Welcome to Expo 2015: my favorite Milan posts

The day is finally here, Expo 2015 is starting today and we are super excited!

In many of the coming posts I'll try my best to show you some of the best places our city has to offer, in the meantime, here are some of my favorite from past posts:

Alice, Milan

Our first (and hopefully not last) visit to the new location of the once Michelin-starred Milanese restaurant.

Dear Oscar... (Eataly Smeraldo)

Since Eataly Smeraldo, the long-waited new Milanese branch of Eataly, just opened last week (in the place that once was the famous Smeraldo theater), I decided to write a letter to the owner, Oscar Farinetti,whom I saw on my visit to Eataly:

 

Dear Oscar,
thanks for finally opening a decent Eataly in Milan, I've never liked the tiny one in the basement of Coin. However, I was expecting something a bit bigger, after having been to the one in Rome, but I guess you used all the space you had available as best as you could.

I will be coming back to Eataly Smeraldo once in a while because:

- the carne cruda (meat tartar) is amazing, so soft and tender it doesn't feel like raw meat;

- I think it's a good idea to put together the Meat and Seafood restaurants;

- I could stare at the people making the mozzarella for hours;

- I like the green Superga sneakers you gave your employees;

-I love that you kept the stage of the theater and that there's live music playing while I dine;
- you seem so nice and smiley (of course I would be as smiley as you are with all the money you're making :) )

-UPDATE 25/3/2014: WE LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT ALICE RESTAURANT!

However, I won't be coming as often as I thought because:

- you didn't invite me to the press opening;
- the market spaces are reduced, I was hoping for something bigger;
- the wine selection is not as wide as the ones in Rome and Turin, and you prefered to keep the mediocre wines of J.Bastianich instead of other, better and less expensive, wines;

- Fruit and vegetables are too expensive;

- There's no tuna in the menu (I love Eataly's tuna);

- but mostly because you have all the varieties of pasta Cavalieri but not my favorite Spaghettoni!!! Unforgivable! -UPDATE 25/3/2014: WENT BACK TODAY AND FOUND MY SPAGHETTONI!!! OSCAR, YOU'RE SO FORGIVEN! 

Anyhow, good luck with the coming openings.

Sincerely,

M.

If you're in Milan and you haven't done so, you can visit Eataly Smeraldo:

EATALY MILANO SMERALDO
Open daily from 10.00 to 24.00 (restaurants normally open at lunch and dinner time only, check their website for special closing days)
Piazza XXV Aprile, 10 - 20121 Milan

Tel. +39 02 49497301 

 Email eatalysmeraldo@eataly.it

Eataly Rome: in decline?

As you might remember, we were in Rome this summer a week after the opening of Eataly Rome, the foodie's paradise. We were so enthusiast about it: great food, top quality products, good prices. So we decided to make it our Trevi Fountain (you know the deal: everytime you visit Rome you must go throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain so you ensure your return to the eternal city) and visit it everytime we are in Rome.

So last weekend we headed to Eataly to find out if it was as good as we remembered. And to be honest, we were a bit disappointed. First of all, the Roman Osteria where we had the delicious tripe has been turned (only for a month) in a Neapolitan Osteria  -nothing against Naples but we are in Rome, and when in Rome...-, then we found out that the water, which had always been free of charge, is not anymore so you have to pay for it, fair enough. The biggest disappointment was the tuna. You know we are fans of Eataly's tuna, so have a look at the tuna from Eataly Turin:

and the tuna from Rome this weekend:

After waiting for ages to be served, as you can see, the fresh salad, the tasty potatoes, coarse salt and mustard (not pictured) were substituted with... fennel... yes, just sone fennel that was not even cooked or garnished to be paired correctly with the tuna. The quantity of the tuna was reduced. The only thing that saved the dish was the quality of the tuna because it was tender and tasty.
I was still hungry so we went to the beer restaurant for a beer and a cheese platter. Since we hadn't been here before I couldn't compare it to any previous experiences but the beer was good. The cheese platter was also good, but that evening we went to another place I'll write about in another post and there I had the best cheese platter (stay tuned).

A positive thing that keeps us coming back are the prices of the wines, we still found the same good prices as last summer.
After we came back home, I happened to read this post on one of my favorite websites (sorry, it's in Italian). It shows a picture of a Despar truck in front of Eataly Rome, so, if they say that their ingredients are top quality from only small producers, what do they get from a low-cost supermarket like Despar (I'm praying they only get toilet paper and hand soap) ?
I don't know if it's true or not that the products are no longer top quality - the tuna and cheeses I had were very good - , but what we could notice were those aforementioned details. I'll be coming back next time we're in Rome, just to see where is it going.

Best of 2012

2013 is almost here so I'd like to share with you mi top ten favorite posts from 2012:
(in case you missed them, the link to the post is under the photo)

1) Caribbean Cruise:
We had a blast cruising the Caribbean for the second time on NCL's Epic; we visited Saint Thomas, Saint Martin and Nassau, had lots of food and enjoyed great shows.

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/02/epic-cruise-part-1.html

2. How to piss off a Mexican
I wrote this post as a humorous example of some annoying stereotypes about Mexicans

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/03/how-to-piss-off-mexican.html

3. Dubai:
I loved Dubai, it was a great trip, best part of it was being able to dine inside the wonderful Burj Al Arab.

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/03/dubai-day-3.html

4. Eataly, Turin:
For the foodie in me, any trip to Eataly is like going to Disneyland so I enjoyed going back to Eataly Turin and having their delicious tuna.

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/04/eataly-paradise.html

5. Tuna recipe
As I just wrote, I love tuna, and I enjoy cooking it at home as well, this has to be one of my favorite recipes.

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/06/saturday-lunch.html

6. Eataly, Rome
Our weekend in Rome was even more special after we discovered Eataly Rome had just opened, and we had a delicious Roman tripe to make it even better

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/06/eataly-rome.html

7. Piazza Navona, Rome
Rome is one of my favorite cities in the world and Piazza Navona is one of my favorite spots in the Eternal City

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/07/piazza-navona-rome.html

8. Club Med Ixtapa, Mexico
we had a relaxing (and weight-gaining) holiday in Club Med Ixtapa, best service and food ever!

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/09/club-med-ixtapa-part-1.html

9. Statue-hunting in Düsseldorf:
It was a great challenge to find the 9 Poeggeler statues while visiting Düsseldorf

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/10/statue-hunting-in-dusseldorf.html

10. Hangar Bicocca:
Although I live in the area, I had never been to Hangar Bicocca, a very nice exposition space in North Milan

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/10/sunday-in-hangar-bicocca.html

Bonus -  Sunflower fields forever
Beautiful landscapes, great weather, fantastic food, I just love Le Marche!

http://www.tfoodie.com/2012/08/sunflower-fields-forever.html

Abitart Hotel, Rome

Everytime I'm planing a trip to Rome I get a bit concerned because of the hotels... I don't like hostels and I would love to stay in the best hotel in town but the price is always important. We've come to an average budget of 100 - 130 euros per night per room for an European 4 star hotel (thanks to advance booking and good deals on travel websites we've always been lucky). Unfortunately in Rome, these budgets are never good. Like many other European capitals (London, Paris, etc.), Roman hotels are expensive. And most of the times you pay lots to get bad service, rundown structures and bad locations.

Italo, competition has arrived

Since the end of April 2012, Trenitalia, the Italian State-owned railways, were introduced to their competitors: Italo, the new high-speed railway company owned by a group of Italian entrepreneurs, leaded by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Ferrari's president.

Eataly Rome

Last week while reading one of my favorite blogs I thought I had a vision, I read that a new Eataly branch was gonna open in Rome... As you have read in a previous post, I'm an Eataly lover.
So I double-checked and yes, it was true, on June 21 (just a day before my visit, if that's not destiny, then I don't know what is) Eataly opened its doors in the huge Air Terminal Ostiense, a horrible (not so much anymore) building left unfinished, like many Italian constructions, since the World Cup in 1990. So it was our first stop, we managed to get a cheap room in a hotel in the area - more on that on another post - and we were there in no time.

Eataly Rome

Eataly: Paradise

A couple of years ago, on a cold winter evening in Turin we discovered paradise, well, foodies' paradise. 

It's called Eataly and you have probably heard from its branches in New York, Japan and several locations around Italy.

Eataly is a supermarket for quality foods, wine and beer. It brings together farmers, fishermen, butchers, bakers, beermakers, winemakers and cheesemakers who produce quality products.

Eataly Lingotto