Ethnic Dining, Italian Style Essay Example for Free

Ethnic Dining, Italian Style seeOn Saturday, September 15, 2007 I dined at Frankie, Johnnie and Luigi, Too. This Italian style restaurant on Prospect roadway in San Jose, California is renowned for its authentic food. The phone number at the establishment is 408-446-9644. The restaurant features domestic Southern Italian cuisine. They like to brag that they do traditional pizza pie and do not shell out American Yuppie offerings. The menu includes pasta, naturally, along with veau and prawn dishes.Italian sausages were suggested by the wait-staff as well. The atmosphere is red-checkered set back-cloth swank which makes it more upscale than a Pizza Hut but lets the diner know it is homely and not five star pretentious. Like any country, the food of Italy varies by region, with the areas which produce more pork tending(p) to sausages and ham dishes while milk producing lands serving up a cuisine laden with dairy. The south produces veal and seafood along with signature pasta s. I chose the prawn penne.The Italian food served in the United States is often Americanized to the orient that it would be virtually unrecognizable to a native Italian but Frankie, Johnny and Luigi, Too makes claims of world authentic. The manager, in a long talk with us at our table, mentioned that the foods of Italy came to this country with the immigrants but didnt drive to enter mainstream America until post World War II when pizzerias began to flourish in large cities and doyen Martin sang Thats Amore, including a line that went, When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, thats amore. Its impact on America and American palates is subtle.Where American food is heavy on meat and potatoes the Italian cuisine is richer in flavor, using strong cheeses and cured meats as a zesty more so than a main ingredient. Their olive oil is healthier than the hog lard and cover which Americans once used with abandon. The tomato, such an integral part of Italian regional food, was a gift from the impudent World over five hundred years ago but the Italians made it their own (Kotkin 2007) and brought it stand to us in sauces cooked up by newly arrived immigrants.My dining experience was most pleasant and the samples I managed to glean from my dining companions platter added to the home-like atmosphere. The camaraderie was evident from the waiters to the manager who came by our table to inquire as to how we were getting along with our meal. It seemed to me that I could have been in a Southern Italian home in the middle of a holiday if I but used my imagination. I exhaustively enjoyed all aspects of the meal from the ante-pasta to the coffee I sipped at the close of the meal.