Sor Tino Restaurant

What’s Better than the Best (Bolognese)Pappardelle ?

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Restaurant Manager Miguel Morales and server, Derek, artfully dishing up Pappardelle at The Restaurant at Mr. C’s in Beverly Hills

(Gerry Furth-Sides) What could possibly be better than my favorite, the best Pappardelle draped in classic Bolognese sauce? Let me tell you about four possibilities traveling from north to the south of Italy and you decide.

First is learning the secret, changing ground beef recipe of the ethereal pappardelle pasta ribbons with Bolognese from the chef (The Restaurant at Mr. C’s). Second is going into the kitchen for a peek at how the lamb sugo version of pappardelle is prepared (Marino Ristorante). Third is Pappardelle with Wild Boar at Sor Tino. And the fourth is having a professional chef prepare a box for you to put together at home with turkey or veggie sauce (Gourmet Pasta Kit).

Fresh pappardelle may have fluted edges and are up to an inch wide. Dried egg versions that originate in the region of Tuscany have straight sides.  Tagliatelle, (Emilio-Romano and Marche regions)  a narrower version of Pappardelle and used for lighter sauces (see below) is similar to but a tiny bit thinner than (Roman) fettuccine.

Beef Bolognese Pappardelle at The Restaurant at Mr. C’s

Executive Chef Max Farina, brought over from northern Italy to oversee the kitchen, prepares traditional Italian cuisine. His perfectly seasoned Pappardelle Bolognese is so refined it is a perfect match with the usual light as air, pink bellini sauce, also known as vodka sauce.

He combined it with beef bolognese for us and, as common practice, used the fine cuts of meat left from the menu. It turns out credit goes to the chef’s special combination of beef ingredients, which we first with deeply flavored strip loin, brisket and tenderloin. .

Restaurant Manager, Miguel Morales, artfully serves us at The Restaurant at Mr. C Beverly Hills

Mr. C’s Beverly Hills, Rest1224 Beverwil Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90035, (310) 277-2800 Website – //www.mrchotels.com/hotels/beverly-hills-los-angeles-ca/dining/ 

Marino ristorante Lamb Pappardelle

Marino ristorante pappardelle with meat sauce traditionally incorporates the flavors of beef, pork, and veal, simmered over three hours. The Neapolitan family recipe goes back generations.

Lamb Pappardelle at marino ristorante.

The current menu also features Lamb Pappardelle. The homemade pappardelle with Autonomy Farms braised lamb sugo ($28) . Sugo is a sauce made with just tomatoes, garlic, crushed red pepper, and basil. It is known to be super-quick to make. Americans would call it, ” marinara.”

At Marino sugo may have the same ingredients but it is simmered overnight until the lamb is so tender it can be made into niblets. We were so honored to visit the kitchen with Chef Cal, and try a taste of it. This is what makes the difference.

Chef-Partner, Sal Marino shows off his simmering lamb sauce at marino ristorante

www.marinorestaurant.net.  marino Ristorante, 6001 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90038,(323) 466-881.

Pappardelle Cinghiale Wild Boar Ragu)

Pappardelle Cinghiale (Wild Boar Ragu) as Sor Tino and Caffe Roma conjures up feasts served in a forest. Its unctuous, rich, slightly tomatoey sauce includes large pieces of the Boar that had been cooked for hours in the sauce, is the equivalent of a rich man’s Bolognese,” is how our Italian-Ameican writer, Darien Morea, perfectly described it.

Cinghiale

Pappardelle Cinghiale Wild Boar Ragu) is also served at Toscanova and Ago ristorantes, authentic Italian restaurants also owned by the master chef, Agostino Sciandri.  We met this Tuscan chef at the Q for quality Awards honoring Los Angeles restaurants for maintaining high standards of authenticity.

Agostino Sciandri
Agostino Sciandri, chef-owner for whom Sor Tino is named

Sor Tino was the first to offer wild boar in Los Angeles in the early 1990’s. These days it is an Italian restaurant staple.

Owner-menu designer, Sciandri, adds “Not to name drop (but I will), I had first been introduced to this dish in a place that was once the home of the father of Leonardo di Vinci in the town of Vinci, Tuscany, and Sor Tino’s version was its equal in every way.”

Sor Tino, 908 Barrington Avenue, Brentwood, CA  90049. (310) 442-8466. (//(www.sortinorestaurant.com)

Pappardelle in Gourmet Pasta Kit at Home

Chef Cynthia Mamukari, founder-owner-chef of Taste & Company was the executive chef at the famous Joe Allen’s Restaurant in Los Angeles, after being recruited to work in their flagship New York and London restaurants. She was also the opening chef at Orso, an equally popular and more casual eatery both in West Hollywood and in Manhattan.

Taste and Company gourmet Pasta Kit (Photo courtesy Taste and Company)

The Taste & Company kit includes Cynthia’s freshest pappardelle with health-minded turkey or vegetarian sauce. Her research was exhaustive to find the best taste, one that will show off the sauce the best.

The kit has the most sophisticated, fresh ingredients still makes it fun to put together

Five Must-Try Old School Pappardelle Dishes to “Gobble Up” (and Why)

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Pappardelle, the beautiful, large, broad, flat paste noodles fittingly got their name from the Italian verb,  “pappare”, “to gobble up”. It works for the paste standing up to heavy sauces or for every diners’ reaction.  Architects recognize only the color grey (unless they have to), and I recognize only the paste, Pappardelle,  (unless I have to).

Domingo's Italian Deli

Domingo’s Italian Deli offers many of the 310 pasta shapes with 1300 varieties of them total.

Fresh pappardelle may have fluted edges and are up to an inch wide. Dried egg versions that originate in the region of Tuscany have straight sides.  Tagliatelle, (Emilio-Romano and Marche regions)  a narrower version of Pappardelle and used for lighter sauces (see below) is similar to but a tiny bit thinner than (Roman) fettuccine.

I ask you to try them and decide for yourself.  We follow Pappardelle from north to southern Italy here.

At Osteria BigoliChef-owner Claudio Marchesan’s Braised Short Ribs with Pappardelle are slowly baked in red wine, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Melt-in-your-mouth short ribs hold the sauce with an intense depth of flavor, along with endowing it with a rich, royal dark color.   The wide Pappardelle does its job of “taking on” the sauce so well it becomes a robust partner adding body to it.

Short Ribs

That Claudio Marchesan is a native of (northeast) Grado, Italy is one reason for the perfection.  When he attended ENALC, the Professional Cooking School of Rome, he studied with renowned Master Chef Giovanni Caruso, one of the still living prodigies of the one and only “August Escoffier”.   Marcheson himself made California restaurant history (and lots of fans) with Pane e Vino and Prego. Claudio Marchesan

Osteria Bigoli, 714 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Visit the website for hours and menu at bigoliosteria.com

History-making Chef at Osteria Bigoli

Sor Tino and Caffe Roma (and Toscanova and Ago restaurants)are owned by the master chef, Agostino Sciandri.  We met this Tuscan chef at the Q for quality Awards honoring Los Angeles restaurants for maintaining high standards of authenticity.

In writer Darien Morea’s report for us, “Pappardelle Cinghiale (Wild Boar Ragu), with an unctuous, rich, slightly tomatoey sauce includes large pieces of the Boar that had been cooked for hours in the sauce, is the equivalent of a rich man’s Bolognese.  Sor Tino was the first to offer wild boar in Los Angeles in the early 1990’s, now almost an Italian restaurant staple (LocalFoodEater has even down a roundup on this, our favorite dish)

 Cinghiale
“Not to name drop (but I will), I had first been introduced to this dish at the home of the father of Leonardo di Vinci in the town of Vinci, Tuscany, and Sor Tino’s version was its equal in every way.”

Sor Tino, 908 Barrington Avenue, Brentwood, CA  90049. (310) 442-8466. (//(www.sortinorestaurant.com)

Augustino Sciandri

Augustino Sciandri, master chef, restaurateur

Sor Tino Swings the Pendulum Back to Authentic Italian

Marino Ristorante in East Hollywood on Melrose serves Neapolitan fare.  Now operated by Ciro Marino’s sons, there has always been a Pappardelle Bolognese on the menu, that lists the beef, pork and veal meat sauce cooked for three hours on the stove.

Second Generation Continues Marino Ristorante Legacy in LA

Marino

Marino pappardelle with meat sauce incorporating the flavors of beef, pork, and veal, simmered over three hours

www.marinorestaurant.net.  marino Ristorante, 6001 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90038,(323) 466-881.

Last only because it is the most southern, Celestino’s paste is the star of the Drago family restaurants,  serving classic Sicilian and other Italian regional dishes with a sure hand.  We had been dreaming about the unique Pappardelle on Fabiano e Morelle  (Pappardelle with Pheasant and Morel Mushrooms) as soon as we read about it on the seasonal Holiday Mushroom & Truffle Menu menu at Celestino in Pasadena’s tony south Lake district.

Fabiano e Morelle

Pappardelle on Fabiano e Morelle (wide Fettuccine with Pheasant and Morel Mushrooms)

It did not disappoint in taste, texture, and complexity.   And it is only one of the three sections to try of Morel Mushrooms, Porcini Mushrooms and Fresh Truffles from Italy.

MushroomsThe sauce teased every bit of flavor from the bird and perfectly complemented the fantastical mushrooms capped with the distinctive honeycomb appearance of ridges and pits.  They are impossible to cultivate and prized so highly they influence enthusiasts into a madcap hunt for them during the season, no pun intended.  And these are the best, from Italy!

celestinoThe legendary oldest brother Celestino (pictured above at a charity event honoring him), inspired the Pasadena restaurant of the same name, one that translates into a  gold standard restaurant since Celestino first opened on Beverly Drive a quarter-century ago.  In fact, the inspired, cheery chef is now “Cavaliere Celestino” since the Italian government knighted him a couple of years ago

Celestino Restaurant, 141cLake Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (626) 705-4006.  //(//(www.celestinopasadena.com)

img_3468

Celestino Pasadena Upholds Royal Family Pedigree

The Garum Factory explains how the three wide, flat pasta differs ever so slightly: “Tagliatelle and fettuccine pasta appear identical, but are not quite the same, although you can substitute one for the other. Tagliatelle, of the Emigia-Romagna (which includes Bologna) and Marche regions, is usually made fresh, then cooked.  Fettucine, a shade thicker than Tagliatelle, is found more often in Roman cooking.  It may be fresh and often dried. (//thegarumfactory.net/2013/11/29/you-say-tagliatelle-i-say-fettucine/)

For example, Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinese is a dish on the menu at the  Locanda del Lago in Santa Monica. The restaurant specializes in north Italian dishes from the Lake Como area – so northern that they sometimes overlap with bordering (South Tyrol) Austria.    “Wheat Pappardelle” is listed in the ingredients along with Roast Garlic, Savoy Cabbage, Yukon Potato, Creamy Bitto  Cheese and Sage Fondue.  Turns out that  Pizzoccheri is a type of short tagliatelle made with 80% buckwheat flour and 20% wheat flour.

Locanda del Lago, 231 Arizona Ave, Santa Monica, California 90401, (310) 451-3525.  //www.lagosantamonica.com

Pizzoccheri

Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinese

And it turns out that dried and fresh pasta comes in 310 shapes and varieties (over 1300 names),  So I’m mystified why this one is such a favorite of mine. Texture? Is it because it reminds me of a childhood favorite, an Austr0-Hungarian wide noodle dish with sugar and crushed walnuts?  Thai rice noodles?

My own quest for the best pappardelle began only after I (paleo) had a choice of this pasta or a salad entree on a birthday party menu at Lucille’s Trattoria a few years ago.  I loved it. (turns out it is the most popular dish on their menu). Next, I ordered it for my own birthday feast at Locanda Veneta, where this and their charcuterie board remain a lifetime memory. At the moment Locanda has only a Fettucine and a Tagliatelle on the menu!