« pinic | Main | Bargain Sushi »
June 17, 2006
Saturday brunch
It's a nice day today. It's sunny and breazy. I rode my bike to school. After I finished the experiment, I went to the Kerrytown to have some good eats. First, I stopped by the farmer's market. This is my first time to shop at the farmer's market this year. There are a lot of herbs and flowers for sale, but the produce is quite limited. I stroll around. Finally, I bought a dozen large brown eggs (supposed to be free range) from the "Pepper Boys" (I used to buy sweet peppers from them often). The other thing I bought is fresh broccoli, 2 for $5. It's not the typical broccoli crown, but stems. I like these, good for boiling or steaming. I also picked up a bunch of raddish. I am not a raddish person, but with so limited produce, the fresh lovely colored raddish is simply irresistable to me. Thinly sliced to mix into salad or steam seems to be fine.
It's noon, and I am hungry. All of a sudden, I saw Gelato di Roma. Nice! I decided to try gelato today. I heard of gelato before, but have never tasted it. Gelato di Roma has a large variety of flavors. It took me a while to finally decide which one to have. By the way, gelato is the Italian ice cream, and supposed to have thicked texture and richer flavor than the ordinary ice cream. The reason is that gelato has more solid and less air in it. The gelato here is not as good as I'd expected, it still looks like ice cream, not the ideal silky fine texture (ie not perfect consistency). I'd like to try something with simple flavor, so that I can taste the gelato itself better. I always love toffee flavor, but this might be too strong; French Vanilla, maybe too simple; Purple Cow, a little weird; Borracha Cream, maybe too risky; Tiramisu, totally have on idea; Chocolate, maybe later ... Hummm, well, Cappucino it is. I am a big fan of coffee flavored ice cream, and like to compare the same flavor from different ice cream shops to judge which one is better. After a spoonful taste, I officially made my order, a small sized cup of cappucino gelato. Rich coffee flavor, mild bitter taste, maybe a little too sweet, it's all right. Took a peak at the poster on the wall, low fat?!, instantly felt less guilty. :) So gelato plus a slice of pizza made my Saturday brunch. Now need to get back to work.
PS, I found an article on-line, I quite agree with the author's opinion about this gelato place. Pasted here,
------------------------------------------------------------------
"If Zingerman's and Zenaida are trying to do right be gelati, the relatively new Gelato di Roma at 226 N. Fourth Avenue near Kerrytown, just a two blocks from the Next Door, is doing much to retard the progress of good gelato eating in A2. An myriad of bright, some neon, coloured gelati offer an array of artificially flavored-tasting gelati. To be sure, if you can get over the color and the taste, the consistency is pretty good - not great, but at least, well, consistent. Unfortunately, if you aren't blinded by the glowing offerings, your tastebuds might be blind-sighted by the unusually sweet and almost candy-like flavor. "Cinnamon," which has turned from red to brown in the months that the store has been opened, still tastes like red hots. "Root Beer Float," while novel, is nothing short of root-beer candy. *Boo!* There's also a "Purple Cow" - haven't gotten that adventurous (or stupid?) yet.
There's also some flavor confusion going on. "Tiramisu" is, as far as I can tell, is simply a sweeter version of "Cappucino." "Borracha Cream," which has marsala wine could be a poor zabaglione - except with lady fingers, is more like Tiramisu... but then, one would never guess that tiramisu could be electrifyingly bright yellow. "Ameretto" tastes like almond flavoring - almost fruity... but then, not surprisingly, so does "Almond."
Don't get me started on the sorbetti, which have a waxy lip-gloss-like appearance - scary. And, those little black dots in the "Strawberry," however convincing, are definitely not real strawberry seeds... I don't know what they are. For $2.96 (includes tax), one can order a small, which is two generous 1/4 cup scoops of any flavor you like."
------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by renh at June 17, 2006 01:40 PM