Tag: featured

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Menza – Catania

Menza is a cool little restaurant in downtown Catania that has every traditional Sicilian dish… and the best part is that its all ready to go!  You walk into a room of glass cases stuffed with all sorts of Sicilian delicacies.  The dishes range from antipasti like octopus salad (Insalata di Polpo) all the way through to secondi like Palermo style swordfish (Pesce Spada Palermitana).  Also one whole side of the place is dedicated to the sweets!  Very cool place that I Continue reading “Menza – Catania”

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West Coast Sicily Wineries – Planeta Winery & Donnafugata Winery

A trip to the West coast of Sicily has been looming over us for the past year.  It has always been on our list to explore over there, but always gets aced for something else that comes up.  The 2+ hour drive definitely has influenced our decision.  Back in August something came up that forced us to commit to a particular weekend.  That something is the annual “E’ la notte di Calici di Stelle”  at the Donnafugata winery.  That translates to “Goblets under the stars.”  Donnafugata puts Continue reading “West Coast Sicily Wineries – Planeta Winery & Donnafugata Winery”

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Restaurante Degli Amici – Misterbianco

Not a lot of food choices in the Sigonella area.  The couple of options get pretty old pretty quickly after a while.  Luckily my friend Mario showed me Restaurante Degli Amici in Misterbianco for a change up every once in a while.   Its a bit of a drive compared to the other options, but it has a great antipasti bar!  Most antipasti bars that I have found look like they have been stranded for days with unappetizing food.   At Restaurante Degli Amici they make it their centerpiece, which is more traditional of a Sicilian restaurant.  They also have some great fresh seafood primi and secondi, including the best calamaretti that I have had so far.   I know what your thinking… I think Nick just made a typo with calamaretti .. but its the word for baby calamari.  They fry them just like normal calamari and they are delicious.  Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of pictures but they are below:

 

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Ethnic Section @ Sicilian Grocery Store

The Italians are a very proud bunch!  So much so that probably around 99% of the restaurants that you find here are Italian/Sicilian.  Im not kidding about the 99% 😐   Luckily I have honed my kitchen skills when it comes to Mexican/Greek/Chinese/Thai and the like to get our worldly mix.  Having access to the commissary on base is a necessity because below is the wide selection for “non Italian” that you will find at the local Italian grocery stores.  Literally we are talking one shelf that is supposed to cover rest of the globe.  Have you ever seen Uncle Bens Tortilla chips?!?  Well now you have:

 

 

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Sicilian in San Diego?

What I found surprising before moving to Sicily is that there is a lot of Sicilian presence in San Diego.  Most of the Little Italy places have roots with Sicilian families that immigrated to the States way back when.  The story as I heard it was that they all moved to San Francisco, but the great earthquake of 1906 scared them all down to San Diego.  In San Diego they found a better climate and great fishing.  This lead to Little Italy becoming a mecca for tuna fishing and canning.

Before we moved out here I would talk to some of the Sicilians at Filipi’s in Little Italy.  They told me of certain places to see and where to stay away from the mafia folks.  They definitely glorified the mafia image a bit, probably due to the many Hollywood movies and such.  The reality is that we haven’t had any kind of “experience” with any type of mafia and we feel safer here than San Diego.

I digress…  I receive mail from local San Diego places still that have my forwarded address.  Last week I received a flyer from an Italian restaurant in San Diego called Il Fornaio.  They have this cool routine where they focus on certain regions of Italy and Sicily came up on this flyer.  I thought it was really cool to see this from here in Sicily!  The menu looks pretty legit and the wines that they imported are definitely some of the popular wines that we drink out here.  Unfortunately there is a bit of delay in mail to get here in Sicily so the event is over at the restaurant, but if your in the area and want a taste of Sicily in your backyard they might still have it available.

I know what your asking yourself right now… what would Nick chose on the menu. 🙂

Antipasti I would probably go for the Arancini

Pasta I would go with the Calamarata alle Melanzane because this looks like their attempt at Pasta alla Norma, which is the main Sicilian pasta dish.

Secondi is a very tough choice… all 3 of the choices are very solid… but if I had to make a choice it would probably be the Agnello because Im a sucker for lamb dishes.

For the Sicilian wine I would definitely chose the “La Segreta Ross, Planeta, 2010″ .. its one of our regular favorites here.  The only difference is that we pay $8 a bottle while Il Fornaio has it listed for $35.  I know what your thinking again… ” I don’t really like this Nick character”… ha.   But consider the fact that if you wanted a traditional Sicilian meal like this one you would be paying $1500 for a flight and have to risk your life with the Italian drivers… That upcharge of more than 4x doesn’t sound so bad anymore right?

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COS Winery Sicily

Some friends of ours were nice enough to invite us to a little weekend at a winery about an hour and a half south of where we live.  COS winery is one of Sicily’s most renowned wine makers.  But in typical Sicilian fashion we weren’t going to just taste some wines for an hour and then move onto the next winery,  we were setup to have a large lunch to accompany our tastings.  We also decided to stay the night at the winery itself, which was a very cool experience.

The guy running the show at COS is Pino.  He is a great host and was a former chef at a Sicilian restaurant in Germany.  He was at  that restaurant over 15 years.  Being able to have a Sicilian restaurant that long in Germany is a feat in itself.  Now he is enjoying a semi retirement in his homeland.  The meal that he prepared Continue reading “COS Winery Sicily”

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What do you do with this fish?

I know that the Sicilians like to use everything…. and I mean everything.  I see many different things at the grocery store that baffle me.  This fish is an example.  I have caught big rays in San Diego bay when I used to fish there, but I would never keep them.  These little rays at the top left of the fish display at the store look like they have very little meat and the fact that they are red just makes me wonder…. what in the world do they do with these fish?   Any ideas out there?