Dining at Osteria Morini - Part of My Michael White Restaurant Tour!

I've mentioned Marea before and how that was one of the best meals I've had last year.  As a result, I've gone to Ai Fiori, Marea's sister restaurant, and now it's time for Osteria Morini!  Osteria Morini is Michael White's casual restaurant and features cuisine from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy (the central city is Bologna).  This is where Michael White worked for seven years, so this restaurant is kind of a homage to his time there:

Polpettine - prosciutto & mortadella meatballs baked in tomato sauce:  a nice start to the meal, the tomato sauce was delicious and the bread was prepared nicely (oiled and then lightly grilled) 

Cappalletti - truffled ricotta ravioli, melted butter, prosciutto:  this is similar to the butter sauces that we made in class, but it's accented with prosciutto and black pepper.  It was definitely tasty - the ravioli was delicious (truffle and ricotta is such a nice combination) and this paired very well with the prosciutto and butter.

Casoncelli - squid ink ravioli, shrimp, scallop, passata, calamari, white wine.  This is the main reason I wanted to try Morini - my obsession with squid ink runs deep!  This was a very nice dish and one that I'll try to recreate on my own.

Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta and Onion - another food obsession of mine.  I love Brussels sprouts (it soaks up flavors so well) - this was a pretty good side dish.

Gianduja Budino - Chocolate Hazelnut custard, amarena cherries, caffe cream, cherry lambrusco sorbetto: this felt like a copy of the maple budino at Locanda Verde (which is what led me to the pasta comparison after the fact) except that it's with hazelnut instead of maple. Both are served with preserved fruit, toasted nuts, and a cherry sorbet as a palette cleanser, though I do prefer Locanda Verde's version. Taste-wise, both are very good, but Osteria's needs more of the preserved cherries and toasted hazelnuts - the proportions of the different components is a bit unbalanced, while Locanda's was spot on.

Dinner at Roberta's in Brooklyn!

After hearing rave reviews of Roberta's and perusing the online menu for weeks, I finally got a chance to go there.  Roberta's is really famous for their pizzas, and I've been eyeing the squid ink tagliatelle with mussels and sea urchin for a while now. The exterior of Roberta's is rather unassuming - the entrance is nondescript and it's surrounded by warehouses.  But the food is what I'm really interested in:

Sweetbreads with Key Lime – I LOVE having sweetbreads fried, and this tasted like creamy KFC nuggets – this was pretty good as is, though I wish there was some micro greens or something to accompany it

Octopus with Black Garlic, Treviso, and Sea Beans – awesome dish, every component worked perfectly together.  This would be my favorite item of the night if not for the following course:

Squid Ink Tagliatelle with Mussels and Sea Urchin – I’ve been obsessed with squid ink and sea urchin and this did not disappoint. Really great, my favorite dish.

Duck Hunt - pawlet, duck prosciutto, leek, sweet potato, onion, chilli flake – we ordered a pizza since Roberta's is known for their pizzas, and I wanted to try this because of the ingredients (haven't tasted pawlet cheese before).  This pizza was good, but doesn’t hold up to all the other savory items we had; definitely needs more duck prosciutto, and the chili flake kinda got lost in all the sweetness. The bee sting (tomato, mozzarella, sopressata, chili, honey) that I had at Madison Square Eats was much better.

Blood Orange Semifreddo, Candied Kumquats, Blood Orange, Truffles, and Walnuts – an okay dessert, nothing really outstanding about it.

A couple outstanding dishes for the night - a different pizza next time will make the next meal here exceptional.

Application of Specialty Cresses II - Broiled Rib Eye with Chimichurri Sauce!

In an effort to use more of the specialty cresses, I decided to do a chimichurri sauce to go with a broiled rib eye. I didn't have a recipe for the sauce, so this was by trial and error - I added ingredients and kept tasting until the sauce was good.  The chimichurri sauce contains the following:

mustard cress
basil limon cress
lemon juice
white wine vinegar
capers
shallots
cumin
crushed red pepper
salt and pepper
olive oil

I did a rough cut of all the ingredients and combined them together, then seasoned it to taste.  Here's the finished product:

The chimichurri sauce paired really nicely with the steak.  Presentation-wise, fanning this out was definitely the way to go.  After broiling, I let the rib eye rest for a bit so that the juices redistribute - then I sliced it, fanned it out on the plate, and spooned the the sauce on top.

In terms of criticism, the acidity from the chimichurri sauce overpowered some of the individual flavors of the mustard and basil limon cress - while the sauce was delicious, the individual flavors of the mustard and basil limon were not as pronounced (as opposed to the scallop ceviche, where the cress was used more as a garnish).

All in all, I would still consider this a very successful dish - this was the first time I plated sliced steak, and I'm very happy with how the dish looks and tastes.

Application of Specialty Cresses - Scallop Ceviche and Squid Ink Tagliattele with Uni!

After getting all the specialty cresses I had to figure out some dishes to feature them.  There was a lot of mustard cress so that was my first challenge.

I was trying to find flavors that would complement mustard but the only thing I could think of was honey.  Then I thought the mustard cress would look very pretty as a garnish for ceviche, and decided to go with scallops.  I wanted to reinforce the mustard cress with whole grain mustard, which would also look very appealing on the plate.

Scallop Ceviche - scallops, whole grain mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, lemon zest, and mustard cress.  This came out awesome, one of my favorite dishes that I've ever made.  I think it photo'ed well and tasted great, I'm very proud of this.

So I've been obsessed with squid ink and sea urchin for a while now - it all started with my birthday meal at Marea, where I tasted their spaghetti with sea urchin, one of the best plates of food that I've ever had.  Ever since then, I've been obsessed with non-sushi applications of sea urchin.  Later on, I had a squid ink risotto with snails and octopus at Traif, my favorite restaurant in NY.

I had some shiso cress and thought it would be great to pair that with uni since shiso is often used with sushi.  But I decided to go with pasta because of my meal at Roberta's, which featured an amazing squid ink tagliattele with mussels and sea urchin.  In addition, I had the Trofie Nero at Ai Fiori, (ligurian crustacean ragu, seppia, scallops, spiced mollica, you can read the review here), which was also delicious.  What resulted is an amalgam of the dishes at Roberta's and Ai Fiori.

Squid ink tagliatelle with calamari, shrimp, tomatoes, shallots, garlic, and crushed red pepper flakes, topped with sea urchin and shiso cress.  All the flavors worked perfectly together - in addition, this is the first time I cooked calamari, and it turned out well.  This was a very delicious plate, I'm very happy with how this turned out.