#21: Booked and busy!
city of angels, campus Chinese food, and northern Italy
Three topics that naturally blend into each other! October was a booked and busy month. First, I went to LA for the first time with Will and his family to celebrate a wedding. We came back for a week in between to celebrate Will’s birthday and then shipped off for a vacation with my family to northern Italy!
Eating in the city of angels!
This city reaffirmed that I am an east coast girl at heart, BUT it left much to be desired as the antithesis to DC. I love LA’s range. From strip mall dives to Erewhon’s aisles of bone broth and sea moss gel elixirs, this place has everything!
Staying in the Venice Beach area, we were close to a bounty of amazing food options. These were my favorites from the weekend:
In-N-Out: Yes, it’s touristy but worth it! The unanimous local recommendation is to order everything “animal style” with cheese, charred onions, and special sauce. The fries admittedly are subpar and need to be ordered animal style. The burgers, however, are better than most fast food options. Service is surprisingly kind too!
Gjusta: I have been dreaming about Gjusta’s bakery and restaurant for years. The space is so LA with a giant counter/warehouse that goes back for miles with cases filled of glowing, laminated pastries, elaborate toasts, and smoked fish. The smoked salmon collar shines alongside tomato, cucumbers, pickled onions, watermelon radishes, labneh, capers, soft boiled egg, and bean sprouts.
Tacos por Favor: Very unassuming and right off of Abbot Kinney boulevard, this is a perfect place to refuel for a shopping break. Great pozole and tacos. Their agua de jamaica is also delicious!!
Los Cocos Panaderia y Pupuseria: Shoutout to Will’s mom for finding this tiny El Salvadorean spot serving up pupusas, tamales, and traditional pastries. The curtido (pickled slaw) served with warm pupusas was so bright and zingy.
See the full round up on my Instagram post here!
Volcano bowls for the table
After LA, we celebrated Will’s 27th birthday at the illustrious Magic Gourd. These are hallowed grounds for GW students. Known for serving every Chinese-American dish under the sun, the restaurant is frozen in time with white table cloths destined to be stained by sesame chicken and duck sauce until the end of time.
Magic Gourd was Will’s and many GW kids’ favorite for one main reason: volcano bowls. The giant donut-shaped, tropical ceramic vessel holds about six drinks of mystery booze juice. Honestly, I expected to be ill after the meal but it scratched the itch for Chinese-American classics without the fuss. Flaky scallion pancakes, crispy spring rolls, pillowy dumplings, textured pork lo mein, saucy chicken, the works.
Fam trip to northern Italy
We covered a lot of ground! 5 days in the wine region of Piedmont, 2 days at Lake Maggiore, and 1 day in Milan. Let’s get into it!
PIEDMONT
Wine tours: Piedmont is home to Barolo and Barbera wines. Most of my wine education is through my dad and working at a wine bar in DC. Barolo and Barbera are as traditional as Italian reds come, but I’m honestly not particularly psyched about them on a wine list. I think what’s most fascinating about Barolo is that it’s not actually a very long tradition in the region. Only over the last 100 years have grape growers been reassessing what used to be a common farmer wine that was nearly undrinkable, and creating vintages designed to age with real complexity. I am by no means an expert, but it was unbelievable to learn how the same exact grape varietal in this very small area can vary so much based on technique and equipment. Thanks to my wine-o father, we crushed six wine tours in three days. Of our six tours, these were the main producers that stood out.
Coppo: A larger operation in Canelli, Coppo’s 130-year-old cellars are one of four wineries labeled as an official UNESCO world heritage site. Called Underground Cathedrals, the cavernous cellars are filled with the producer’s sparkling wine, Riserva Coppo, which is developed by turning the bottles periodically over many months. They’ve also redesigned the space to ensure it’s fully sustainable and reduces water consumption.
Cogno: This is a small production where we saw the grape maceration process in motion. Their harvest concluded the week before our visit and the fragrance of freshly crushed grapes completely filled the rooms. I was enamored by the producer’s crunchy, ruby-red Nebbiolo and its Naschetta, which is a local white wine grape that nearly went extinct with lovely acidity and minerality.
Elio Grasso: As the finale to our series, this tasting and cellar tour blew us away. After showing us two modest cellars, the manager casually pressed a button to open two sliding doors, revealing a dimly lit lair filled with battonage-style wine barrels bending around the corner. The tasting was also phenomenal. We tried a 2023 vintage of their Educato, which is a Chardonnay that is NOT over the top like the buttery California chards you might think of. Next, a gorgeous Nebbiolo that smelled and tasted like dried rose and strawberries YUM. We also sampled some really young but still tasty Barbera and Barolo that showed how much progress is left to be done with more aging. I didn’t let a drop go to waste and had a lovely car nap on the ride home.
Markets: The markets!!! What a treat to walk through a local morning market in Canelli and collect produce for dinners in our Airbnb. We procured porcini mushrooms at the end of their season, head-on shrimp, little rabbit sausages, and prosciutto from the cheese and salumi stand. This made for some beautiful dinners at home like risotto with porcinis, pizzas made in the outdoor pizza oven, and lots of grilled veggies. It was so special to cook with my family in the Airbnb and actually try local produce, meats, and cheeses.
Dining: Most of our restaurant visits were squeezed between wine tours for lunch. I can’t fully express my love for a sit-down lunch. It feels incredibly luxurious especially on vacation. These were my favorite dishes at local restaurants in Piedmont.
Ragù, Osteria la Salita: Tucked away on a cobblestone street in the adorable town of Monforte d’Alba is the home of my favorite ragù. Incredibly saucy and such a generous portion of tender meat. Perfectly seasoned and compact with deep flavors of tomato sauce that’s been cooking away in a cauldron in the kitchen that you pass when entering.
Toma blu cheese, La Piola: Discovering my love for toma blu (blue cheese) wasn’t on my bingo card for this trip, but wow did the cheese plate at this restaurant in Alba make me an immediate convert. It’s an incredibly salty, semi-hard cheese with some funky grassy notes to it.
Anchovy toasts with percil sauce, Osteria dei Meravigliati: Simple but such a great pair. Crunchy crostinis dolloped with bright green herby sauce and salty anchovies were an absolute delight. Not to mention the dining room in this restaurant in Canelli was incredibly ornate with hand-painted blue and yellow graphics and clouds made of chicken wire.
Cheese tasting: I geeked out way too hard during this cheese tasting and will post an in-depth round up of the 12 cheeses we tasted at Borgo Affinatori soon. This was so fun and informative. As a refinery, they buy fresh milk and cheeses and work with cheesemakers to determine how to best age cheeses in their controlled fridge and underground cellar. The range of cheeses that they age onsite is so impressive, and I loved comparing the different notes based on the animal’s environment. Cheese is so cool!! Shoutout to Lactaid!!
Truffle hunting: White truffle season in Piedmont runs from September through December. Unlike black truffles, white truffles cannot be grown and occur wildly, growing on the roots of certain trees. Truffle hunters forage for white truffles by training dogs to catch the scent up to a meter underground, wild! Our truffle hunting champion, Bill, was the absolute sweetest boy and helped us find a few nuggets. He did, however, eat some of the loot in the process and I really can’t blame him. A slightly expensive sunken cost for foraging with dogs. These umami dense jewels run for 8,000 euro per kilogram (about 2.2 pounds).
LAKE MAGGIORE
Dining: Trading the vineyards for the lake, we moved on to Lake Maggiore, about an hour outside of Milan. Only 2 hours from Piedmont, the food landscape changes as seafood joins the veal party of the north. These were my favorite dishes in the serene lakeside town of Stresa:
Tuna pasta with butter dill sauce, Casabella: Located on the Isla dei Pescatori (Fishermen’s Island) in the middle of the lake, the restaurant predictably highlights seafood, but doesn’t lack creativity. Admittedly, Will ordered this dish and because I love him, I didn’t force him to switch plates with me. Precisely cooked tagliarini glossed in a butter sauce speckled with dill and nuggets of par-cooked tuna. A combination you wouldn’t expect to be unbelievably delicious. Also one that relies on the tuna’s temp to be spot on. I think about it often.
Fried calamari and veg, Trattoria Imbarcadero: Also located on the Isola dei Pescatori, this spot is slightly more touristy and traditional with a heated patio that juts out into the water. The calamari is evenly fried alongside some smaller bits of veggies - maybe peppers, carrots, and onion. Served alongside a basil aioli, this is an ideal way to start the meal.
Carrot risotto with toma blu cheese, Il Vicoletto: I intentionally skipped risotto for lunch, hoping this spot would have a superior version. I felt extremely validated by that call. Glowing with a light orange hue, the risotto has scattered chunks of my new favorite cheese: toma blu. It’s a beautiful bite, with rice cooked until al dente and loose enough to reform to the shape of your spoon. It’s creamy, slightly sweet and vegetal from the carrot, and boosted with a decadent salty finish from the toma blu. Most restaurants in the area require a two-person minimum for risotto, so the rest of the table luckily had a second plate to share. I would very much like to recreate this at home this winter.
Snacks:
Pesto potato chips: These TartufLanghe brand chips were so addicting, no notes. Capturing the freeze-dried essence of pesto with basil, parmesan, but maybe not so much the nuttiness, this is a very crushable bag. I deeply regret not bringing at least one bag back for the plane ride home.
Aperitivo hour: We had our first proper negronis of the trip at the hotel bar in Stresa. Italians take aperitivo hour very seriously. The hotel serves each drink with traditional aperitivo snacks including potato chips and spiced nuts. We were even fortunate enough to receive an official greeting from one of the two hotel dogs, Cassie. What an honor!
MILAN
Aperitivo hour: We decided to spend our last day in Milan instead of Stresa with heavy rain picking up in Lake Maggiore. Our quick day trip in the historic city included a rainy but jaw-dropping tour of the Duomo, then some wandering through the Brera neighborhood filled with boutiques and bars for one last aperitivo hour. We chose Bar Brera, which isn’t the most aesthetic, or even local spot. We wedged ourselves under a patio tent, shared negronis and a basket of chips, listened to other tourists chat in varying languages, and people watched until it was dinner time.
Dinner: Also in the Brera neighborhood, our last dinner was at a buzzy spot called Rovello 18. The menu takes many northern Italian dishes to another level. These were the absolute highlights for me:
Cacio e pepe: A proper amount of cracked black pepper and a creamy pecorino sauce cannot go wrong. This was the only cacio e pepe that I tried on the trip and I’m very happy with it.
Ragù: My second favorite ragù of the trip. The ratio of meat to pasta could have been a bit more balanced, but the flavors of the slowed cooked meat sauce really shine alongside fresh tagliatelle.
Octopus, pumpkin, & fried sage: Holy hell was this a perfect and unexpected winner. The charred octopus was buttery and tender and worked so well with a light pumpkin sauce. The fried sage tied everything together with an earthy, savory finish.
That wraps things up for this month! I know this was longer than usual so thanks for coming along on these trip highlights with me. See you next month when we cover Friendsgiving!
Can't believe you crammed all that in in such a short time.. Heard it was fabulous. Your
descriptions are terrific. Love Gmom