wine, women and more wine

so tonight we met our gal pals Mary & Sheila for dinner at Osteria Langhe. Another amazing meal - and I admit up front that I am already in a groove there with the coniglio.  Sheila and I both ordered the coniglio and Mary and Phil both ordered the porchetta...

on Tuesday they have a "trifecta" menu where the three course prix fixe is extremely reasonably priced.  We all went for that - with the mains named above and various starters- I had the funghi - Phil had the plin - Mary had the snails and Sheila had the gnocchi.... all were fabulous!

the dessert also went two and two with Sheila and I taking down the panna cotta and Mary and Phil going the chocolate route....

here are some photos - OH and a wonderful bottle of Italian Barbaresco courtesy of "uncle" Neil!

Sheila brought the Langhe and we brought a sparkling wine to start-

in order below-  the plin - the gnocchi - the funghi and the lumache

the porchetta and then the coniglio-

the cioccolato and the panna cotta- each times two!

so again a worthy meal - the prix fixe is a fabulous value and the food is beyond good- really really terrific - so tasty! Tomorrow we are off to Northwesern for the National Theater Live production of A View from the Bridge. so stay tuned as usual....

friday night dinner and more

so the first event of the big "Forks and Corks" weekend is the wine dinner on Friday featuring wines from Italy and the following fabulous menu from Jamil at MoE (Michael's on East)

On Friday, January 23 – over Forks & Corks weekend! – our Italian Wine Dinner will feature superstar wineries Altesino (with winemaker/manager Guido Oralesi) from Montalcino (Brunello di Montalcino!) and Vittorio Marianecci from Zenato, Valpolicella – famous Amarone producers!

So off we went - and here is the report... passed starters were OK- nothing jumped out at either of us- although I favored the figs (what else is new?)

the room was quite full but oddly- since we go to pretty much every wine dinner Michael's has - we didn't see more than two or three familiar faces...

here are the wines for the evening-

they opened the cellar dining area and as usual - it was magical with all the candle lights and glassware and those fabulous glass chargers which protect your menu from staining or crumpling- could be among the best inventions ever!

wines at my place setting mid dinner- I had finished one of the Trebbianos and the first two reds were poured...

my favorite course- the branzino- every element was perfectly balanced and it showed off the wines very nicely as well- bravo Jamil!!!

I missed getting a photo of the veal loin - which came in a magnificent sauce and had amazing little gnocchi surrounding it- I am so sorry you can't see it- (oh well :-( ) good news I got extra because of the deal we made about the lamb course....

then the lamb course -which Phil and I had agreed he would eat since I am no fan of lamb- Phil felt the wood smoke flavor was too heavy for the dish, even though Jamil usually has such a light touch...

the dessert was exactly the one Phil is always hoping for- too rich for my taste but he loved every bite!

we got to sit at the table where the Altesina wine rep was seated and really enjoyed his company.  Michael and Terri Klauber were also at our table but being the host and hostess of several events the same evening were not able to spend much time there.

Since we are headed to eastern Europe in the fall I asked both Guido and Michael if they knew anything about the wines in Moldova - and while neither of them professed any knowledge Michael did say we should look at the various wine regions in Italy and follow the latitude around to that side of the Adriatic and further to the Black Sea to get an idea of what to expect in macro climate and work from there- which made sense to me.

And just because this post is about dinner at Michael's I am going to post from our Tuesday night dinner at the restaurant-  where Phil ate the Chinese Epicurean menu and I ordered off the regular menu and as usual had a perfectly executed meal. Both our wines showed well and Justin was attentive in an unobtrusive manner... what more can you ask from an evening out? Not a thing!

we shared the seasonal salad with figs and blue cheese and candied pecans!

my starter was the house cured salmon crostini- which - while very good- didn't quite make it to the standard of my very own tequila lime cilantro gravlax which is always such a hit at our Chicago parties-

the incredible sea bass with "lobster broth" - which was a serious understatement- it was really sea bass with lobster- because hidden under the sea bass were hug chunks of lobster-

I gave half of this HUGE HUGE HUGE ice cream cake to Phil but it was still too much! Loved every bite!

Tonight CBGB arrive and we are dining at Harry's with some of our cellar's wines-

and then tomorrow morning - the Main Event! 2015 Forks and Corks Grand Tasting at the Ringling Art Museum.  And just to finish off this post - here is a photo that my dad took of the museum courtyard in 1952 when my parents came down after their November 1951 wedding and visited with my mom's Uncle Bruce who lived on Anna Maria Island... this is the location of the Forks and Corks Grand Tasting. It doesn't look quite the same these days.

but more photos of that after tomorrow- because it is a photo worthy event--- keep your fingers crossed for CLEAR SKIES!  it is supposed to be cool- and that is OK just as long as it is DRY!

Touring Trieste

On day two, as is usual, we woke up early. Our hotel included breakfast, so we went downstairs to grab a bite. After breakfast we headed out in the direction of the train station to buy our tickets for Bologna and for Venice. That handled, we decided to do an overview tour of the city by using the hop on/hop off tourist bus.

some photos from the walk to the station-

The first bus was more than an hour away from coming by the stop at the train station, we grabbed a cab and headed toward the marina (starting point for the bus) since the departure time was roughly fifteen minutes from the then current time.  The tour took a bit over an hour for the full circuit and when we returned to town we hopped off at the stop closest to our hotel.

the bus seems to have been transferred from elsewhere (the Trieste sticker seems to be laid over another former and larger decal- LOL)

we head along the waterfront where there are easily a thousand sailboats in the harbor...turns out the weekend will bring one of the world's largest regattas to Trieste - the Barcolana...

back in the main square after the trip around the city and suburbs..

a number of a great variety of lights - all of which were stunning!

We did a bit of research about "attractions" on Trip Advisor and made a reservation for lunch at a hole-in-the-wall place down an alley-like street about five minutes walk from the main plaza.
The walk to/from the lunch place -

the place we chose for lunch-

After lunch we decided to walk to the ruins of the Roman Teatro which once was right on the edge of the city but now is located in the center of the central city area.

After we made short work of seeing the Roman ruins, we walked a bit through the pedestrian area of town. Shops and restaurants line the maze of narrow streets.  Plenty of charming places to eat and/or sit outside for coffee or drinks.

back into the narrow streets of the old city- I spotted this very eye-appealing book stand-

then the main square - the location of our hotel - you can see at the waterfront the preparations for the regatta with many tents pitched for vairous functions-

in the evening we walked to dinner through the city -

The dinner place was called pepenero pepebianci - and was excellent!   This would be our best dinner in Trieste.  The meal was made even better because of the warm welcome and attentive service of the owner.  

we shared a plate of the locally made (in the village above town) prosciutto

then Phil had the white truffles on eggs-

and I had a stupendous zucchini flower dish with foamed burrata!

My main was the tagliatelle with the white truffles-

Phil had the large scampi

too full for desserts - we still made short work of the mignardise -

highly recommended!

off to sleep - planning for the next day's outing since our tickets for the bus work for 48 hours we can catch up with a few more sights by taking the bus to the more difficult (top of the mountain) locations - and see some more of Trieste before we leave the following morning...