card, no problem.  I would have sworn I was in the El Cerrito, CA branch.  Same color scheme, same author photographs, same wall sconces, same God-awful Godiva boxed candy and teapots on the cafe display shelves, same annoying nondescript world beat pounding in the background.  Plenty of Binghamton University students, from the looks of them. 

Calamari appetizer at Little Venice in Binghamton

Calamari at Little Venice in Binghamton

During a visit with my dad at his personal three-room inferno later in the day, he suggested we have a “real” Italian dinner.  “Real” meaning no skimping on the cheese and being served anything parmigiano on an oval silver platter, for starters.  Like at Rutha’s, on Northern Boulevard in Queens, now long gone, but the site of many a biscuit tortoni snarfed down by yours truly.  We followed orders and went to Little Venice Restaurant (111 Chenango Street), a Binghamton institution.  The street seemed kind of dead but when we went into the place via the back entrance there was a sudden cacophony — the joint was jumping!  We were quickly seated and menued in the large rectangular dining room and set about discussing options. 

Rigatoni parm at Little Venice in Binghamton

Rigatoni parm at Little Venice in Binghamton

Matt went with rigatoni parm and I with combo (chicken, meatball and sausage) parm.  We added fried calamari, which we soon regretted.  Not only were there no tentacles, but the rings were all of the same small diameter.  I’d like to know what happened to the rest of the squid involved.  If you only ate this dish here, you’d never know what a real calamaro looked like, but I guess that’s the point.  That and the ability to pour out prepared rings from a large freezer bag, though I have no proof of the latter.  The soup and salad were “eh” and we hoped the entrees were better.  They were, having plenty of melting mozzarella and a good house sauce.  That said, if I ever went back I would have the antipasto I eyed at the next table along with an entree.  I do admit to being surprised at how pricey Little Venice is given the economy of the area.  Even I don’t like to drop over $17 for a plate of mixed parmigiano.

Combo parm at Little Venice in Binghamton

Combo parm at Little Venice in Binghamton