Mario's Place

For Virginia's birthday we took a trip over to Mario's place for some fancy Italian food. We have been to Mario's once before but that was before I wrote about the things I ate. Out of all the restaurants in Riverside this place is by far one of the best and probably rivals some of the Italian food on the east coast. I know right? From a New Jersey kid that is a lot to say about a Riverside restaurant so I was hoping it would not disappoint this time around.

I really enjoy the ambiance of this place, upscale but relaxed, where you can dress up and feel right or show up in jeans and fit in just the same. We choose to dress up when coming here because there are so few places in Riverside where you can suit up and not look out of place. They also lower the lighting as the night goes on creating an intimate atmosphere that is just right for a place with this kind of food. I only wish it didn't cost over $100 to eat there every time but I guess sometimes you get what you pay for. 

For my first course I ordered the crispy squash blossoms. I have seen those on some of the food network shows and figured now was a good a time as any to order them.

mmmm goat cheese

 These blossoms were almost tempura fried with such a light batter you could see the flower right through it. Filled with creamy goat cheese that oozed out when you cut them and resting atop a tomato basil sauce these blossoms were delicious. I was expecting them to be a bit greasy but they were crisp and light and a wonderful start to the meal. 

Next I was prepared to order the wild boar ragu but was drawn away by the description of their pasta special. What was it you ask? Parpadelle with duck ragu, kalamata olives, and shaved Parmesan cheese. I had never heard of a duck pasta and I do love duck so I had to go for it.   

Duck Ragu and Parpadelle Pasta

Wow, remember the short ribs at Buddakan and the reaction I had to that? This was very similar. The ragu had an immense amount of flavor and the duck meat just melted into it to create a thick coating on the pasta. And the pasta, just a tiny bit al dente and the perfect vessel for the ragu. Even the addition of kalamata olives was brilliant. They added the saltiness that the dish needed but since they were halved you could choose when to eat them instead of having them completely incorporated. I could eat some pasta, mix in the duck, take an olive half and add in the Parmesan just for a cheesy bite. It was only a moderately sized portion but it was so rich that I was full halfway through, but let's be honest, I finished the whole thing. It was just that good. Too bad it was a special because I would eat that every time if I could. What an amazing entree.

For dessert I ordered the chocolate raspberry purse which was pretty good just not the best thing I ate that night. The purse was chocolate sponge cake, melted chocolate, and raspberries wrapped in phyllo dough with some raspberry sorbet on the side. It was also a nice addition to crisp up a few pieces of phyllo and lay them on top of the purse. Don't get me wrong it was a good dessert and the sorbet was deliciously tart and tangy but for me the sponge cake to melted chocolate ratio was off. I was really hoping for the chocolate to ooze out when I cut into it like a volcano cake but the chocolate had mostly soaked into the sponge and didn't really ooze much at all. All in all it was a little on the dry side but a nice ending to a great meal.

Ooze damn you ooze!

I would definitely go back to Mario's Place and would recommend that you check it out. It really is a gem hanging out in the sea of sad excuses for Italian food in Riverside. 

Overall Review: 8/10

Riverside Food Truck Festival

On Saturday we went to the first Riverside Food Truck Festival to try a bunch of exciting food trucks. We paid for VIP tickets so we could have access to the covered tent and the free drinks. This was a very good thing since it was unreasonably hot so my first suggestion for next year would be to hold it at a different time. The height of Riverside summer is not the best idea for an outdoor lunchtime event. In the end it made eating hot food (Which was what almost every truck served) an undesirable activity. This was made evident by the 20 minute line for the shaved ice truck. My second issue was that they ran out of all t-shirt sizes below XL almost immediately which pissed me off since I paid extra for a shirt. Aside from those two issues, the event was well put together and a lot of fun. With 50 food trucks and live music you can't really go wrong.


On to the trucks! Virginia and I managed to eat at five different trucks including one truck that happened to be on my list! Our first stop upon entry was the Waffles de Leige truck for a Leige waffle topped with ice cream. The special piece of a Leige waffle is that they import these sugar pearls from Belgium. The sugar pearls go inside the batter and melt as the waffle cooks. What you end up with is this chewy sweet caramilized flavor that is unlike any waffle you have ever eaten. I had been wanting to try one of these for a long time and it did not disappoint. Add on top some thick and creamy vanilla bean ice cream and it made for a delicious first dish. Thumbs up for the Liege waffle, ten times better than any other waffle I have ever had before. Rating 8/10.

Next Stop, the Nom Nom truck. I stopped off here to get a pork Bahn Mi, which is a traditional Vietnamese sandwich. For five dollars I was extremely disappointed. Why you ask? Take a look at the size of this sandwich and ask that again.

This sandwich was about half the size of the ones I get monthly from the restaurant down the street for $3. This would be OK if the amount and quality of meat was through the roof but it definitely was not. The onions alone doubled the amount of pork on that sandwich and they were about all I could taste. While the bread was good I will stick to Pho Saigon and call it a day. Rating 4/10.


After that we stopped by the tent to hang out and caught a set by the UCR Tyco student organization. Take a listen to the talent at UC Riverside:

While that was going on I went out to get Virginia a burger but was sidetracked by the Bun Truck.

I ordered a Kalbi bun which was sirloin, onions, mixed greens, and an aioli. The bun was accompanied by some wonderful duck fat fries topped with garlic and rosemary. I am so happy that I stopped here. The bun was chewy and full of flavor and the few bites of the sirloin was sweet and tasted like braised short ribs. While the bun was good, the fries stole the show. This was the first time I ate fries cooked in duck fat and it will not be the last, that's for sure. These fries were crunchy and hot even without ketchup (Though I really wanted ketchup). The garlic and and the rosemary were wonderful and had obviously been added right after the fries came out of the frier because they had adhered to the fries perfectly. Truly one of the best things I ate at this event. Overall 7/10.

 

After dropping that food off at the tent I went to Baby's Badass Burgers to get Virginia her burger.

Though I didn't get a picture of the girls on this truck I need to comment on their wardrobe. If you are in a food truck dressed like you are going out to a club it is pretty obvious that you are a novelty and not serious cooks. I don't just mean this for women it goes the same for men. Wear chef's clothes or at least some branded t-shirts that allow you to move and/or breathe. Seeing this I was nervous about the food but it was the only burger truck at the festival. Guess what, I was right....

The best thing on this dish was the buns but I could go to Ralphs right now and get a pack of them to make burgers ten times better at home. The meat, gross! Overcooked, low quality, and dry. I think they knew this but adding their "Special Sauce". Newsflash, it was thousand island dressing at best. They added a bunch of onions and mushrooms to salvage the dish but too little too late. Badass burgers or maybe just Bad. Overall 3/10.

The last place we ate at was the White Rabbit Truck and it appears that I saved the best for last but you are going to have to wait until my next post because it just happens to be a list place!

At the end of the day we got to listen to a Journey tribute band led by an American Idol finalist. All in all a really great day albeit a tad hot and I can't wait for next year!

Overall Rating: 9/10

Ciao Bella

We visited Ciao Bella as a dinner for my department so this review is of the meal at that event not the normal restaurant menu. My disclaimer is that I did go to Ciao Bella once before and the food was good, I had my first octopus steak. It is quite expensive for the area and the food but that is for another time. Now for the review of the three course meal. First off, we ate in the basement of the restaurant which they call a wine cellar. It was way too small for the number of people in attendance which meant we were really crowded. The extremely odd part about this location was that it was unreasonably hot. The AC didn’t work well and it was supposed to be a wine cellar. There is no way that wine should have been in an 80 degree hotbox. The upstairs part of the restaurant was easily 15 degrees colder.

My first course was a salad with what I think was mango vinaigrette, I can’t really remember, which says a lot. All I remember about this salad was that it was drowning in dressing. Truly not a great way to start a meal. It really is not that hard to toss a green salad in dressing and serve it crisp and fresh but I think they were overwhelmed by the twenty of us being served at the same time. Personally, I think the salads were good to begin with but sat around until they were already to come down together.

My second course was very interesting. It was a dish that would have worked perfectly if not for one glaring misstep. I ordered a seared duck breast which was supposed to be served over mango risotto and then surrounded with side by side sauces, one mango and the other a port wine reduction. I will give them credit where credit is due, the duck was cooked wonderfully. It was medium so not tough, my knife ran through the meat without much effort and the fat layer on the top melted in my mouth. The sauces were also very good accompaniments; personally I really liked the tang of the port wine reduction added to the smooth texture of the duck breast. The mango sauce was a little too sweet and somewhat shutdown my palette.

So what was the misstep you ask, well I’ll tell you. They added what tasted like American cheese to the mango risotto. Now you’re asking, “Wait, American cheese with mango, duck, and port wine sauce, that sounds odd”. I reply, you are correct and it was not in the original description of the dish. At first taste all I could think of was Kraft cheesy macaroni in the blue box. And let me tell you, though I love the blue box, it made no sense on this plate and it tasted so strange with mango mixed in. I truly believe that someone made a huge mistake with that or maybe they were drinking the wine that was spoiling in their sauna of a wine cellar. In order to make the dish work I had to take the risotto off my plate and eat it as a side dish. The last thing on that dish was crispy onion strings on the top. Fun but completely unnecessary on top of a potentially sophisticated duck entrée.

Desert was a crème brulee. Ok, but somewhat forgettable. Yes it was creamy and sweet and yes the sugar was torched well but it was just a standard crème brulee, nothing that blew me away. The one annoying thing was that it was a little warm when served. I like my crème brulee nice and cold with a solid sugar top to crack through. I feel like the cold texture makes it all that much better, but that’s just me.

All in all, I just think that the kitchen was overwhelmed but the amount of people they needed to serve simultaneously and it showed in the quality of service and the quality of the food. All the dishes could have been so much better if they didn’t miss standard production rules like don’t let a dressed salad sit around and didn’t add weird things to the entrée like the cheese product from the Kraft Blue Box. It was a very different meal than the first time I went with Virginia so I would not recommend Ciao Bella for parties larger than 8-10.

Overall Recommendation: 5/10

The Salted Pig

Finally went to check out The Salted Pig on Friday for lunch. I was hearing great things about this place and was very excited to check it out. The restaurant is set up with two distinct seating areas; one by the bar and one by the kitchen. We sat in the seats at the kitchen counter and were rewarded with some free samples of their deviled eggs. I only ate one and it was good just not something I focused on throughout the meal. I wish the seats at the bar were a little higher up so I could actually see what was going on. It was strange to sit there trying to see what was going on but being unable to do so. Another annoyance was that my server had not tasted many of the items on the menu. It is always alarming to hear a server say "People have told me that this is good" or "I've never tried that". If you really care about your restaurant you will taste and be able to talk about all of the regular menu items.

I ordered the pork belly sandwich with light mayo (As recommended), the brussel sprouts as a side, and the bacon sammy for dessert. I also upgraded to filthy fries which has cheese and roasted garlic on top. When the meal came out I was confused by the brussel sprouts. They were shredded like coleslaw with bacon pieces mixed in. This was a very unique way to eat brussel sprouts but surprisingly it was really good. Since they were shredded it was easy to get bacon in every forkful. Usually it is difficult to get the bacon on your fork with a large brussel sprout but when all items in the dish are similar in size it makes it much easier. My one issue was that it was very liquidy in the dish and became sort of a soup when you got towards the end. I am unsure as to why they did not remove some of the liquid but that was not pleasant.

The pork belly sandwich was good though it was lacking the savory taste that you normally get from bacon. I am not sure what was missing but I was expecting a richer taste that would fill me up since the sandwich was a little small. It was definitely a good idea to ask for light mayo because there was still a decent amount on the sandwich. If I had not asked for light mayo the whole sandwich would have been drowned in it and probably tasted terrible. Thanks yelp reviews! The sandwich also claimed to have mandarin pickles but they merely tasted like mandarin orange slices. I did not taste anything near to a brine that would allow you to call them pickled. Regardless, the sweetness of the orange was as great addition to the sandwich and broke up the monotony that was under flavored pork belly on bread. Overall, a decent sandwich but not one that I would order a second time. Next time I will get the really good or the pig burger.

My Pig Sammy came out last and was, by far, the best thing I ate at this restaurant. Who could argue with candied bacon inside ice cream between to maple cookies? I mean honestly I do not think that it would be possible at any restaurant to mess up that combination and The Salted Pig did not disappoint. Not only did the ice cream taste like bacon but there were pieces of candied bacon inside the ice cream. Almost every creamy bite of the ice cream came with the delicious somehow chewy and crunchy texture of the candied bacon. All of this was balanced by the maple cookies. What a great way to end the meal!

Overall, I enjoyed my meal at the Salted Pig. Some issues with the dishes and the set up of the kitchen counter but it was a fun meal with obvious thought behind the dishes. I would order the brussel sprouts again but I would ask them to drain out some of the liquid. I am not sure if I would order the pork belly again there are other options that I would rather try. I would recommend this place as a nice lunch hangout and hear that their happy hour deals are great. Next time I will go after work to try some of their many beers on tap. I mean this place calls itself a Gastropub so I need to test out its beer selection. By the way, the filthy fries were awesome. I mean roasted garlic and beer cheese on fries? How could that not be awesome!

Rating: 6/10