Fall in love with Italian all over again: Manuel's Vintage Room

Manuel's seafood linguini

Italian food, in all its rich and creamy glory, cannot help itself from stealing the heart of humanity. Only a faint cry will protest of a plate of pasta, a thinly sliced eggplant parmesan, a platter of beef Carpaccio or tender seafood atop linguini with fresh garlic and butter. Italian food, in fact, has been done over and over again in the United States to the point of monotony. Spaghetti and sauce has been reduced to slimy noodles, missing its al dente peak 10 minutes earlier. And pizza is equated with 24-hour fast food created by some college kid who takes the pie out of the freezer and heats it for a midnight craze. But the Italians would never have it. Neither would Manuel or his family.

Lamb atop risotto

Manuel’s Vintage Room makes charm and out-of-this-world Italian food look effortless, even amidst nightclubs in downtown Gainesville. No more than 10 tables fill the entire restaurant, and the waiters, eager to help make selections, know the perfect pairings for this bistro’s carefully crafted menu. The small, open kitchen whips out food relatively quickly without compromising taste, and provides ample time for dining.

Manuel’s, which dims the lights around 7 p.m. and adorns each table with a tea candle, is favorable to talking but romantic enough to urge you to scoot in a little closer and whisper. My date and I did just that.

In true Italian spirit, we selected a full-bodied bottle of Chianti from Manuel’s extensive wine list to accompany what we thought we knew what we wanted to eat. But within the few minutes it took our bottle to arrive, we had changed our order preferences at least five times. Digging into the hot bread on the table, I could resist replacing my original appetizer order with the hand-pinched pasta our waiter marveled about. The grilled lamb special also somehow finagled its way into our order.

The pasta appetizer was a dream. The noodles were pinched into little purses around a splotch of ricotta cheese with a tiny pear bite in the middle. The tinge of sweetness from the fruit met with the creamy cheese and the fresh pasta for a heavy, yet stunning appetite tease.

The linguini with seafood and sausage in a marinara-garlic sauce was superb as a main course, but nothing could hold a candle to the succulent lamb. Grilled to perfection, the lamb chops slid off their bone with a gentle nudge from a knife and the risotto served with them rounded out the Italian meal. Boxes to go were a must, but later that night and the next day the leftovers were gladly gobbled up.

At Manuel’s Vintage Room, the flickering candles, the wine, the food and the ambience compliment each other seamlessly like a well-rehearsed orchestra and beseech you to stay all night long while reminding you why you feel in love with Italian in the first place.

KP’s Crumbs: Simply, go to Manuel’s. It’s, by far, the best Italian I’ve had in Gainesville. It makes for a wonderful date locale or intimate dinner. Its small space and cooked-to-order food are more like eating at someone’s home than a restaurant and you’d certainly be missing out if you didn’t go. Get the lamb and the pasta pouches, assuming they are on special when you go.

My end of the date rate the plate: Fork and spoon until it hurts and you feel like you can’t eat any more. Then, bring the rest home so you can enjoy forking and spooning at home…what better way to consummate your meal.

Manuel's Vintage Room

6 South Main St., Gainesville, Florida, 352.375.7372

Basilico

Last days of summer jobs are bittersweet. Moving on is natural and exciting; saying goodbye is sad. Though not all of us are fortunate enough to have jobs with people we love or subject matters that pertain to our very specific interests, some of us have just that – bosses who know what we are capable of, who give us work and trust we’ll get it done without micromanaging and who will challenge us even if the tasks don’t require rocket science.

I had always thought that being friends with your boss was a “no-no,” but every summer since I was 15, my boss and I have stayed in touch. Perhaps it helps that she’s young and hip (she dresses better than I do, wearing at least 4-inch heals daily to work, and she looks like she’s 24. As far as I am concerned, she might as well be a model.) She’s more than my boss. She is my friend and someone whom I look up to with utmost most respect for her work ethic, go-get-‘em attitude and poise in everything she does.

For my last day with her, Veronica took me to lunch at Basilico, an Italian restaurant in Miami, which is the ultimate hole-in-the-wall. Situated in a nothing plaza with no more than 20 parking spaces, fighting to get a narrow parking space takes a few minutes, especially at lunchtime. The restaurant itself looks clean with white tablecloths and a wood-topped bar. It attracts families and business folk. But it’s the menu that gives this bistro its unique flair.

Like everything in Miami, nothing is good enough unless it has a Latin twist. Italian and Latin, which both promise flavorful food with a punch, make an unlikely, yet incredible pairing. Though Basilicio’s preparation is relatively simple, the menu offers timeless Italian favorites, the majority of them pasta dishes, each better than the next, making it difficult to decide.

Veronica and I chose to split the linguini al frutti di mare with mussels, octopus, scallops and other seafood tossed in wine marinara sauce. As an appetizer, we split the beef carpaccio with capers, basil and shaved Parmesan cheese. Ordering Italian in Spanish made me chuckle, but the food, fresh and full, was nothing to laugh at. The seafood pasta, perfectly al dente and not at all fishy, was yummy; the beef, sliced so thinly, piqued our appetites.

In true Latin tradition, our meal couldn’t be complete without a mid-afternoon espresso served with a hard dipping cookie. Veronica and I left full and satisfied, ready to finish out our day of work.

Though I’m not the first, I certainly won’t be the last to praise this authentic Italian eatery.

My end of the date rate the plate: For a lunchtime fork, Basilico is top-notch.

Basilico

5879 NW 36th Street, Miami, Florida 305.871.3585

Acquolina – good Italian away from Italy

It’s not every day that you are served lunch on white tablecloths with wine glasses next to water ones and cloth napkins folded like masterpieces. But then again, it’s not every day you share lunch with your grandma.

Since I am not home that often, I sneak in a few lunch dates with my grandma when I am around. Yesterday, she suggested an Italian place in Weston called Acquolina, meaning “mouth watering.”

Italian food is always conducive to hearty laughter, family time and sitting around for hours talking about nothing in particular. Acquolina specializes in southern Italian cooking. The trattoria is formal with clean-cut, white-aproned waiters and candles on each table. The warm blue hues of the restaurant are soothing, even at lunchtime, and hand-painted writing on the wall says something about entering as strangers but leaving as family. Businessmen in suits, fathers and daughters, and stay-at-home moms filled the waterfront eatery at around noon.

Warm bread with oil and vinegar were placed on our table and heavy menus were handed to us. I opened it quickly and gestured our waiter back over to ask if there were a lunch menu. He informed me that I was looking at it. Acquolina had such an extensive lunch list of appetizers, main courses, pasta dishes and flat breads that I mistakenly believed it was the dinner menu.

Italian food, with cheeses and sauces and bread, tends to be heavy. Although midday meals should be heavier than dinners, I simply could not bring myself to indulge too much. After giving the lunch menu a once-over, I had a few plates in mind – a salad, a flat bread and a panini. My grandma was also having a tough time choosing, so we ordered a cobb salad and homemade meatballs to share.

The salad, with mixed greens, buffalo mozzarella and charcoal-grilled chicken tossed in balsamic vinaigrette, was large enough to be our meal. The hot chicken atop the cold, crunchy lettuce left nothing to be desired.

The meatballs were different than expected. They were served on Italian bread and covered in mozzarella like a meatball sub. Not wanting so much bread, I removed the two pieces on my half and ate the meatballs with a fork and knife. The meatballs themselves had just enough cheese to keep them firm, and the marinara sauce was sweet, yet basily. My two meatballs, sans the bread and extra mozzarella cheese, quickly filled me up, especially after the salad. They also spotted my white shirt with red sauce, but I didn't care.

Parmesan-sprinkled fries accompanied the meatball panini, yet my grandma and I were too full to even try them. Once we were done eating, the waiter did not rush us out of the restaurant, which made our dining experience even more enjoyable. When the check came and indicated that our lunch was only about $20, my grandma and I commented on how inexpensive it was for the two of us, especially based on the quality, the good service and the amount of food.

On the way out, I stopped in the bathroom and on the mirror, written in someone’s white eyeliner, it said: “Women in Sicily are like shotguns.” I am not sure if one of the staff wrote it or a patron did, but it made me chuckle. Turns out when you are at Acquolina, you really are family, from the cooked-to-order home-style cooking to the stereotypical Italian quips.

KP’s Crumbs: For a true Italian lunch, this Weston trattoria is perfect. Go with an appetite and try some of their delicious homemade meatballs, but definitely don't wear white. Then, check the bathroom and be sure to let me know if my favorite little ditty is still on the mirror.

My end of the date rate the plate: Normally, forking with your family at romantic restaurants is a huge “no-no,” but Acquolina is an exception. This up-scale establishment is a classy and tasty way to fork and spoon at lunchtime. Though I am not sure about Acquolina’s dinner, at lunch, you certainly get a lot of great bang for your buck.

Acquolina

2320 Weston Road, Weston, Florida, 954-389-1880

NYC is just like traveling the world

Who needs to travel the world when you can just go to New York City? If America is the melting pot of the world, the city is center of the pot closest to the burner – and I mean that in the nicest sense of the term, honestly. Because the various people here are so proud of their heritage, they all seem to have the same idea - create a restaurant to make their home away from home a bit homier.

Saturday night, I somehow managed to drag Cris and Jess to an Ethiopian restaurant, Marakeseum, in the West Village. In traditional Ethiopian style, we dipped the spongy, sourdough-like crepes into pureed veggies and meat on a platter that the three of us shared. No personal plates and no utensils. We went back to our basic instincts of eating with our hands and reaching over one another to gobble up the lentils, chic peas and cabbage that all looked like different types of hummus. The three of us agreed it was delicious, and the vegetables had enough flavor to make us contemplate becoming vegetarian. That inkling quickly faded Sunday night when we headed into Little Italy for some authentic Italian.

It smelled like home cooking. Like the familiar smell of walking into a friend or relative’s house for a dinner they have been preparing for hours. With more than 20 different homemade pasta dishes on the menu (al dante style, I may add) and enough sauce choices to make you gain 15lbs. just from reading them, the trattoria was any pasta lover’s dream. And I couldn’t help but make a fuss over the best sweet, aged balsamic vinegar I’ve ever had.

I guess you could say two days ago, I was in Ethiopia, and yesterday, I was in Italy…without a visa and without the immunization. I am pretty much eating my way through the Big Apple…and the rest of the world. Not too shabby.

So when Jess and I were window-shopping in SoHo on Saturday and we found a truffle bar and tea salon, we couldn’t help but stop in. What is a truffle bar? Better yet, what the hell is a tea salon? Only in New York City, I tell ya. And the chocolate truffles were just as diverse as the people in the city.

Our particular truffle bar, Vosges, specialized in infusing its chocolate with exotic spices from around the world. Confused? We were too…so let me give you a taste. The first chocolate truffle is blended with curry powder and Indian spices. The second one is mixed with macadamia nuts to remind its consumers of Australia. The third, with a hint of green absinthe, is reminiscent of China. The fourth mixes Taleggio cheese and walnuts into the chocolate to suggest Italy. The fifth is infused with purple orchids (my favorite flower) and caramelized bananas to round out the bunch (and my tummy).

I have decided that NYC is perhaps the only place in the world where people make chocolate not taste like chocolate. I’ve heard it said that people in the city are all artists in some form or venue, whether they are performing or writing or painting on the street. I just never expected to see someone use chocolate as a medium to tell stories of worldly travels.

The tea salon (which, for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of!) provided cold treats. Mid-afternoon, I savored a light, guava iced tea, and Jess drank iced chocolate. No, I didn’t mean hot chocolate. I really did mean iced chocolate. Like slurping a liquid, milk chocolate candy bar. Sheer bliss.