Tonight we went with Ritsu’s colleague to Mare Nostrum. We have not been been there in a long time (over a year) and it was also the first time for Julius.
While the food was still very good, the whole experience was not as great as we were used to, at times I thought maybe management had changed, but as I found out later, the manager who did a fantastic show and tell of the night’s offerings was out sick. Which showed us how much his performance is a very important part of the whole evening.
Our waiter tried somewhat to play a similar role, but halfway through explaining the pasta dishes he just gave up.
Not sure really about the fish offerings this time, we just took 3 of the 4 (skipping the gratin fish dish).
Julius fell asleep pretty quickly, but had no trouble making an impromptu bed out of chairs:
For Ritsu’s birthday dinner we followed a recommendation for another Michelin star restaurant in the wine country: ‘Antico Corona Reale’, mainly to start the truffle season and having heard great things about their cocotte, an egg / cream dish which I believe to be quite tricky to get it right (“7 minutes in a pre-heated bain-marie” .. are you still with me?)
This is what we came for :’Uovo in Cocotta‘ with shavings of white truffle.
Other nice things we had: We received a freebie pre-appetizer: Insalata Russia in a fancy teacup. Nice, but the version at Magorabin was better. Also some raw meatballs. Then Ritsu had more raw meat with shavings of Porcini mushrooms and I had a very nicely shaped concoction of oven roasted bell peppers and sardines from Spain.
While Julius was happy with some handmade pasta with tomato sauce, me and Ritsu indulged in the above mentioned “Uovo in cocotte”, which was pretty fantastic, though it was not the flavor revelation I have had the year before at Osteria dell’ Arco … either my expectations where too high, or it was not ‘new’ anymore, or the truffles this early in the season are not that fragrant yet. At times I was even wondering if maybe they had given us black truffle instead of white (stupid tourists), but I strongly doubt a Michelin rated restaurant would do that.
This dish is enough fat and cholesterol to last for 2 weeks!
Since we were pretty full, we had only one dessert (very very tasty sorbet) which also came with an assortment of sweets, of which Julius found the decorative paper cups to be the most interesting part.
Would I want to return? Maybe to try their menu degustatione. But they are a bit off the beaten path and they don’t reach the Michelin star height of e.g. Davide Paluda. From what I have seen on other tables, they reminded me a lot of a place we had been to last year for Ritsu’s birthday.
Service and setting were great, pricing was on the higher edge.
This weekend we are out to celebrate Ritsu’s birthday.
Cervere is not really a hot spot and only has one cozy hotel with very friendly people, but the main reason we came for was to eat at a fancy restaurant here. Before dinner we took a nice walk, Cervere has this interesting tower near the cemetery and a beautiful ‘center’ with the main church … but that is about it 
Today is Ritsu’s Birthday!
To celebrate, we are going out to the country side for a first taste of this year’s truffles!
Best wishes to you my love!!!!
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The kittens are still very much in their warm up phase, we can pet them, they purr, they like to explore the kitchen at night time, but they are also still very shy and scared.
We are trying all kinds of things to lure them out … like breakfast (Can anyone explain why Sheeshah’s eyes reflect green, while Whiskey’s are orange ??? ) |
It was a long week, with Japanese school on Saturday … and I had suggested early on that Julius should take a nap, which he was not to keen on … but at some point, when I was wondering why it is so quiet, I found him like this:
Not the first time he lays down there to ‘relax’ .. and then just falls asleep.
Last week was all blue sky and sunshine, sometimes it even felt too hot to walk … now, Monday morning, very different scenario.
Right on time at 7:45 AM, the heavens opened and a downpour of biblical proportions commenced. (7 sec youtube clip to give you an idea). So I had to bring Julius by car for the first time, which was not as much trouble as I had feared initially. (Traffic and parking around the school entrance is terrible) But we still had to walk all the way to the building, and we arrived pretty wet.
The weather seems to continue like that (just not as epic in proportion) and Julius has all the right gear for ‘normal’ rain .. I might want to get him a kid’s umbrella though.
He and Dominique are usually the first kids to arrive, around 8:30, kids should arrive at 8:45, but some of the bus kids arrive after 9 AM. So far I am mainly receiving positive feedback about his behaviour in class and he also seems to have fun and learns new stuff every day.
For tomorrow’s PTA brunch at the new school, Julius and I prepared 80 BBQ meatballs.
Here is the recipe, thanks to SugarFrosted.
| BBQ Meatballs (for a crowd)
Meatball Ingredients: Mix well and form into balls. (I usually spread the meat into a sheet pan with 1″ sides and score the surface to make approx 1″ size balls. (Bite size is best for a party.) Pick up each cube and round it with your fingers. Makes about 80 I think. You can make bigger balls if you want. Arrange the balls in a dutch oven or other deep casserole with a lid. BBQ Sauce ingredients: Preheat oven to 350F. Pour sauce over meatballs. They will NOT stick together. Bake covered 90mins – 2Hours. You can remove the lid for the last 30 mins. |
Of course I took the liberty to make several changes: I had no idea what evaporated milk is, so I used regular milk, I added 1 egg and left out one cup of ‘filler’ (also, I have yet to find oatmeal here) as the mixture already seemed dry enough. I also spiced up the sauce with green tabasco and green peppercorns.
Caught a little glimpse at Japanese class today when they were singing their goodbye song:
Julius is trying his best to keep up, at one point his voice can be heard very clearly (and in tune)
The 2 weeks ride with the kittens has been quite roller coaster-y.
They ate well for a week, then stopped eating and had some diarrhea … after 3 days of non-eating I called a vet and took them, just to hear that they seem healthy and that I shall return next day with a stool sample, which indicated that they are still healthy, but that our luxury stray cats obviously don’t like the cheapest brand of cat food.
All in all, 3 trips to the vet, each takes at least 1 hour in Turin traffic. But they are fine now, and tonight they finally dared to leave the confines of their ‘secure environment’ and explored the next room (the kitchen) …
Mama left today for another business trip and that gives me the chance again to get silly creative on food offerings for Julius, while still including enough veggies (and it is a spinach burger!)
He especially liked the carrot cravat.
The first few days have been fun and interesting … no more wondering what to wear every morning (school uniform), no waiting for the school bus (we walk) … everything pretty peachy … but also lots of new things for me and the kid.
E.g. there is a ‘student’s diary’ … a book which goes back and forth between teacher and parents every day! (Forgetting to bring it 3 times can result in detention, which I guess is meant for the upper grades). I have to sign this book every day to confirm that I have checked if the teacher had anything to say to me. (I’d love to hear from other parents if they have anything like that!)
We are very fortunate that we can walk to school (900 meters up and down the hill, 4 times a day for me), but especially at pick up time, the place is a mad house (video coming up some time video now here) … all kids come between 8:30 and 9 AM (parents are supposed to be off the grounds by 9:15) and EVERYONE leaves at 3:30 PM. Which makes for a fun chaos, though the school internally seems to be well organized in this. But they can’t do anything about the narrow one-way street outside (well, not true, they actually do, they are relocating for next school year).
So far the weather has been great and the walk has been fun, let’s see how we do that once it rains and we need umbrellas and boots. Julius seems to be having some issues with the new lunch surrounding and at one point the teacher asked me to have a talk with him about listening when the teacher suggests the class should do something together (him and several other boys)
His class has 15 kids, of which only 4 are girls, and he already declared 2 of them his girlfriends!
And he is very tired when he comes home …
(*) As before, I am using the term ’school’ loosely for everything that’s nursery, pre school, kindergarten … as I just really have no clue … for Julius it has always been ‘going to school’
We have started early telling Julius about changing schools … and he was really getting excited about it … so .. today was the big day and there was no separation anxiety (unlike we heard from other kids) … and I expect to pick him up in a bit just fine.
Just digg the big fat fake smile!!!
Besides new kids, new teachers and new surroundings … one very new thing is that we can walk to school … I have the feeling this is rather rare for kids today … So, we walked today and we are planning on walking everyday … sun, rain, snow, hail … ok .. we might get a taxi when there is a meteor shower …
(*) I know, I am using the term ‘school’ loosely for everything that’s nursery, pre school, kindergarten … as I just really have no clue … for Julius it has always been ‘going to school’
.. which included lots of running around for J, while getting to know a lot of new kids. He already seems to be good friends with 2 other newcomers in his class, Momoko (another Japanese girl, not in the photos) and Rayan (Columbian / Tunesian … and we thought we were colorful.)
Today was all about getting new passports for Julius. For this we had to wake up at 6AM, hop in the car and drive 2h to Milano. So far I only know Milano from passing by and even today, I got to know only a small part of it. From what I could see, parking seems to be a major issue, so we opted for a paid parking lot, spending 17€ for 6 hours.
The visits to both consulates were unproblematic and uneventful. As we had some time to kill before we can pick up the Japanese passport, Ritsu had found us a great Japanese restaurant in walking distance: Endo-Tomoyoshi
The setting and the food were very authentic, the quality of tuna was the best I have had in Italy so far. They do very nice lunch sets. Service is friendly and quick. I would love to have a place like this in our neighborhood. But 15.50€ plus drinks is not your everyday lunch.
We were amazed how well Julius overall behaved … 2 boring car rides and 2 stuffy offices (the German consulate had at least a box of toys and some other kids roaming around)
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