As we come up to a long holiday weekend, we thought we’d share some cool food we got to try from the last holiday that we spent traveling.  Over Presidents Day weekend, we used our three days off to go out to the west coast and visit San Francisco.  We’ve been there before, but we felt like there were still things we wanted to see, so we headed out again.  We went to a bunch of museums in the city, but we also spent one day driving south down the coast and seeing some of the sites along that stretch of California as well.  So we’ll show you some cool food we got to try while there (but just be warned that there are some pictures of meat in this post).

Let’s focus on San Francisco first, and specifically some of the great pizzas we tried there.  The Bay Area isn’t typically known for its pizza, but in fact there are several well-regarded pizza places in the city and we decided to go all over to try them out.  The first spot we went was Del Popolo, where we got this margherita pizza with burrata added on top.

Next up was Tony’s Pizza Napoletana, which has a very extensive and creative menu of pizzas – but we decided to go with simplicity and got a margherita pizza there too, since this pie won a prize at a pizza contest in Naples.

We also sampled the vegetarian pizza – made with olives, peppers, mushrooms, green onions and garlic – from Tomasso’s …

… a deep dish red top margherita from Capo’s …

… and from PizzaHacker’s Mission Street location, one margherita with goat horn peppers added on top …

… and one Ohio pizza, made with pepperoni, provolone, mozzarella, and pepperoncini peppers.

We also got a full meal – pizza plus some other good food – at Delfina.  Their pizza of the day was the chicories pie, topped with an egg and chicory leaves.

We also shared their house bread with a side of ricotta.

And for entrees, Miriam had the agnolotti dal plin, in a butter and sage sauce.

And Cyril tried the tagliatelle al ragù.

On our last morning in the city we also decided to go for some sandwiches at Marina Deli – Miriam went with a create-your-own and got provolone, lettuce, jalapeños, tomato and onions on the area’s famous Dutch crunch bread.

And Cyril had the big burrito, made with eggs, bacon, salsa, onions and peppers – but on a Dutch crunch roll as well instead of a tortilla.

And we also brought home some chocolate chip cookies from Kara’s Cupcakes.

On our trip out of the city, we visited Hearst Castle and then decided to track down some good food in the nearby town of Cambria.  Lunch was at Sandy’s Deli, where Miriam got the junior veggie, made with pepper jack cheese, avocado, sprouts, tomato, onion, mayo and soy-bacon bits.

Meanwhile, Cyril had the turkey club, stuffed with turkey, ham, bacon, cheddar cheese, cucumber, sprouts, pepperoncini peppers, lettuce, tomato and pickles.

Also in Cambria, we came across Red Moose Cookie Company, which is a really fun storefront because they’re very generous with giving out samples.  After trying basically everything, we bought ourselves some Peanut Butter Dream cookies …

… and we also went with the Root Beer Float cookies, which have spices and a root beer reduction in their dough.  It was suggested that we make an ice cream sandwich with these cookies, so we brought them home and that’s exactly what we did.

We really got to try a lot over the course of three days – a bunch of pizzas and also some good sandwiches, pastas, and a few sweet treats.  The San Francisco pizza was pretty good, especially if you go for tried and true margherita and red pies, and we always enjoy the chance to get some sandwiches made with good San Francisco breads.  We managed to squeeze in all these great eats in between visiting museums and driving up and down the coast, and it made for a tasty way to round out our trip.  Now we’ve got Memorial Day weekend coming up, and we’ll share with you soon what kinds of food we got to try while traveling for this next holiday.

Where We Ate: Isabelle’s Osteria & Trattoria Dell’Arte

This spring we’ve gotten the chance to try so many cool restaurants around New York, and we’re always excited to share places we like.  That’s what we’re going to do today – we want to highlight two spots in Manhattan that we recently enjoyed.  They both serve up Italian food, and they’re both pretty accessible in the city so you can easily get to them.  And best of all, we were able to eat entirely vegetarian meals at both places, so if you’re intrigued, read on to see some excellent picks.

The first place we went was Isabelle’s Osteria, on 20th Street just north of Union Square.  It’s a fairly new restaurant, and the menu has a lot of creative dishes on the menu.  We started out by sharing a few things, including their cauliflower, served with shishito peppers and lemon and a Calabrian pepper aioli on the side.

And also this grain salad, made with greens, quinoa, farro, squash, feta, and pumpkin seeds.

Plus their crispy rosemary and garlic potatoes.

Then we tried two entrees:  a slice of the mushroom lasagna, with a taleggio and bechamel sauce …

… and one of their specials for the day, which was this cube of eggplant parm.

Now if you head a little farther north, to 57th Street, you’ll see Trattoria Dell’Arte sitting just above Times Square.  It’s an establishment in the area and a pretty cavernous place, since it serves people coming from Broadway shows as well as nearby Carnegie Hall.  We were just looking for a good place in Midtown and decided to stop in for some classic dishes like this margherita pizza, which is made in a thin and crispy bar pie-style topped with both mozzarella and burrata.

Then we shared the rigatoni vodka …

… and the homemade ravioli, stuffed with more burrata and served in a pomodoro sauce.

These were both some good places to sample, and we think we did a good job of scouting out some great Italian food in New York.  Isabelle’s Osteria is a fun new place where we got to try some good appetizers and really creative entrees, and Trattoria Dell’Arte gave us the chance to go to a mainstay of Midtown Manhattan, where we got some classic comfort food.  We’d recommend Trattoria Dell’Arte as a good place if you’re looking for something near Times Square, while Isabelle’s Osteria is a place to go for fun, slightly less traditional Italian food.  That’s what we’re sharing for now, but we’ve still got a lot of recommendations so check back soon!

Where We Ate: Gazab & Spicy Moon

We’re back with more restaurant recommendations, because there’s just so many cool places to visit in New York!  Today we’re focusing on two restaurants that are just half a mile from each other, in the area where the East Village meets the Lower East Side.  They represent two different cuisines, and we enjoyed being able to eat so many interesting things in just a small radius.  So here’s where we went and what we would recommend getting at each spot – but just be aware that we do have one image of meat here.

First up was Gazab, a small space serving up Indian food dishes that are more involved than what you might typically see on takeout menus.  We decided to begin our meal there with these pani puri:  some dough pockets filled with a mixture of potatoes, crispy chickpeas, and broth.

We also shared an order of the bok choy chaat, which has fried pieces of bok choy served with pomegranate and a chutney made with dates, mint, avocado, and tamarind, then topped with a sweet and sour yogurt and some chickpea flour crispies.

Then Miriam decided to try the mushroom paneer biryani, because it looked very, very cool baked into its own dish:

And Cyril had the rampuri taar gosht, made with goat, onions, and nuts in a yogurt sauce.

Now just a little bit north of Gazab is one location of Spicy Moon, an all-vegan Szechuan restaurant that also has a second spot in the West Village.  We were excited for the chance to try meatless versions of all different kinds of Szechaun foods, so we started with some vegetable wontons in chili oil.

And also this crispy eggplant.

Then we shared an order of the dan dan noodles …

… as well as these dry pepper-style potatoes (you can also get this dish with tofu, eggplant, or just vegetables).

We thought both these places were pretty cool – at Gazab we dug into some Indian dishes we’d never really tried before or seen in such an interesting presentation.  Meanwhile, at Spicy Moon we got to eat entirely vegan, and we also tried some things that we hadn’t had a chance to sample before because they’re usually made with meat.  These two spots are both on the cozy side, so it’s best to make a reservation if you want to snag a table.  They’re both worth checking out, and in the coming weeks we’ll share even more of the food we got to try and loved!

Where We Ate: Bar Pasquale & Jupiter

All throughout the winter, and now into the spring, we’ve been trying out a bunch of interesting restaurants around New York, so today we wanted to share two of our latest recommendations.  Here we’re featuring two places that have opened in the past year, and that both offer up menus of Italian food.  Not only that – we were also able to eat entirely vegetarian at both spots, so it was really nice to be able to go to two different restaurants and get a good variety of meat-free food.  So here’s where we went and what we enjoyed!

First, we were able to snag a spot at Bar Pasquale, the sister restaurant to the very popular Pasquale Jones.  Bar Pasquale, in Nolita, focuses specifically on pastas, pizzas and Sicilian cuisine, and since we’re a fan of all those things we thought it was the perfect place to try.  We started our meal with the cavolini di buxelles – this salad of shredded brussel sprouts and fennel, tossed with almonds.

We also tried a pizza that was a seasonal special:  the squash agrodolce pie, topped with smoked butternut squash, pepitas, arugula, and pearl onions.

For pastas, Miriam had their version of rigatoni alla vodka, which they make with grappa and a few spicy chiles.

And Cyril got theses culurgiones, which are stuffed with a smoked potato filing and come in a porcini mushroom and basil sauce.

Farther north in Mahattan is Jupiter, which sits in the lower level of Rockefeller Center, across from the skating rink.  Jupiter also has a great selection of pastas, but before we got to that part of our meal we decided to try one of their salads salad – in particular, the insalata di stagione, made with radicchio, arugula, asparagus, lentils, fennel, and Castelrosso cheese.

Then Miriam tried these ricotta and spinach tortellini, in a butter and parmesan sauce.

And Cyril had the pizzoccheri, which is a dish of buckwheat noodles, cabbage, potatoes, and Fontina cheese, all baked together.

Both of these new places were interesting spots to visit:  Bar Pasquale is pretty near Little Italy, so it’s nice to have a more modern and less touristy restaurant where you can get Italian food in the area.  And Jupiter is a great hidden gem (literally – it’s underground) in Midtown, where as a bonus you can watch ice skaters twirling by in winter.  We’ve got a ton of more recommendations coming up in the next few weeks, in both New York and elsewhere, so be sure to check back here soon!

Where We Ate: The Best Pizzas in Connecticut

Last week we shared the story of our adventure going all around Queens looking for good and interesting pizza.  And since January is a pretty quiet month, we decided to go on another pizza journey – this time to our neighboring state of Connecticut.  Connecticut isn’t always what you think of first when you imagine good pizza, but in fact New Haven-style pies are considered some of the best in the country, and that influence filters out into some other communities around the state.  So we decided to go beyond New Haven and see if we could find some other excellent pizza in Connecticut, and here are our results!  Each one of these places is in a town that has a train station (either Metro North or Shoreline East), so they’re accessible to city folk who want to explore.  Just one warning, though, that there is one image of a meat-based pizza here.

Let’s start furthest from home:  out in Old Saybrook, on the Connecticut coast, is Alforno Trattoria.  It’s in an unassuming strip mall, but when we rolled up there at 4:50pm for their 5pm dinner opening, there was already about a dozen people outside waiting to get in, which really speaks to how popular this place is.  Alforno has a full menu of pastas and entrees and such, but we just went with a medium of their “famous” pizza, topped with caramelized green peppers.

A little further west on the coast was Mike’s Apizza in West Haven.  This place has the atmosphere of a dive bar that just happens to serve pizzas, but it seemed like every single patron was ordering a pie for themselves, so we dug in.  Here’s a medium topped with breaded eggplant.

North from there, in the town of Waterbury, is Domenick & Pia.  It’s a little hard to find because it sits on an alley, and the space can get a little cramped if you want to sit and eat, but we squeezed in.  You can get slices, and that’s what most people seemed to be coming in for, but we got a medium cheese pie with red peppers on top.

And now for our last stop:  Coalhouse Pizza in Stamford.  They have a pretty extensive pizza list, and we were feeling rather hungry when we got there, so we ordered several different pies to try.  Here’s the Blue Skies, made simply with mozzarella, parmesan, and tomato sauce …

… and this is the Kicker, topped with poblanos, jalapeños and a habanero oil …

… and Cyril also tried the Favorite Things, with prosciutto, pesto sauce, mozzarella, ricotta, Parmesan and rosemary.

After all this pizza we were both in agreement on which one was our favorite:  we enjoyed Alforno the most.  But the other three places all had things to recommend them – Mike’s and Domenick & Pia were both great old school, casual places, while Coalhouse had such a huge variety of pizzas – including lots of vegetarian options – that you could really go there several times to try everything out.  And beyond the food, we also liked that we got to travel around Connecticut and visit a bunch of towns we’d never been to before.  We’ve got a few more pizza adventures on our mind, but for now we’re really glad we got to explore and try a bunch of really good pizzas.