Italianni’s

Travel to Italy with a substantial budget and you can dine in true Italian fashion. You can start with the Antipasti (appetizers) and you can choose between the affettati misti (select cold cuts) and the piatti freddi (cold dishes). Then you may follow it with the Primi piatti (pasta & soups) and the Secondi piatti (meat, seafood or veggies). Contorni (side dishes) may be ordered, to be followed by a selection of formaggio (cheese). Dinner may end with the Dolci (desserts). The total cost would be around 80 to 100 euro (1 euro is worth 61.23 pesos, Philippine money), per person, tips excluded.

A tourist with budgetary limitation has fewer choices like pizza, pasta, insalate (salad) or panini (sandwich). Those with severe constraints may just have to settle with those cups of instant noodles from home hidden in their luggage, with hot water from the electric thermos bottles in the hotel room. Pathetic indeed to have reached an Italian city like Rome and you have to eat, excuse me, Pancit Canton!

We Cebuanos are lucky that we no longer have to travel to Italy to eat Italian food, as new restaurants that serve Italian dishes have opened in town. A good example is the Italianni's Restaurant at the Level 1, The Terraces, Ayala Center Cebu. Those in Davao or Manila, or some other areas are lucky too, since Italianni's has 17 branches around the country.

One thing that differentiates this Italian restaurant from the rest is that they serve American-Italian cuisine with a shared-style dining concept called Amore de Merrier. And before orders are taken, there's home-baked Tuscan and Foccacia bread served with olive oil and aged vinegar, as complimentary treat!

Added advantage is the fact that the Cebu branch opened late compared with their other branches, so the dishes that were big favorites in the 16 older branches are the ones they serve here.

Precious Grace V. Heradura, Associate Consultant, Selrahco Management, invited select members of Cebu media to sample their American-Italian cuisine. I took a glance at the menu and noticed the section on Rejuvenating Treats that served a fresh fruit shake called Fruity Smoothie with banana and mangoes. (These two tropical fruits are not usually cultivated in Italy and are instead to be found in the subtropical areas of the United States.)

Appetizer was Spinach and Artichoke Formaggio served with garlic bread, followed by the Sicilian Chicken Salad. What made the salad unique was the presence of pine nuts with a creamy anchovy dressing. The combination of the red grapes with the chicken meat made this salad very refreshing.

This was followed by two pizzas, the Quattro Staggioni and the Pizza Abbondanza . The former had four flavors, the shrimps with black olives, cheese topped with arugula, mushrooms & artichokes and pepperoni. As usual, your favorite food columnist was hesitant to select only one slice and followed the path of least resistance - take a bite of everything. I could not taste the Pizza Abbondanza, though, since I was seated too far to reach it.

Primi piatti was Spaghetti and Meatballs and I found that the Italianni's meatballs were large - the true mark of American-Italian cuisine. Traditional recipes in Italy served much smaller meatballs, a carryover from the olden days when Italy was poor (the main reason that Italians migrated to the U.S.A.). Back then meat was scarce and it was already some fortune to have meatballs; otherwise, spaghetti would just simply go with marinara sauce.

Secondi piatti was the Herb Roasted Spring Chicken meat followed by the Dolci (desserts): Mango Panna Cotta and Tartufo, a three layered chocolate cake. Unfortunately, no Limon de Cielo!

 When you travel to Florence, you are likely to meet a Filipino every two hours but in Rome, you will meet a kababayan every ten minutes and this leaves me wondering whether a Filipino-Italian cuisine will soon evolve.