Restaurant Review: da Campo Osteria, Ft Lauderdale, FL

da Campo Osteria - dinner on October 1, 2013, restaurant at il Lugano hotel

White Chocolate Bread Pudding - room service dessert

For my second week in Florida, I was out there for a 2-day offsite and we were literally offsite, holding our all-day meetings at Il Lugano Hotel. The restaurant in the hotel is da Campo Osteria and that's where our meeting attendees of 12 people went for our team dinner.  Nothing so handy as leaving the meeting room, taking the elevator back to your room to dump your laptop then taking the elevator back down to show up at the restaurant on the ground floor.

da Campo Osteria also makes the food served for room service and when I had arrived the night before, I ordered in since I'd gotten to the hotel late due to flight delays.  I had my ultimate comfort food, spaghetti and meatballs and this rich white chocolate bread pudding.  I couldn't finish it all but what I did have was pretty good.  I'm not a big fan of white chocolate but I love bread pudding and this was presented beautifully.

Bruschetta

For our team dinner, we started off with appetizers.  One of the things da Campo Osteria is known for is their appetizer of fresh pulled mozzarella prepared tableside.  One of the staff wheeled over a cart with all the ingredients and accoutrements he needed and set up by our table.  He started with cow milk curds in a stainless steel bowl that he broke up into chunks.  Wearing gloves, he poured very hot (possibly boiling hot, hence one reason for the gloves) water over the curds and started working them together, kneading the curd chunks into a smooth mass, with a folding motion, adding more hot water as he went. At a certain point in the kneading process, he started pulling the mozzarella into a long strand, much like you pull taffy into a ribbon.  Fold the strand over, pull again, knead, shape.  He ended up with an impressive smooth round disc of fresh mozzarella which he covered with oil and balsamic vinegar and plated with an accompaniment of olives, peppers, tomatoes and other foodstuffs I couldn't identify.  And that was our appetizer.  We had ordered 3 so he did the first one as a demonstration and two of my coworkers did the remaining two so they experienced preparing fresh mozzarella "from scratch".

Breaking up the milk curds

Kneading the milk curds together

Need more hot water

Stretching like taffy

Cutting the mozzarella into pieces

The plated fresh mozzarella

We got margherita pizza to share which I don't see on their online menu but it was nicely done with a thin crispy crust and a light smattering of cheese, tomato sauce and herbs.  As an appetizer, you don't want to fill up too much too soon, not when there's pasta on the menu and dessert to follow.  At least I don't.

A slice of the margherita pizza we all shared

I had had the spaghetti and jumbo meatball for dinner the night before with room service so for the team dinner, I went with the Lobster Tagliatelle.  I'm mindful to make my contributions to the seafood economy in Florida and it's hard to go wrong with lobster. This was pretty good although, having already had the bread, margherita pizza and freshly pulled mozzarella, I had to start pacing myself if I wanted room for dessert so I focused on consuming the lobster. It was a foregone conclusion I wasn't going to be able to eat all the pasta. I had run 4 miles in the hotel gym that morning, not 40.

My entree: Lobster Tagliatelle

A coworker's entree: Grilled New York Strip

And I can't have a restaurant review without dessert, of course.  Since I had already had the White Chocolate Bread Pudding the night before, I went with the Ricotta Zeppole this time.  They were served slightly warm, crunchy on the outside, and stuffed with nutella on the inside. There was some fancy food art stuck in the gelato and I tried a snippet but set it aside to focus on the zeppoles and the accompanying vanilla bean gelato. Do I even need to mention it was delicious?  Let me say it again: warm zeppoles stuffed with nutella.  Yes, they were as good as that sounded.  I shared a couple of zeppoles with my boss and that was probably a good thing so I wouldn't snarf them all down.  Because again, I only ran 4 miles that morning, not 40.  I had to keep telling myself that.

Ricotta Zeppole

Sorry, the below pic is up-ended but I couldn't get it to rotate properly.  It uploads correctly then turns itself on its end.  Anyway, one of my coworkers seated on my left ordered this dessert which is essentially a chocolate cake filled with amaretto buttercream topped with vanilla bean gelato and chocolate sauce.  He said it was good but nothing fantastic.  I'm glad I got the zeppoles instead.

Caprese Torta aka chocolate cake

My other coworker seated on my right ordered the tiramisu souffle.  I thought it was a cute presentation, warm in the cast iron pot with separate containers for the mocha gelato and mascarpone cream. I forgot to ask him how it tasted.  At the time, I wasn't sure I had looked up from my zeppoles just yet.

Tiramisu souffle with mocha gelato and mascarpone cream

Overall, I thought da Campo Osteria was a good choice for our team dinner.  Beyond the convenience factor of being located in the hotel we were staying at, the food was good, the place was large enough to accommodate our party of 12 and the service was attentive.

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough September 14, 2013 from One Bowl Baking by Yvonne Ruperti

Not too long ago, I had blogged about Dorothy's Crazy for Crust Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe as claiming one of the top 2 spots in my chocolate chip cookie repertoire.  After years of trying and trying to make Mrs.-Fields'-but-better type of chocolate chip cookies that stayed thick, had crisp edges and chewy middles, I had narrowed it down to Dorothy's recipe and Alton Brown's recipe.  Then, out of the blue, came this recipe from One Bowl Baking that had the same components I look for in a great chocolate chip cookie recipe.  It doesn't spread very much, it's buttery, it's chocolaty, it stays chubby, the edges are crisp, the middle is chewy, and hey, it's just good.

I don't know that I could really pick between the three as to which one is the best and fortunately I don't have to.  The beauty of having different recipes to choose from is you can like them all and I don't think you can go wrong with any of them.  The funny thing is, now that I had discovered Dorothy's recipe, I wasn't really on the lookout for a "better" one but just decided to try Yvonne Ruperti's recipe because the picture of the cookies in her book, One Bowl Baking, looked so enticing.

I used milk chocolate chunks instead of bittersweet chocolate chips in my cookies and I didn't flatten the dough ahead of time so the cookies would stay thick.  So I think that's why I liked them better in terms of appearance :). Plus I had the I'm-so-spoiled-when-it-comes-to-cookies thing going on since I had the taste test cookie 10 minutes out of the oven.  I haven't tried these a few hours at room temperature yet or even the next day since the first batch I made of these went to Zoe's bake sale but I'm certainly open to making them again and giving them another test run. We all gotta do what we gotta do in the name of cookie research.

1 ¼ cups (8 ¾ ounces) packed light brown sugar

¼ cup (1 ¾ ounces) granulated sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons (6 ounces) unsalted butter, melted

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 ½ cups (9 ounces) bittersweet chocolate chips

1. Place oven racks in the upper-middle and lower-middle positions.  If baking right away, preheat the oven to 375⁰F. Line two sheet pans with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, stir the brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt and melted butter until completely combined.  Stir in the egg and vanilla.
3. Add the flour, baking soda, and baking powder to the bowl, then stir until almost combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Scoop the dough into 20 balls (I made mine bigger and only ended with with 13 dough balls), and space evenly on the pans. (I froze mine overnight.) Gently press down on each dough ball to about 1” thick (if you like chubby cookies, don't press down and just bake the dough balls as is).
5. Bake until the cookies are puffed in the center and browned at the edges, about 9 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking.  The center may look underdone.  Do not overbake.
6. Let the cookies cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Fluffy Yellow Sheet Cake

Fluffy Yellow Sheet Cake - made September 21, 2013 from One Bowl Baking by Yvonne Ruperti

This was the 3rd dessert I packaged up and brought to Florida with me to pass out to my coworkers there.  Normally I wouldn't bring a frosted cake across the country with me as cakes don't hold up as well as brownies for traveling and are easily smushed en route.  But I had already made 2 kinds of brownies and wanted something non-chocolate to bring that also made enough to fill multiple treat bags.

Cakes also don't remain as fresh as brownies for very long (at least, not to my picky taste buds) so what I did as soon as I had baked and frosted this is package it all up (2 squares of frosted cake to a package, wrapped in plastic wrap) and place them in freezer bags to reside in the freezer until the day I left.  When I pack for my travels and am bringing baked goods, I pack my carry-on luggage the night before and on top, put in empty amazon shipping boxes.  That way I know how much room I have and I put the wrapped brownies and cake directly into the empty boxes right before I leave.  The baked goods go directly from the freezer to my carry-on, I zip it up and I'm off to the airport.

They'll slowly thaw on the flight but by the time I hand them out the next day, they still retain some freshness.  I counsel the recipients of the treat bags that if they're not going to eat them right away, to put them in the freezer (never the fridge) to maintain their freshness. I'm possibly the only one who's that picky about it though as no one seems to notice if they're a day or two away from the oven or freezer. But since I tend to consume everything I post within hours, if not minutes, of when they come out of the oven, my taste buds are pretty jaded.

The taste of the cake was good although it wasn't quite as fluffy as I would have liked.  You can tell by looking at the air pockets in the cake that I certainly beat the batter enough for the cake to rise so it's possible I should've baked it a minute or two longer so it wouldn't be as dense and would be a little lighter.  And that was with me actually baking the cake for a few minutes longer than my underbaking instincts told me to because I know I usually underbake cakes and I was trying to break that bad habit. Apparently I still need a little more work in that area.

16 tablespoons (8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ cups (10.5 ounces) granulated sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

1 ¼ cups (300 ml) whole milk, room temperature

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 ¾ cups (11 ounces) cake flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1.       Place an oven rack in the middle position.  Preheat oven to 350⁰F.  Line a 9 x 13” baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.

2.       In a large bowl, beat the butter, sugar and salt until creamy.

3.       Whisk in the eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, until each is incorporated.

4.       Whisk in the milk and vanilla.

5.       Add the flour and baking powder to the bowl, then whisk gently until combined.

6.       Pour the batter into the pan and bake until golden, just firm, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.

7.       Set the pan on a wire rack and let the cake cool completely before frosting.

Restaurant Review: Satomi Sushi

Satomi Sushi - lunch on September 29, 2013

Let's start off with a caveat that I don't eat sushi so the review for this restaurant, despite its name, doesn't include the sushi because I've never tried it.  I've gone here before with my family and my nieces have had it and say it's good but that's the closest opinion I can offer. They do have a number of sushi offerings though if you check out their menu and I know I've seen some fascinating, artfully created sushi plates come out so if you are a sushi fan, it might be worth looking into.  They do have a 4-star rating on yelp from 1080 reviews so they seem to have quite a following.

Satomi Sushi is in a somewhat weird location in a small strip mall with a few other Asian restaurants and random small storefronts.  The stores aren't really retail stores but places that offer services.  I can't remember which ones since I don't go there that often but it's like for tax services or massages or nails. It's not the type of strip mall you drive to just to walk around (which would take about 3 minutes if you're a slow walker).  When you come here, you're pretty much coming for a specific purpose, like Satomi Sushi.  Or tax consulting.

The interior

The inside is rather small so I wouldn't recommend this for a group larger than 8 unless you try to make arrangements with the restaurant ahead of time for a large party.  You're greeted as you walk in and the wait staff is pretty friendly.  We got there right when it opened so it was still fairly empty but it filled up quickly.  There wasn't a line out the door or anything but by the time we left, most of the tables were full.

Miso soup

The meal starts off with the standard bowl of miso soup that is commonly served in most Japanese restaurants.  My dad ordered the tempura with udon (bowl of noodle soup) and the tempura came out first, prettily arranged in a clever bamboo (?) server.  I think that'd be fun to serve lumpia in too.

Tempura

Udon

My mom got the bento box and you can choose from several different combinations for the bento.  She got the chicken teriyaki and tempura which also came with salad, rice and sushi.

Bento Box with Chicken Teriyaki, Tempura and Sushi

My "safety order" at a Japanese restaurant is teriyaki, either beef or chicken.  I know, I know, true lovers of Japanese food are cringing. But whaddaya gonna do - I am what I am.  I got the beef teriyaki this time and I've ordered it before and it was good then but on this particular visit, they overcooked the beef and some of it was tough.  There were even a few pieces they included that were charred beyond tasty consumption.

Beef Teriyaki

I don't know if the kitchen was just off on this particular day but the service was slow.  Our server was very nice and I know it wasn't her fault but the food took a long time in coming, long enough for my order to burn at any rate. I always give some leeway on slow service if the restaurant is packed but we had arrived early enough to be the third table seated so I don't know what the reason was.  My dad's order of tempura with udon arrived separately and the tempura came out first but by the time the udon came out, we had almost finished eating so he took most of it to go.  I wouldn't let one bad dish or one instance of slow service turn me off from the place but this last visit was disappointing.

Orange chunks - the standard "dessert"

Oh and price point for Satomi Sushi is in the mid range.  Like almost all Japanese restaurants I've gone to, they're higher than the average Asian restaurant.  While you can find entrees and lunch specials for less than $10 at a typical Thai, Vietnamese or Chinese restaurant, Japanese restaurants invariably charge more, especially if they specialize in sushi.  My theory is they can't/don't want to charge low prices for sushi (you get what you pay for and would you really risk eating cheap sushi?) and therefore they keep the non-sushi items at the higher price points as well or else no one would ever order the sushi. That's my theory anyway.

Nutella-Frosted, Caramel-Topped Brownies

Fudgy Brownies - made September 21, 2013 from One Bowl Baking by Yvonne Ruperti

This was the second brownie I took on my Florida trip to pass out to my coworkers.  I started with the standard fudgy brownie recipe from Yvonne Ruperti's book, One Bowl Baking, and dressed it up a trifle. I've made so many brownies over my baking lifetime that I'm not sure I'm capable of making a plain brownie and leaving it alone.

Once I took it out of the oven, I dropped small dollops of nutella over the top and spread it carefully.  The heat from the just-baked brownie will warm up your nutella so spreading is easy but if your nutella is too thick to spoon out properly, just warm it up briefly in the microwave. You don't want the frosting layer to be too thick though, even if you're a rabid Nutella fan, as it's easy to make these too rich.

Then, just because I can't leave well enough alone, I also chopped up Milky Way Caramels and sprinkled them over the nutella frosting.  Many people complain they can't buy Halloween candy too early or they'll eat them all before October.  I have a different problem.  All of the Milky Way Caramels and Midnight Milky Ways I've bought to pass out on Halloween are all going into what I've been baking lately.  I need to replenish my candy supply before the big night.  But, c'mon, look at that picture! If you want to lick your screen, go ahead.  I won't tell.  Since I was giving these away, I only had the barest sliver to make sure they tasted okay.  I passed them out to my Florida coworkers and got a few thank you emails, an "OMG, those brownies!"instant message and some in-person thank yous so I think they liked them.

7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate

12 tablespoons (6 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus more for greasing the pan

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups (10 ½ ounces) granulated sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 large eggs

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (5 2/3 ounces) all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 ½ cups (6 ounces) walnuts, chopped, divided, optional (I left them out)
Nutella, amount varies depending on how thick you want the frosting layer to be
1/2 to 3/4 cup Milky Way Caramels, cut into large dice

1. Place an oven rack in the middle position.  Preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Butter a 9-inch square baking pan.
2. In a large heatproof bowl, heat the bittersweet chocolate, unsweetened chocolate, butter and salt until just melted, stirring occasionally.
3. Whisk in the sugar and vanilla.  Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, until completely combined and the mixture is glossy.
4. Stir in the flour, cocoa and 1 cup of the walnuts until combined.
5. Pour the batter into the pan and sprinkle the remaining ½ cup of walnuts over the top.
6. Bake until just firm and a toothpick inserted into the center has moist, fudgy crumbs, about 25 minutes.
7. Set the pan on a wire rack to cool.  Cut into squares.

Restaurant Review: Bonefish Grill

Bonefish Grill, Ft Lauderdale, FL - dinner on September 25, 2013

My boss took his direct reports out for a team dinner during my first of two back to back trips to Florida a couple of weeks ago. It was the second time we'd gone to Bonefish Grill on one of my visits but prior to that, I had never heard of it before.  According to their website, they have locations across the United States so they're quite the chain but they're not in California, hence my unfamiliarity.

We went on a Wednesday night and that turned out to be a good night to go as the appetizers were all $5 each. Most appetizers at full price are almost $10 so it was like a 50% off deal.  Being finance people, we couldn't not take advantage of that, right?  We ended up getting a couple of the Bang Bang Shrimp appetizers to start off with.  I'm normally a little leery of appetizers in a creamy sauce because many of them have mayonnaise (which I hate) but the Bang Bang Shrimp was pretty good.  The breading was light and retained its crispiness even coated in the sauce.  If the sauce did have mayo in it, it wasn't enough for me to taste it and I'm happy to remain in blissful ignorance as to whether it did or not.

Corn Chowder with Lump Crab

This time, since I was in South Florida and again there was "fish" in the title of the restaurant, unlike the Blue Moon Fish burger, I did opt to go with seafood for dinner, starting with a corn chowder with lump crab.  It was good although the soup was, well, soupy.  I think of chowder as something with thicker, more creamy soup like you typically find in baked potato soup.  Still, it was tasty.

Jumbo Sea Scallops and Shrimp in lemon butter sauce with cheddar mashed potatoes

And it's hard to go wrong with scallops and shrimp which is what I ordered for an entree. At Bonefish Grill, you can choose from a variety of sauces and pick your own side.  I liked the combination I got.  Sometimes scallops can be hit or miss - if you undercook it, the texture is too mushy and it smells fishy.  If you overcook it (which is easy to do, ask me how I know), it's pretty rubbery.  Mine were perfectly done.  And I love shrimp so that's never a bad choice for me.  Unless you burn it to charcoal, I will like any and all shrimp dishes I'm served.

Flourless Macadamia Brownie

But really, again, it's all about dessert.  My team knows me well enough that no matter how full any of us are, I'm going to order dessert. We can all have a spoonful (or three) if that's all we have room for but dessert is a must.  The nice thing about going with a group is, if everyone is full, we can still get a dessert or two just for tasting and there's enough of us that it doesn't go to waste. The Flourless Macadamia Brownie was good although I'm never wild about raspberry sauce with my chocolate.  I know it's the common pairing but to me, chocolate should just be left alone.  Or paired with caramel.  But not any rendition of berries.  That's just my personal prejudice.

But the winning dessert of the evening was the Coconut Pie.  I forgot the official name and the website doesn't list its desserts (what?!?) but it's a wedge of coconut pie with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream (I can't remember anymore, I was too focused on the pie) in a caramel rum sauce.  Now you know I love all things coconut and despite not liking rum, I forgave the sauce to get to the pie.  Serious goodness.

Rocky Road Mud Bars

Rocky Road Mud Bars - made September 21, 2013, modified from Chocolate Chocolate by Lisa Yockelson

I mentioned going on a business trip (or 2) earlier.  For my first trip, I flew to our company headquarters to meet with my counterparts at HQ and make the rounds of in-person meetings I needed to have.  Whenever I go to headquarters, I've now made it a practice to bring goodie bags with me to distribute to my coworkers there.  After all, I bake for my local office pretty much every week but only go out to headquarters once a quarter or so.  Fair's fair.  However, I didn't have a lot of time before I went so I only made a couple of different brownies and a sheet cake.  That may sound like a lot but I also have a lot of coworkers so I had to split the bounty across a broad base.

I hadn't made anything from Lisa Yockelson in awhile and, thanks to striking upon using Midnight Milky Ways for anything that calls for marshmallows, like a kid with a new toy, I went searching for something I previously had skipped because of the marshmallow factor.  Rocky Road Mud Bars was an obvious choice. The picture in the book itself is a little deceiving because it looks like she layered the marshmallows on top to feature prominently but the directions have you mixing it into the batter. I decided to do both and re-wrote the directions accordingly.

Anything that has an Oreo cookie crumb crust is a great way to use up Oreos from a package that's been opened for awhile.  You know, where the Oreos haven't gone stale yet and still have some crunch but not the snap they had when the package is first opened.  When you pulverize them into crumbs, add melted butter and spread them in an even layer in the pan, none of that matters.

The main thing you have to be careful about with the crust is not to dislodge it when you're spreading the brownie batter.  I recommend dropping the batter in even dollops all over the pan so you only have to do minimally spreading to cover the bottom layer completely. As usual with brownies, the key is not to overbake it.  Shortly before they're done (moist crumbs on the toothpick when inserted near the center) is when you want to sprinkle the chopped up Midnight Milky Ways on top so they'll partially melt on top of the hot brownie.  If you've inadvertently baked the brownies longer or to "doneness", just turn the oven off and sprinkle the candy on top to give it even a little melting time without baking the brownie for much longer. I thought these were decent but I could probably have used more Midnight Milky Ways on top and/or also added Milky Way Caramels to really push them into the decadent zone.

Chocolate Cookie Layer

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to tepid

1 ½ cups plus 3 tablespoons chocolate sandwich cookie crumbs (I used Oreos)

Mud Brownie Batter

1 ¼ cups bleached cake flour

¼ cup unsweetened alkalized cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips

½ pound (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to tepid

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled to tepid

5 large eggs

2 cups superfine sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup chopped walnuts (I left out)

1/3 cup Midnight Milky Ways, cut into large dice plus another ½ cup for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 325⁰F. Line a 10-inch square baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Mix the cookie layer: Pour the melted butter into the prepared pan.  Sprinkle the chocolate cookie crumbs evenly over the melted butter.  Press down on the crumbs with the underside of an offset metal spatula so that the crumbs absorb the butter.  Bake the cookie layer in the preheated oven for 4 minutes.  Place the baking pan on a cooling rack and let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Mix the batter: Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt onto a sheet of waxed paper.  In a small bowl, toss the chocolate chips with ½ teaspoon of the sifted mixture.
4. Whisk the melted butter and melted chocolate in a medium-size mixing bowl until smooth.  In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs for 1 minute to blend, add the sugar and whisk for 45 seconds to 1 minute, or until just incorporated.  Blend in the melted butter-chocolate mixture, mixing thoroughly.  Blend in the vanilla extract.  Sift the flour mixture over and slowly stir it in, mixing until the particles of flour are absorbed, using a whisk, wooden spoon or flat wooden paddle.  Blend in the chocolate chips, walnuts (if using) and 1/3 cup Midnight Milky Ways.
5. Spoon the batter in large dollops on the cookie crumb layer.  Carefully spread the batter over the cookie layer, using a flexible palette knife or spatula.
6. Bake the brownies in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, or until set.  5 minutes before the brownies are done, sprinkle with the ½ cup of Midnight Milky Ways and return to oven to soften. Remove when a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs.  Cool the brownies completely in the pan on a rack. Cut when cool.