CAMPAGNOLO RESTAURANTO

My friend and I went to this place last Friday night, and it was almost as if we had entered heaven, Italian heaven that is.

We ordered two appetizers and one main to share, and of course some wine!

The two appetizers were:

Crispy Ceci (which are chickpeas that have been flash-fried to taste like bliss) with chilies, mint and citrus.

Seared Octopus with nugget red potatoes, olives, lardo, and frise lettuce.

For the main, we got the Margherita pizza with mozzarella, tomato and basil.

Check out their website here: http://www.campagnolorestaurant.ca/

Italiano Cooking

My friend recently got back from Italy, bringing back with her some tasty Italian recipes. So the other day, we made a visit to whole foods, picked up a bunch of fresh, colourful ingredients and made an Italiano feast.

For appies, we put out pesto-stuffed sicilian olives, and 3 different types of cheese (French herbed brie, Italian provolone, and English chesire) with baguette.

For the entree, we made fusili pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes, onions, kalamata olives, oregano, olive oil and feta cheese.

Hard-boiled eggs with balsamic vinegar and green onions.

Salade with mixed greens, peppers, sliced onions, cucumbers, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt.

And to keep up the theme, we drank peroni beer and lambrusci red wine.

FANTASTICO.

Dine Out Volume I: CinCin Ristorante + Bar

To continue our fine-dining adventures, my friend and I decided to challenge our food tasting experience at West with CinCin, an Italian restaurant renowned for its wood fire oven. Fortunately, it is one of my favourite times of year, Dine Out, where different restaurants in the Vancouver area offer three-course meals for affordable set prices. Like West, I had to take my sister's camera... so the quality of pictures are not the best.

To begin the night we ordered a bottle of an Amano 2006 Primitivo, one of Italy's oldest grapes. The wine menu at CinCin was daunting, at least 15 pages of new world and old world reds and whites, as while as an extensive list of sparkling wines and ports.

For my appetizer, I chose the baby romaine lettuce salad with grana padano cheese, gem tomatoes and a creamy roasted garlic vinaigrette; their version of an upscale caesar salad.

As an entree, I picked the wood oven roasted lingcod which was topped with a tomato basil crust and served with umbrian lentils and broccolini. The lentils were amazing; I never knew they could be saturated with so much flavour!

Lastly, for dessert I had a valhrona chocolate fondant with a honey anglaise and lemon sorbetto. The fondant was deliciously rich, however I found the pairing of the fondant and lemon sorbetto to be quite odd.

For more information about CinCin check out their website: http://www.cincin.net/

Up next on the Dine Out schedule... Chambar Belgian Restaurant!