East City Grill and Zizzo's

A trick of the trade, from my keyboard to your eyes, is that restaurants that can put a damper on your wallet are just as delicious at lunchtime as they are for dinner. East City Grill in Weston is such a place. If you’re looking to splurge on dinner, this is the place to go, but if you are looking for a yummy meal at a fraction of the cost, you don’t have to look far. East City Grill offers an extensive lunch menu with dishes from the sea (fish and seafood) and the land (poultry, meat and veggies). And for those who crave East City’s elegant, yet hearty dinner meals, a few of the most popular also find their way onto the lunch menu.

At a good-bye meal with my grandparents, my “grammy” and I spilt the champagne poached chicken salad wrap with asparagus and the banana-nut crusted goat cheese salad with a banana-lime vinaigrette. My “papa” ordered another beautiful looking salad (though his was a bit more manly with an entire grilled chicken breast).

The banana-nut-crusted goat cheese ball on my salad was crunchy and warm on the outside, and the gooey, warm center, as smooth as cream cheese, made for a nice pairing. The citrusy dressing was a tad overpowering, but the caramelized banana slices on the side cut the tang. The chicken salad wrap was just a chicken salad wrap, but the bubbly champagne mixed into it added a nice fizzy kick.

While each dish by itself was delicious, I would not recommend ordering the two together as my grandma and I did. The bite from the champagne in the chicken salad was still lingering on my tongue as I took a bite of the salad and had the sharp lime from the vinaigrette snap. Sensory overload.

What’s nice about lunch at pricy dinner locales is that, even at lunch, the staff treats each guest like royalty (how else will they get you to come back for dinner?). The waiters, clad in white aprons, open the doors to great you and say good-bye. The tables are beautifully set and the ambiance is first-class. My grandparents and I enjoyed the fine dining lunch experience.

After lunch we head to Zizzo’s Coffee– a coffee chain that was started in California. Normally, I avoid chains, preferring instead to find one-of-a-kind places. These tend to have better quality food and charismatic atmospheres. But unlike typical coffee chains, Zizzo’s in Weston is one of those places to come in and stay awhile. The dark wood tables and plush leather couches are nothing chain-like at all. The free Wi-Fi is perfect if you have work to do. For those who chose to drink in, the drinks are served in ceramic coffee mugs. And Zizzo’s doesn’t burn their beans. Each cup of coffee is bold, so whether you prefer to take it with sugar or not, you will have a rich cup of joe.

Because I was stuffed from lunch, I couldn’t handle any fun, yet overly filling coffee drinks. A cup of iced coffee with skim milk and Splenda woke me from my food coma and kept me going the rest of the day. The chocolate-dipped mandel bread called to me, but I just couldn’t make any more room in my stomach. The hometown, coffee-bar atmosphere provided just the right mood for my grandparents and I to say our good-byes before I left for school.

KP’s Crumbs: Go to East City Grill for a pleasant, yet not extravagant, high-class lunch. Don’t order the chicken salad wrap and the goat cheese salad together because each of their bold favors deserve to be savored alone.

My end of the date rate the plate: East City Grill is worth of forking. At lunchtime, you get a whole lot of bang for your buck. Zizzo’s is certainly worth slurping up for a morning, afternoon or evening delight.

East City Grill

1800 Bell Tower Lane, Weston, Florida 954.659.3339

Zizzo's

1378 Weston Road, Weston, Florida 954.389.4004

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. 

Sugar and spice and everything nice: La Nena

There comes a time in every girl’s life that she gets sick of Catalan and Spanish food. Not because it’s not flavorful (in fact, it is) and not because there aren’t enough choices (between Iberian ham, Manchengo cheese, tortilla esapana, bocadillos galore, calcots, tapas and croquettes, I’ve got plenty), but simply because she can’t escape it. And as much as I tried to avoid it, it happened to me three months in.

To break the routine of Spanish food, I invited Irena to join me for crepes in my absolute favorite part of Barcelona, a little district called Gracia. Gracia boasts chic, one-of-a-kind clothing stores, precious apartment facades, plazas with playgrounds and the best part: unique restaurants owned by locals. Though I had only walked by the storefront of the creperie once, I made a mental note to myself that I would need to return. As Irena and I wandered off of the Metro, I had not the slightest idea of where the restaurant was located, just the faint memory of a worn-down sign. By some miracle, Irena and I walked directly up to it. Though the lights were on, a man was mopping and the door was locked. So much for crepes.

But then I remembered a seemingly adorable café off of a plaza that I had strolled by once. Destined to get away from Spanish food, I swindled Irena into walking around yet again without a definite location, just an inkling.     

And then I saw it - La Nena, with its chalk-written signs outside and child-sized, brightly colored wooden chairs welcoming me to come in. If ever a name were to be a perfect fit, this would be it. “La Nena” literally translated means “the baby girl,” and this hidden café was everything that a baby girl should be: lovable, rosy and engaging and above all, her aura should make you smile. La Nena was like a sweet dream brought to life.

Its entire existence is based on an infantile spirit, as if Mother Goose herself were to have opened it. The old-fashioned wooden shelves lined with fresh, loose-leaf tealeaves in glass jars resembled a traditional apothecary. The artwork adorning the walls were hand-painted and hand-written. My favorite was the rather large sign that read (in Spanish, of course), “No alcohol served here.” The wooden piano in the main dining room had music books sprawled across it and the bookshelves in the candy-colored backroom were full of antique books about chocolate. I felt as though I had been invited into someone’s playroom for a cozy meal. And what better to serve at a snack bar called The Baby Girl than sugar and all things nice? Perfectly in tune with its character, La Nena serves chocolates, pastries, hot chocolate, teas, coffee, infusions and light meals. Better yet, it only uses organic ingredients.   

To begin, I ordered my typical “cortado” – or an espresso cut with a dash of milk. I have found that fastest, most accurate way to decipher if a restaurant, café or bar is worthwhile is by trying the coffee (Spain really does have the best in the world, I am certain). My cortado not only came in a warm, white porcelain cup, but it was served with a homemade, crumbly galleta (or cookie), sort of like a rounded, ginerbready graham cracker. Dipped into my coffee, it tasted simply scrumptious.

   

Perusing the menu made my mouth water and eventually I was able to narrow down my choices to two: vegetable couscous or quiche. With the help of my waitress, I selected a wedge of zucchini quiche served with an organic salad. The quiche’s thick and buttery crust was rivaled by the egg, the chunks of fresh zucchini and the strong layer of cheese caked on top. The salad accompanying it was much lighter and consisted of tomato, cucumber, olives, carrots, lettuce, parsley and small squares of cheese. The dressing on the side – olive oil and honey vinegar – added a hint of sweetness. Because the food was rich and heavily saturated in and with flavor, I felt the need to take small bites to savor it. And so I did.

 

The café’s air of innocence and childhood happiness made Irena and I giddy, talking like little girls, planning our fairy tale weddings to boys we don’t even know exist. Pure delight. How apropos: I shoulda guessed that a chocolateria called “The Baby Girl” would be my most favorite hole-in-the-wall gem in the entire world.