Cioccolatitaliani

Hello everybody!

If you are in Milan and if you like chocolate this post is for you. I'm gonna write about Cioccolatitaliani,  the best place ever where you can eat a dessert, a thick hot chocolate in winter or a great homemade ice-cream in summer.

This place is situated 5 minutes walking to the Porta Ticinese area, where you can find Colonne di San Lorenzo (one of the most ancient monuments in Milan), a lot of small independent shops during the day and loads of students during the evening thanks to cheap beer and cafés where you can taste the famous "aperitivo". 

In Milan there is another Cioccolatitaliani next to the Duomo, but I think that the location of the one in Via de Amicis is the best.

Cioccolatitaliani has a wide choice of different ice-cream tastes and kinds of chocolate and hot chocolates (the real thick ones), the atmosphere is vey nice and you can enjoy your dessert sit in a kind of veranda with your friends.

Here some photos of the location, the vanilla hot chocolate and the melted white and dark chocolate (a real pleasure for all the senses).

Bergamo by night

Hello everyone!
Today I came to Bergamo, a city located in the norhtern part of Italy and not so far from Milan (it takes about 40 minutes to get there by car) which is composed of two parts: a one on the level line called Bergamo "bassa" (which means "short") and the other one on the hill, more ancient and where you can enjoy a great view called "alta" (which means "tall" in italian). 
My boyfriend (who is very proud of his city) took me to a great wine bar/restaurant called Lalimentari that offers some of the most traditional dishes of Bergamo. The restaurant is very cosy but you can have your intimacy even if you are sit next to other people thanks to spaces, the staff is very kind and nice and the prices are not too high.
Here some photos of the first dishes (Casoncelli alla bergamasca and Scarpinocc), the second ones (Polenta concia with cheese and bolognese sauce/cheese and salame), the wine (Valcalepio red and white) and the city.

Italian Christmas Meals

Hello!
Merry Christmas to everybody! I hope you've all had some great Christmas dinners/lunches with your family as I did…and that you enjoyed the huge meals that normally we can eat in this period as an excuse!
In these days I came back to Milan to stay with my family for my Christmas holidays and in this way I had the chance to eat - at least for a while - the amazing Italian cuisine.
As I talked several times about typical Italian Christmas meals to my foreign friends (trying to describe the most traditional dishes and to explain the differences) I thought it would have been nice to show some pictures about that.
Here you can find some pictures about Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas lunch that I had with some of my relatives : the dishes you'll see are entirely made by my grand-mothers Carla and Carmen.
In Italy we use to eat some starters (cured meats, salmon, homemade Russian salad and so on), and a main course that we eat in two parts: tortellini in stock before and then different kinds of meat as rabbit, goose, stuffed capon with vegetables. After that we use to eat some cheese and a dessert that can be Pandoro or Panettone or the typical Christmas log.
Have fun!