Torino Italy: Random munchies and some Cavallo fillet!

This is a post of some of the food that I've ran into here and have sampled (of course).

Here's a side from MacDonalds, it's a deep fried olive stuffed with burger meat. Quite tastey, a bit heavy on the salt but waaaaaaaaay over priced. It was 2,30 Euros! T_T.

Here's a shot of some freshly made Gnoccini (literally meaning tiny Gnocci). It's a small dumpling made from potatoes, and these were absolutely divine. Handling these things is like handling a cloud. I broke a few just scooping them out of the container. A tip when cooking these is that they are finished as soon as they float to the top. Once finished, they are pillowy soft and have a small bit of chewyness, but just enough to hold together. I'm going to miss these when I leave.

Here's a slice of Pecorino cheese. It's a relatively young one, so not as sharp as some others.

Ahh, and here's the Cavallo, which in english is horse. The butcher down the street from us sells this fresh from a local farmer.

Tyler and I figured that the best way to sample the taste was to just grill it plain with a dash of salt and pepper.

Here's the finished meat with grilled zucchini and asparagus on the side. 

This was a nice medium well fillet. Quite juicy, very lean, but has very little flavour compared to beef. I believe it's due to the fat content in it. I really need to learn some good Cavallo recepies.

Torino Italy: So there was this knife

So as most of my friends know, I really like food. Actually, it's pretty obvious if you've been following this blog. So when here in Italy, my only frustration was not having a knife to chop and cut with. I was looking for a particular knife that I read about, and since I also like collecting a few different types of knives, I felt that my next one had to be a Japanese Santoku knife.

Whilst walking towards the cell phone shop, I found this crazy knife store. The display was magnificent, and it was nothing but knives in that display. Eventually I worked up enough courage to walk in.

Here's the inside of the store, I was really set on looking for a decent knife, and when the owner noticed me looking, he told me that all his good knives are not out on display!

I eventually got to chatting with Michael, and I found out a lot about this store. It's been around since 1929, and it was started by his great grand father. It managed to survive the bombings during WW2 and it still stand today! Michael is the 3rd generation owner and this humble shop supplies knives to almost all the chefs in Torino. He's also very knowledgeable in all the different knives here and knew exactly what I was looking for.

Here are some pots and some juicers.

Another shot of the exterior of the store.

And this baby is what I brought home. It's a Kyocera Ceramic knife. Initially, I didn't know that Kyocera made knives and I was skeptical, but then I found out the Kyocera stood for Kyoto Ceramics. So they've been around long enough to know how to handle ceramic.

I sprung for the black blade because it looked soo good. There was a white one, but the black one just looked cooler, even though it was more expensive. I was reading that the black blade is a bit more durable than the white one, but if I were really honest with myself, it's not worth the premium. It's a great knife for cutting and it's ludicrously sharp. I have a Henkel's Miyabi 6" at home and I found that this was even sharper (which I thought was impossible). I was able to slice artichokes and leeks with little to no effort nor sawing. It was incredible. You don't need to use a honing steel on it before you use it. The biggest knock I have against it is that although ceramic is super hard, it's super brittle. It has very little ductility at all. I saw some people dropping it, but I want to make sure that this knife doesn't chip its blade (there's a $10 sharpening service available for the life of the knife).The tip is rounded, which would probably get broken off anyways. In the instruction booklet says that it's really only meant for veggies and boneless meats. If you twist it, it'll most likely break. I've also read that someone broke it cutting a hard cheese (like Parmesan). Thus, I'm more careful when using this knife than I am with my 8" at home.
Verdict: It's a crazy sharp knife and makes chopping and slicing a joy. However, don't expect it to be your only knife. It really needs to be pampered, so don't get it if you don't like pampering.

Just look at that blade!! Simply gorgeous.

Torino Italy: A trip out to Mirafiori

So my hunt for a place here took me out to Mirafiori (which is by no coincidence, where my school is located)

The scenery is very different out here. The buildings are more modern, and there are a lot of apartments.

Here's Matt just enjoying the scenery.

Torino Italy 29/09/2011: The CENTRAL market!

So here we are at the central market, you can see Jeff walking in front of the fresh pasta stall.

The next stall is the wine stall, the below picture will show you how cheap they are.

3 bottles for only 5 Euros! Now the really crazy thing is that cheapest wine I've bought thus far (a white wine that cost 2 Euros) was much better tasting than the $10 ones found in Canada! Crazy!

More wine! We're getting to the good stuff now! Only 6.95 Euros!

Here's the clothing section of the market, you can find a lot of cheap clothing here. However, I did hear that they sell used clothing too, just be weary.

I'm not sure what church this was, but it was in the central square.

Just some shots of the side streets.

Here's another market a few blocks down from the main one. The big thing about this one is that it's all organic food.

Another Church. All those statues are tributes to saints.

Some closeup of the saints.

Here's a walk along the parkade street. It's the same on both sides of the street and it's full of shops that you can check out.

A random street corner.

This was the market outside my dorm. Instead of selling veggies and fruits, it's now turned into collectors records, CD's and posters.

Another shot of the huge quantity of stuff.

I dropped by the bakery to pick up a nice huge meringue.

A Lizard! These are pretty common here, and you'll find them where you find shrubbery.

This is the shot of the residence from the center courtyard. What you are looking at now is the central stairwell. If you look closely at the "tiled" windows, those are actually solar panels.

This is the other meringue that I bought. It was smaller, but the chocolate added some depth to it.

Torino Italy 23/09/2011: Onwards to the Central Market

So thus our adventure continues and this time we're walking towards the central market! The issue that you'll notice here is that I'm not going to be able to label these pictures because I don't know the name of what they are!

Here's a nice park. The museum of natural history is here. It's to the left off screen tho.

Some of the side street shots. I really like the cobblestone roads!

Here's a random church that I noticed and took a picture of.

This is the square whose name I don't know. However, I can tell you that it houses the Statue of Emanuele Filiberto on a horse (he was the prince of the Piedmont region).

More shots of the square. Since it's the 150th anniversary of Italy (Torino was the first capital), there's been really neat events every week!

Here's a closeup shot of the statue.

This is a shot of an interior promenade.

Here's another unknown building.

The really big building in the back (white) is the Royal House of Savoy

Close up shot of the Royal House of Savoy. It housed all the old Italian kings. Like the British Buckingham palace. There are a few of them scattered around.

Shots of the inner square.

More inner square shots

Here's an exit.

This was an ancient Roman mosaic that was found during excavation. It has been preserved where it was originally discovered.

Here a fence separating you and some ancient ruins.

Here's the ruins, however, I don't know the background of them.