La bettola di Piero- Milano, Italy

Italian via Orti 17, 20122 Milano, 0039 02 55184947.

6.5

This is typical Italian trattoria in the Porta Romana area of Milan. What I really liked here was my appetizer: warm ricotta cheese with radicchio (radicchio is a type of salad whose color is maroon). Radicchio was finely chopped inside the ricotta without making it too bitter, which I was afraid of. My main was Tuna with Ginger sauce, which was just OK. I am not too much of a fan of classic Italian trattorias with exotic sauces or recipes. I wouldn’t go back to this place, unless I am hungry and in the area.

Service is OK. Average price for appetizer, main and water was about 35 Euros. Not cheap!

Gaucho Grill

www.gauchorestaurants.co.uk
89 Sloane Avenue, London - tel. +44 020 7584 9901

Argentinean Stake house, there are a couple in London, we went to the one in South Ken. I am not going to waste a lot of time on it. I ordered a filet (bife de lomo) medium rare and I got a medium filet. The taste was nice but it wasn’t cooked how I would have wanted, it was a bit hard. This restaurant is usually very good so I will let this slip for this time. The bread they bring you at the beginning is nice, especially the cheese bread (which resembles Brazilian pao de queso), they serve it with and oil dressing which is quite good.

Service is OK. Reserve in advance on a weekend. Average price? About 40 Pounds each, depending on the wine.

Zeughauskeller kanonenputzer

Swiss German

Bahnhofstrasse 28a
Near Paradeplatz
8001 Zürich
Phone +41 (0)44 211 26 9
open every day

Rate: 9

This is one of my favorite places in Zurich for Swiss-German food. It is a typical, yet huge beer spot where a lot of locals go. They have an English menu; so don’t be intimidated by all those German names. The specialty there is sausage, in about any way and shape you want it. You can have it by the meter, with onion sauce, the sky is the limit. When you go ask for the sausage in the sword, it is a huge skewer with the sausage in it.
I have tried a lot of dishes there, let me tell you not to miss other than the sausage in the sword:
Schnitzel- breaded pan fried meat. It is a cutlet really. Have it with a side of Rösti (hash brown potatoes "Swiss style"). Delicious!
Veal Zurich style- it is veal cooked with cream and mushrooms. They serve in a little pot and with a candle beneath to keep it warm. Another good salad is the potato salad. It has mustard in the dressing, bear that in mind.
Chicken- very tender but a small portion overall. The side will be bigger. A friend of mine from Zurich told me that they are not allowed to have chicken farms there for health security issues, that is why portions are not big and sometimes chicken can be more expensive than beef. Crazy!


Tasty, pan-fried pork sausage (180 gr)- very good… not much to say about this, and it has less fat than you are used to find in any sausage.

Vanilla ice-cream with strawberries- Very good.

You’ll find some bread on the table that has a quatrefoil shape. Keep in mind that you pay for each piece. Price is reasonable. Service is good and fast. Almost all waiters speak English, German, Italian and French, so don’t worry. Moreover, close to each dish in the menu there is a number so, if you are having language problems, just point to the number.

Full menu available at: http://www.zeughauskeller.ch/pdf/angebot_e.pdf

Fifteen- London- rate 5.5

15 Westland Place

London N1 7LP
0871 330 1515

Reservation needed.

For as much as I love Jamie Oliver's Fifteen concept, I am fairly disappointed with his restaurants. Reserved two weeks in advance at the Dining Room and wasn't impressed with the food, nor with the service. Being Italian I am very critical of Italian restaurants and find very few to be real and authentic.

Fifteen is divided in two parts: Trattoria and Dining Room. Trattoria is low key and the Dining room, downstairs, is a bit more upscale and with a prefixed menu changing every day.

So here is what the table had. (Pictures to come)

To get started:

Kenny's freshly baked focaccia with Puglian olives and salami
Focaccia was made with onions, good. Olives were OK and salami wasn't the best quality but overall good.

Insalate:

Bruschetta of new season with Isle of Wight tomatoes, capers, basil and ricotta salata.
Doesn't taste like real bruschetta, capers are tiny, really tiny and ricotta salata is not (or at least doesn't taste like) the real thing

Burrata (a gooey mozzarella from Puglia) with peaches, Prosciutto, mint, funky Secretts leave and Belazu balsamic. (My bro's gf had this)
Burrata was OK, a bit better than what you usually get at an Italian restaurant abroad.

Primi

Tortellini of grilled zucchini, Heritage potatoes and scamorza in a caper butter broth.
3 tortellini in a way too much buttery sauce. The good thing is that tortellini were cooked "al dente" but overall not a great dish.

Fusilli "fatte in casa" with a rich lamb bolognese. (My bro's gf dish)
Wasn't cooked properly, didn't taste like real bolognese nor as an acceptable one. Please, when you write in Italian get the name right... it is fatti in casa...

Secondi

Well here I asked for the fisherman stew and ended up with

Pan-fried Dorset scallops with fregola sarda, cherry tomatoes, clams, chilli, samphire and black olive dressing.
This was good, the fish was cooked to the right point. A bit too much olive dressing... but overall liked it.

Dolci e Formaggi

Basil panna cotta with balsamic Jersey strawberries and shortbread
Liked this. Surely the best dish of the night

Honey and hazelnut parfait with blood orange and almond brittle.
This was very nice as well. The parfait a bit heavy, but nice.

OK, service. The waiter brought us the wrong dish twice and didn't even apologize for it. And when you pay 60 pound each without drinks, this surely bugs you.

We waited a long time between each course, an average of 45 minutes each.

I DO NOT recommend this place. It is overpriced and not that good. Sorry Jamie :)

What this is all about...

Hello everyone!

I, like surely a lot of you, absolutely love food. Before going to a restaurant I research and read as much as I can about it, so when I go there I already know what to order. The problem is that critiques are usually either very "philosophical" or unprecise, so it happens that my expectations are not met.

My friends told me that I need to write my recommendations down because every time I take them somewhere to eat, they absolutely love the food. You'll see that some restaurants are based in Milan, which is where I live at the moment, but I travel a lot so I will try to keep the blog updated with all the restaurants I visit worldwide.

I will use this space to let you know about my food experience (to my taste), I will tell you briefly what I ate, how is the place and service, posting some pictures when possible. The idea is to help you find a good restaurant or spot to eat when you travel so you can avoid the pain of going somewhere overpriced and bad.

Within the information, there will be the date of the last time I ate at that place. This because many places are just not able to keep a high standard all the time.