Good morning my friends and happy Tuesday!
How was your Easter? I hope you had a good time. We had some friends over at our house and we had a lot of fun: the kids played and had an Easter egg hunt, a lot of sugar and chocolates, but that`s what Easter is about, right? Now the only problem is that I have a ton of chocolates and candies at home and I am not sure if I am going to have the willpower to stop myself from eating them!!
Today I wanted to talk you to some more about the differences that I noticed between the Us and Italy and this time the theme will be the restaurant:
1-MENU
When you look at a menu here in the US, you will notice that you have to pick between appetizers, an entrée or main course and if you want, a side and a dessert. In Italy we have appetizers too, primo piatto, which means first course and it is usually a pasta or a rice or a soup, then we have secondo piatto (second course), which could be a fish or meat with a side and then the dessert. The thing is that we eat pasta (or rice) separated from meat or fish because pasta is a dish itself. Here in the Us I feel like pasta and rice are considered like a side, so they will be served frequently with your meat (like chicken with a side of penne or spaghetti, which is something that we (Italians) don`t understand!!).
2-GARLIC AND ALFREDO SAUCE IN ITALIAN RESTAURANTS:
In the Us people believe that Italians use tons of garlic, and when I say tons, I mean that when you walk past an Italian restaurant in the Us you can smell the garlic as if you had it under your nose! The truth is, we don`t use it as much! We don`t brush the pizza dough with garlic and we don`t put a ton of it in the tomato sauce! Also, Alfredo sauce (which is a sauce made of cream, butter, garlic and parmigiano cheese) does not exist in Italy! I think it was invented in the Us and became so popular that every restaurant that tries to be Italian will offer spaghetti with that sauce!In fact, one trick that I use to understand if a restaurant is a real Italian one, is checking the menu: if I see spaghetti with Alfredo sauce I am sure that the restaurant is not authentic, so funny!
3-TIP:
I say this to my Italian friends: be careful and remember that whenever you go to a restaurant in the Us, you will have to leave a tip to the waiter (unless he or she is very, very rude, but it never happens here). Some places are so smart that they will write in the receipt how much the 15, 18 or 20% would be, so you don`t even have to do the math to add the tip to the check! In Italy we don`t give tips in restaurants, so when we got here the first time, we were very surprised and did not even know how much we had to add to the check: very funny!
4-CHECK AT THE TABLE:
When the waiter brings you the check at the table, it doesn`t mean that you have to rush and get out. As soon as they see that you are almost done eating they will do it, but we usually take our time, finish eating/drinking and then we will leave. In Italy you usually get the check if you didn`t ask, because the waiter is trying to kick you out to clean your table!
5-COFFEE:
The coffee experience is just completely different here in the Us, here you get an American coffee and then walk out and carry your cup around and enjoy it throughout the next hour or so. In Italy our coffee is espresso, so we will go to a place, stand in front of the big table where the waiter is, order an espresso and drink it there, in a couple seconds, then we are good to go! I really had to get used to the different experience here: I couldn`t understand why there was so much coffee in a mug and why it didn`t taste like anything (my Italian taste buds were used to the espresso), but now I enjoy American coffee too.
This is it for today, I will meet you here on Friday. I hope you have a lovely week.
Anna