After a long day of shopping, cousins, mom, sister, and my little bro checked out the new Mama Melina near Uvillage. http://mammamelina.com/
Food was good but not spectacular. Nothing to write home about. If you are in the area and crave Italian, you should go but not a destination spot. Flavors were so so, exception was the eggplant parmesan. The food and restaurant is beautiful but the flavors weren't there for me. It's good but not great.
The Appetizers...
Eggplant Parmesan. This was my favorite dish of the night.
Vongole con Fagioli e Pancetta (Clams, white beans, and pancetta)
Bruschette
The Entrees....
Spaghetti Pomodoro
Ravioli Con Porcini e Formaggi
Penne with Smoked Mozzarella
Pizza Salciccia e Rapini
Pizza with Mushroom and Truffle
I don't recommend this at all. Barely any truffle favors.
The Dessert....
Cheesecake
This was made with ricotta. I find this is my favorite way of eating cheesecake. Ricotta gives it a velvety texture and a lightness.
Tiramisu
The diners....my familia!
A few weeks ago, the girls...Joan, Stephanie, Soung, and I went to Osteria La Spiga for a little dinner. This place is in the new trendy part of Capitol Hill. They make all their pastas by hand and the sauces are simple. It was a simple dinner of wine and pastas.
Joan had the classic Bolognese
Stephanie had green Lasagne
Soung had simple Tomato sauce
and I had Truffled butter...very simple dish but had robust flavor and smell of truffles. One of the best ways to enjoy the truffles.
Today, I spent the day in Ballard watching world cup and shopping at the farmer's market. It was seafood fest in Ballard. Samad and I were going to try and watch it at the new Market Arms. We got there an hour before and the lines around the block. We tried to find a few other places that were showing the game with sound and ended up at the newly open place The Noble Fir.
The Noble Fir is a drink place in Ballard. They don't have much food, just cheese and appetizer plates. Their dessert menu are 3 different Theo chocolate bars...enough said. Their drinks are great though, they have a great selections of drafts and a few ciders. I ended up drinking 2 pts of cider.
Anyways, this lead us to the farmer's market where I got inspired to make pizza for dinner.
The Dough
I made the dough a day ago, eager to make the No Knead Bread again with the warm weather in the air. My friend Anya told me to use this as pizza dough a while back and we did use the recipe for the Homeless cooking a few months back. So, I decided to make pizza instead of bread. I do have to say, this dough makes great pizza. It can be thin and crispy if you roll it out very thin, or chewy and crusty as a thicker roll out.
The Toppings
I picked up some great porcini mushrooms, truffle formage, and fresh basil at the market. On our way back to my place, we saw some rosemary bush so broke off a twig and put in our bag.
The Result
I made 3 different kinds....
Truffled Porcini
This had porcini mushroom, tuffled formage, truffle salt.
Rosemary Potato
This had thinly sliced organic potatoes, porcini mushrooms, white onions, chili flakes, freshly chopped rosemary, and parmesean reggiano cheese.
Margarita
This was your classic. Made with San Marzano tomatoes, fresh basil, but no mozzerella, thus used parmesean. Soung was over so had to make some vegan too.
