Marina's Bloggariffic

Last Saturday evening, Cart and I dropped by a gelateria called Il Gelato di Claudio Torcè. There was an event hosted by the well known food blogger, Katie of Parlafood. Unfortunately I only knew about this last minute through. My bad.

Anyway, Il gelato is located in the charming area off Via del Corso, but it’s fairly attainable with a bit of a walk from the closest metro (Spagna). What’s interesting to me is how cars seem to love to pass through this particular road.

Unfortunately for them, it’s very cramped and it takes very skilled manoeuvring and thick skin-ess to cross to the other side.

Anyway, inside, there are so many different types of gelati. And if you’ve been living in Italy for a while, you can tell more or less tell by sight if it was handmade (artigianale) or not. Firstly, the gelati doesn’t look overly fluffy.

But it was quite mind boggling to decide at the first visit. There were so many kinds! In fact, it was divided into two segments. I mean just look at their chocolate ice cream segment. Even a chocolate lover like me was just stumped at what to get.

There is the chocolate. Then there is the dark chocolate. And then there is the extra dark chocolate. If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, there is chocolate with cinnamon, chocolate with ginger and lemon, chocolate with chilli …

I was a little overwhelmed so we chose to have the set-apperativo in the end. I was looking around at the other plates and Cart and I were a little worried as we saw something looking like ham, so we asked for those to be omitted and asked for the prosecco to be changed to coca cola.

(In my personal opinion, we should have gotten more portions of gelato since we didn’t get the mortadello and cola is cheaper than wine, but that’s just me, moreover the proceeds go to charity  )

And then we got this :

Huh? What is this?! Gelato with nachos and vegetable slices? That is so wierd! But there are stranger flavours of ice cream around the world like Horse Meat, Charcoal and Wasabi so I had to keep an open mind, moreoever it’s not ice cream-ice cream … it’s an apperativo-ice cream.

So let’s start!

This bright and cheerful orange gelato here is peperoni (not to be mistaken for cured sausages).

Have you ever had bell pepper ice cream before? No? Me neither. Tasting it, you can definitely detect the bell peppers inside, but it was refreshingly creamy. And while the experience wasn’t like eating a salad dressing, it surprisingly went well with the vegetable slices.

This is the pistacchio ice cream.

It looks so tainted with the orange peperoni bits … boo! Nevertheless, I quite like at how light it tastes like, and that it was slightly gritty with the little bits of pistacchio inside. Just beautiful!

And then this is Cart’s half eaten Gorgonzola ice cream.

Gorgonzola? Cheese ice cream?! Woah!

I have to admit that this definitely is an acquired taste and probably not for everyone. I’m not a big fan of ripe cheese but I gave it a try anyway. And indeed it was very strong. If you were blindfolded while eating this, you could totally tell from the smell that it was made of blue veined cheese. The taste is completely unique. And it was really wierd for me to taste it as a gelato. Cart, who adores cheese, liked this though.

I was observing some of the other guests who were there trying out this ice cream, and I was amused to see them had the same curious reaction as I did

Luckily for me, I was able to change mine to another flavour. Can you guess what it is? It’s Green!  Is it mint? Is it another type of pistacchio?

HOLY TOOT! It’s green tea! When I saw it at the counter, I completely hyperventilated. I’m crazy about Matcha ice cream and it was love at first taste for me when I first tried it at a Japanese dessert shop. And this was the first time that I’ve EVER seen Matcha green tea gelato for sale. I’ve almost given up hope about it existing in Rome.

This made me so happy! And I was deliriously joyful, ignoring everyone while I digged in. Cart didn’t like it so much though  and thought that it tasted like grass. Bah! Who cares about him. He can keep his Gorgonzola gelato 

Little things like these just gives me hope to carry on with this life 

Il Gelato di Claudio Torcè
Piazza Monte D’Oro 91/92

If you liked this post, you might enjoy :

• Il Gelato di San Crispino
• Tony Gelateria

This is a way overdue post that I’ve been meaning to blog about earlier but I didn’t get a chance till now.

I won a cooking DVD from Putri Berendam, one of Singapore’s top food blogger which I respect. (coincidentally, we were supposed to meet this year, but unfortunately didn’t have the chance)  Anyway, she hosted a contest on her blog in mid-2010 and just for fun, I decided to participate.

To my happy surprise, I received an email by her saying that I won a “Tanya Mami Asmah Laili” Cooking DVD! (I was amused when Cart asked, “Who’s Tanya Mami?” As if Tanya was a first name … haha!) Asmah Laili is a well recognized TV personality and celebrity chef in Singapore and Malaysia and has vast experience in cooking.

See, she teaches you how to choose fresh fish!

But because I have little faith in the Italian delivery system, I asked my parents to hold it for me till I return back to Singapore. And because Cart and I were busy meeting friends and relatives during our stay there, it was only when we returned back to Rome when I had time to watch the DVD properly.

Anyway, I really love this DVD. Watching the videos is like watching a hybrid of my mum and aunt teaching me about food. You can tell that she’s really dedicated to her craft by the way she handles her food. And  it’s really cute when I spot out some of the slang that she uses, “Masin Kebabai!” or “keras kojol!” or “en den” which is something that Malay aunties tend to say.

Oh! Speaking of Malay aunties, even though this DVD is in Malay, there are subtitles and also dubbings in English, Mandarin and Japanese so everyone can enjoy them!

I think the spelling should be “Penyet”, but that’s my opinion

Opening the case, there is included, a little cookbook filled with colourful illustration of each of the recipe in the videos, both in English and Malay for a quick reference.

But one thing which I think could have been improved about the content page though is that the content page should be grouped and arranged accordingly to the chapter list on the DVD.

For example, opening the recipe book for the very first time, (which is very beautiful by the way) I was very excited as I saw one of my favourite food, Ayam Penyet in the list.  And I thought wow! I want to know how it’s made! I want to watch this part first! And thus, that was the first thing that I wanted to watch first. But where do I find on the DVD?

And fiddling with the DVD chapters itself was a little cumbersome for me, trying to figure out which specific episode contained what I wanted to watch. I had to click on episode 1 and then episode 2 and then episode 3 and then finally it was episode 4 (of course) which contained the video that I wanted to watch

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll list of food here :

Part 1 : Pasta

• Pasta Fiesta
• Kasirol Mami – Mami’s Casserole
• Spaghetti Sos Pekat – Spaghetti with Thick Sauce
• Salada Buah dan Sayur – Vegetables and Fruit Salad
• Slurpy Joe

Part 2 : Seafood

• Ikan Bakar Kampung – Grilled Fish Village Style
• Ketam Goreng Lada Hitam – Black Pepper Crab
• Sayur Campur Goreng dengan Ayam – Stir Fried Veggies with Chicken Chunks
• Ketam Berlada Mentega Kacang – Black Pepper Crabs with Peanut Butter

Part 3 : Festive foods

• Ayam Tandoori – Tandoori Chicken
• Udang Mak Besar – Mami’s Prawn Delight
• Nasi Kunyit Tomato – Yellow Rice with Tomato
• Salada Mangga – Mango Salad
• Teh Serai – Lemongrass Tea

Part 4 : Mami’s favourites

• Ayam Panggang Oren – Orange Roast Chicken
• Ayam Penyet – Smashed Crispy Chicken
• Sup Asam Labu Siam – Sour Siamese-Pumpkin Soup
• Sambal Kicap Lada Padi – Birds Eye Chili and Soy Sauce
• Laksa Nenas Kasturi – Pineapple Laksa

Going through the entire DVD, there are a couple of items that looks so good, that I would love to give it a try one day like the Ikan Bakar Kampung (Grilled Fish village-style) which looks absolutely mouthwatering and Ayam Tandoori (Tandoori Chicken) which looks wonderfully spicy and of course not to mention my beloved Ayam Penyet (Smashed Chicken)

However, unless you’re living in Asia, some of the ingredients could be a little hard to find like abalone sauce, fresh pandan (aka pinescrew) leaves and candlenuts. So I guess for people living overseas, we’d just have to be clever and substitute or omit them.

Nevertheless, I tried one of her recipe which looked pretty easy to make with easily acessible ingredients – Nasi Kunyit Tomato – Yellow Rice with Tomato.

Looks gorgeous, no? I made it for easter earlier this year and it’s pretty straight-forward to make and tastes yummy too

Oh! One thing that you’d have to remember is that the recipes that she demonstrates are adjusted to her own taste and thus, her techniques might not be conventional. Her pasta segment for example, will probably make an Italian mama blush because she adds spices and chili way more than any Italian would.

But I can understand why she cooks it that way – because Asians like it like that. So the dishes are adjusted for the local palette. It’s kind of like the humble pancake. Americans like it stacked and thick while French like it thin and crepe-y. It’s not wrong, it’s just how the local people prefer it. It’s not like she claims that it’s the 100% original, trusted, generation passed down recipe

By the way, did you notice one odd thing about the DVD? Did you notice that the video is a 4:3 resolution? Which is strange because, at that resolution, it would be more apt for VCDs instead. But nevertheless, it’s not such a big deal when you start to watch Mami working her magic in the kitchen as well as as the beautiful Labrador Park

I’m not paid to endorse this (but if anyone wants to pay me, do feel free ) but I highly recommend this DVD not only for people living in Singapore and Malaysia, but also others living overseas as it really bring a bit of home where-ever you are. I might sound biased, but there’s a point when it’s comforting and nice to hear a familiar language once in a while.

Moreover because at this point of time, the price of each DVD is reduced to $15 SGD ($12.4 USD) which is a really good price for all these knowledge, no? Also each $10 sold from each DVD will be donated directly to the Japan Quake and Tsunami relief efforts (but how on earth does the company make a profit this way though?)

Anyway, here is a 1 minute preview of the begining of her video

And to end this post, I’m going to put up an absolutely non related picture.

This is Nasi Lemak. Another thing that I like to eat and I made it yesterday and I’m very proud of it and so I’m showing off. Kthnxbai!

Sidenote : According to the website, this DVD can be found in good records and book store and also available online at this site :