italian – shut up and eat with me

It was thirteen years ago that I met one of my good friends and although I don’t see her often, when I do, it’s like nothing has ever really changed. In high school (Catholic high school), the teachers always sat us alphabetically which I believe is one of the main reasons we became friends. All I had to do was slightly turn around and we would crack jokes about how annoying school was, how this one teacher was WAY too into english, or even how the Chem teacher looked like a fairy from Sleeping Beauty. Although we don’t go to school anymore or even work together, one of our main common denominators is our love for good food.

One Friday, we decided to head over to Arturo’s in Middletown, NJ. As we navigated our way through some back roads, we ended up in a quaint little downtown and our destination awaited us on the corner full of food lovers alike waiting their turn for a seat. The wait was over an hour but there was no way we were turning back now. We were in it to win it. And that’s exactly what we did.

After waiting a bit, we were seated outside and we knew exactly what we wanted to eat. The menu is simple but everything sounded delicious. We first started off with the ricotta crostini and market salad (special). The ricotta crostini was made with slightly toasted bread, topped with fluffy whipped ricotta cheese, black sea salt, and drizzled with olive oil. The flavors blended so nicely to create a cloud of savoriness in your mouth. Continue reading “a pizza history” →

I honestly struggled with what to focus on in this blog post. I was blown away with all of the food that I ate at Calandra’s Italian Village in Bloomfield, NJ. The visit to this literal village was definitely unexpected. I never planned and definitely did not expect this delicious of a meal on this particular night. Originally, I was just planning to go with my really good friend and her mom to their dress fitting for her upcoming wedding. I have to say it really was so fun and exciting because they both looked so beautiful in their dresses. I was so caught up in it all that I totally didn’t even think I was hungry.

Then we got into the car…and I was hungry! My friend said we could go to Calandra’s bakery and although I am typically down for bakery visits, I really felt like I needed to eat real food. Who knew that Calandra’s was not only a bakery but an Italian restaurant directly connected to it.

Because it was so late, we had to pick up out baked goods first. The place is HUGE!! I didn’t know where to start. So many displays, so many options. I could have purchased the entire store. and I really wanted to for my dad but I held back.

These are just a few of the displays. The cupcakes looked so amazing and there were so many options. Although the cookie case does technically look “empty”, it was about 9:00 at night which tells me that their cookies are an absolute HIT! I decided to buy a few mini treats. I had a mini vanilla cupcake, mini lemon cupcake, mini raspberry cupcake, an eclair, a cream puff, and a mini fruit tart. All so cute and adorable. The cupcakes were my favorite though. Not too sweet and freshly baked for the perfect fluffy texture. Just the perfect amount of frosting on the top with so much flavor! I want more!

Once finally making a decision and packaging up all of our treats into little white boxes, we headed to the restaurant portion of the building. Which was beautiful by the way. The tables were beautifully set and huge windows lined the walls.

As soon as we sat down this was put on our table…