Italian Food

Belive it or not, the best Tex-Mex was from a Chinese takeout joint.

It was across from - you guessed it - an Italian American church with the worst sounding name - Our Lady of Mount Virgin.
It sounds like it was a name from a Monty Python skit. Everyone called it the Mounted Virgin.
 
It's the same here. A lot of foods are altered to meet the British palate. I once went to dinner with a friend (father Scottish, mother Indian, and he was brought up in Indian). We went to a local Indian restaurant, and he asked them to cook a particularly spicy dish which was not on their menu. They doubted whether I would be able to eat it, but agreed that the meal would be free if I could. After I had second helpings, they gave up. I can't remember for the life of me what it was called though, as it was not ordered in English! I have also been to a few "proper" Indian and Chinese restaurants, and the food is a lot different. I have had Persian food and Singaporean food cooked for me in my own kitchen, and I have cooked West Indian (Grenada) food for a visitor from that country, but that was all 40-50 years ago. I don't think I could do it now.
 
Well, I suppose this is the point about not judging food of a particular culture by what you get in restaurants supposedly of that culture. The truth is, they will cater to the tastes of their clientele, which, of course, is nothing other than good business. All I can say is that around me, a significant number of the best restaurants are Italian themed. And pizza and pasta is only a small part of their offering. And I suppose that the fundamental idea of this thread would have worked better if it had been about what dishes people cooked of an Italian bent, and perhaps even better what food they had experienced while actually in Italy. I accept, I’m the one who set off talking about Italian restaurants.
 
Ken Natton said:
Well, I suppose this is the point about not judging food of a particular culture by what you get in restaurants supposedly of that culture. The truth is, they will cater to the tastes of their clientele, which, of course, is nothing other than good business. All I can say is that around me, a significant number of the best restaurants are Italian themed. And pizza and pasta is only a small part of their offering. And I suppose that the fundamental idea of this thread would have worked better if it had been about what dishes people cooked of an Italian bent, and perhaps even better what food they had experienced while actually in Italy. I accept, I’m the one who set off talking about Italian restaurants.
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Half the problem these days is that the clientele has changed. Up until the 1960s there were Indian and Chinese restaurants in London and presumably elsewhere that only catered for Indian and Chinese people. You would very rarely see anyone of any other nationality in there (except me :roflmao:). When I worked in Newham in the 1980s/90s, I wanted to go to a decent "proper" Indian restaurant. I asked a couple of local lads I knew - they could only think of one; and no one could come up with a Chinese equivalent. How times had changed. The two family-run Italian restaurants I spoke of are the only two I would think of as being Italian - most of the others don't even come close - but then my only experience of Italian food previously was a trip to Italy in the mid-1960s. Of the two local Greek restaurants, one has closed and the other has become a "Greek restaurant and steak house" and there are now very few Greek dishes on their menu compared with, say, ten years ago. And of course modern cuisine in any country has evolved too, and going to any restaurant now is not the "once in a blue moon" treat that it used to be when I was a youngster and that I am still used to now.
 
Kake Lover said:
We have a lovely Italian restaurant located locally, which is a bit of a treat to go to, called Vesuvius. There's a picture of the mountain on the wall, made entirely from wine bottle corks, different shades. They do a range of meat dishes as well as pasta and pizzas.
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I would bet that the name of this Italian restaurant was Vesuvius..:laugh: It seems that most of Italian restaurants abroad called Vesuvius or Tony Italian pizza or o' Siciliano, or mozzarella and spaghetti and many others name that I don't like so much...when I travel abroad I never never never try to eat in Italian restaurants for these simple reasons: I'm in another country and I would like to eat and know taste so different by my cooking, for curiosity and because I think it's right to do this. And the other reason is.....I don't trust in the Italian restaurant abroad, not because they aren't good but because they certainly adapt the taste to the English, German, French taste..it's normal this but I remember once in London we eaten for curiosity in an Italian restaurant and we were very annoyed...pizza that wasn't pizza, spaghetti with tomato sauce that were disappointing..not because they weren't good but nothing so more far rispect spaghetti here. But I know it's a long topic this.....

Kake Lover said:
We have a lovely Italian restaurant located locally, which is a bit of a treat to go to, called Vesuvius. There's a picture of the mountain on the wall, made entirely from wine bottle corks, different shades. They do a range of meat dishes as well as pasta and pizzas.
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Ken Natton said:
It was on 'The Trip to Italy' that Steve Coogan pointed out that Italians keep all the good tomatoes for themselves and send us the remnants.
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I'm not sure about this. I think would be the manner of cooking..I don't think to cook always with the best tomatoes although I'm an Italian in Italy.
 
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MypinchofItaly said:
I would bet that the name of this Italian restaurant was Vesuvius..:laugh: It seems that most of Italian restaurants abroad called Vesuvius or Tony Italian pizza or o' Siciliano, or mozzarella and spaghetti and many others name that I don't like so much...when I travel abroad I never never never try to eat in Italian restaurants for these simple reasons: I'm in another country and I would like to eat and know taste so different by my cooking, for curiosity and because I think it's right to do this. And the other reason is.....I don't trust in the Italian restaurant abroad, not because they aren't good but because they certainly adapt the taste to the English, German, French taste..it's normal this but I remember once in London we eaten for curiosity in an Italian restaurant and we were very annoyed...pizza that wasn't pizza, spaghetti with tomato sauce that were disappointing..not because they weren't good but nothing so more far rispect spaghetti here. But I know it's a long topic this.....
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We have Mi Piaci and Olive Garden.
 
jennyb said:
Yes! There is an Italian restaurant I know called that too! I really like Italian food and eating pizza in Rome is one of my best food memories.
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I'm very glad about your pizza memories in Roma :okay:.. in Roma there's a tradition regarding "Pizza al taglio", it's a pizza street food to take away..and I love it..walking through Trastevere while you're eating a piece of pizza..:laugh:
 
And althought you were in Roma you hadn't pizza? Unique in the world:happy:.
Rimini and the Romagna area isn't famous for pizza ( but if you want it you find it)...but is famous for Piadina. Neither this did you eat?
 
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