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

Italy knows good eats

Spring Break. The time in every girl’s life that she must starve herself for a week or two or even three before daring to strip down and frolic in the sun with friends. Though she knows it’s merely impossible to lose the unwanted flab in such a short amount of time, it’s inevitable that she will skip the chocolate croissant, the whole milk in her coffee and the other half of her Manchego-cheese bocadillo. Where the trouble comes, though, is when she knows she is going to Italia, where the word food is synonymous with carbs and chocolate, and the idea of steamed or grilled vegetables is as laughable as genuinely expecting to see the Pope while touring the Vatican.

While a crash diet the week before break seemed promising, in hindsight it seems foolish. The smooth gelato beckons, the steamy, frothy cappuccino calls, the Chianti and Prosecco promise to get you buzzed, and the pasta – oh the pasta, in all shapes and sizes, but always al dente – will get you every time. Period.             

Since I had no idea what to expect from Italy, I dismounted the plane in hopes of finding some spaghetti with meatballs, chicken parm, garlic bread and fettuccini alfredo. Well, I’m “alfred-o” not.

Of course the long, round noodles that I know to be spaghetti exist. And yes, there are meatballs. But together? No way. As hard as I looked, for the life of me, I could not find the staple American-Italian dish. As for garlic bread, turns out Italians have simple breadbaskets with dry, stark-white bread and prepackaged breadsticks. Waiters will look at you strangely if you ask for a plate so you can dip your bread into olive oil with pepper or balsamic vinegar. They do, however, love to put oil and vinegar on their salads…which they eat after dinner. They say it helps with digestion. Why yes, of course this makes sense, I thought to myself. After an entire plate of alfredo (the thick, creamy, heavenly sauce that no one, no matter how skinny, should be allowed to eat), the Italians are going to need something to keep it from sticking to their insides. Oh wait. Italians don’t even know what alfredo is. So much for that idea. But, no worries, Italians get their fat from a whole plethora of other deliciousness that I didn’t even know existed.

Italians would rather sink their teeth into “spaghetti carbonara”, or cream, egg and cheese atop of a hefty plate of pasta. Though I never ordered it, I did snag a bite from one of my travel buddies. Other staples in the Italian diet included spaghetti with cheese and pepper and spaghetti with tomato sauce and bacon. Pesto was impossible to find in Rome, but delicious in Venice. Gnocchi and tortellini in Florence were heavenly. And the pizza, which doesn’t come in round pies, but rather in long, rectangular ones, was pure ooey-gooey sin.

On my day trip to Pisa, the boys who traveled with me and I stopped in a pizza joint, where the waitress chopped the pizza and then weighed it to give it a price. I chose the veggie pizza with fresh zucchini and tomatoes, and my slice (or better yet, my slab) was less than 2 Euros.

As I was walking away, a grungy man appeared from the back with a plate of deep-fried balls the size of baseballs. How could I resist? I ordered one to split with my travel guys (they are always hungry, even right after they eat!) as the man explained to me they are called “arancini,” or little orange, because of their shape like the fruit. It was filled with rice, peas, tomato sauce and meat. I was content with my decision to try one, and I am certain the boys loved me even more for overfilling their tummies.

Every morning (and sometimes in the afternoon) I would sip on cappuccino – another newfound love of mine. I thought I had tried the best coffee in the world in Spain; however, the Italian cappuccino really gave Barcelona a run for its money. When walking by the Pantheon in Rome, I spotted a yellow sign that read “La Casa del Caffee, Tazza d’Oro” (Via Degli Orfani 84). Craving something cold to wake me up, I stopped in and ordered an iced cappuccino, not quite sure if such a drink existed. The man at the register mentioned something even better, called a “granita di caffe,” and rung me up for 2.50 Euros (a pretty steep price for even a coffee addict like myself, but I needed coffee so I paid without contesting). I took my ticket over to the barista (if that’s what you call him) and he dug deep into a slushy cooler to fill my cup with literally iced espresso. He filled the rest of the cup with cream and whipped cream, and then sent me on my way with a straw as if this coffee were a mere espresso shot. It was, however, nothing short of tasty perfection. Sweet cream mixed with bitter coffee – any chocoholic/coffee lovers delight.

As you would expect, God’s gift to the world comes in dessert form and it consists of gelato, tiramisu, cannolis and Italian cookies. While you’d be hard pressed to find bad gelato, my favorite was from a neon-colored store in Florence, where the line went out the door. Every color and every flavor were piled high behind the glass encasing in metal containers, and when mixed together in a cone I thought I had gone straight to heaven.

In Rome, I was determined to find biscotti. Chocolate-chip, melt-in-your-mouth biscotti. I was told Trastevere has the best food in all of Rome, so when wandering with the boys, I found “Biscottificio Artigiano Innocenti,” (Via della Luce, 21, Trastevere, Roma) an Italian hole-in-the-wall, family-run bakery. The cookies galore were filled with jams and jellies and fruit and gummies and nuts, but my favorites were the horse-shoe-shaped, crumbly ones dipped in chocolate. My notion of chocolate-chip biscotti, the owner told me, should be dismissed just like my notion of spaghetti and meatballs.    

The conception about Italy that did hold true was the loud, jovial, big family, wooden table mantra. In Venice, the boys and I ate at a local trattoria and happened to have walked in a man’s 83^rd birthday party. The red wine flowed freely, the speeches kept coming and after singing the Italian version of “Happy Birthday” to present the tiramisu cake, the 30 guests started signing what seemed like every Italian song under the sun. Like a Christmas sing-along. Italians really do know how to throw a party…or the alcohol is just that strong.    

My favorite meal took place at “Il Gatto E La Volpe” (Via Ghibellina, 151) in Florence, where I managed to meet up with a childhood friend and some other friends I made in Barcelona who were also traveling in Italy. It felt like a very merry un-birthday party for me, since I was the only person bringing everyone together. With this motley crew, I learned to always choose wine over water (even if it makes me a tad tipsy) and I tried the sweetest, yet most tangy aged balsamic vinegar I have ever eaten. After salad and pasta and an irresistible bite of chocolate cake that one of the boys ordered, I went home with a food baby forming in my stomach and a smile on my face because Italy knows good food and good company.