I’m a sucker for gnocchi. If you’ve read this blog long enough, you know this. You also know that I will even forego meat to get some delicious gnocchi. Thus, I was happy to find that Stone and Vine in Scottsdale had itself some gnocchi on the menu. It was called Gnocchi Pomodoro, which obviously means that it had tomato in some way (in this case sauce), but also came with fresh mozzarella.

The sauce was really solid. I loved the touch of creaminess to it. The fresh mozzarella was also fantastic and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t left wanting more. This was both because of it being good and because it was just like a dollop. The pasta itself was good, but not great. I prefer my gnocchi to be on the softer side and this wasn’t, so whatevsies.

But would I get it again? Yeah, no doubt. Even decent gnocchi is still better than most good other pasta, and this was definitely better than decent.

The James Beard Awards may be a big deal nationwide, but in my years in LA and Pittsburgh, I didn’t feel like there was enough official recognition of local talent. Not so much in Arizona, which just had its Arizona Culinary Hall of Fame Awards. The event was at the snazzy Wrigley Mansion in the Phoenix Biltmore area and had some light apps to go with the awards.

While the apps were good, this night was all about the winners, which were:

Food Truck of the Year: The Great Pho King Food Truck (and the winner was a white dude, so we live in a post-racial world and that is definitely something to celebrate)

Food Writer of the Year: Taryn Jeffries – Phoenix Bites

Brewer of the Year: Derek “Doc” Osborne – Pedal Haus Brewery

Winemaker of the Year: Sam Pillsbury – Pillsbury Wine

Mixologist of the Year: Keifer Gilbert – Counter Intuitive + UnderTow

Restaurateur of the Year: S. Barrett Rinzler – Square One Concepts, Inc

Best Upcoming Chef: Rochelle Daniel – Fat Ox

Chef of the Year: Christopher Nicosia – Sassi

Lifetime Achievement: Chris Bianco – Pizzeria Bianco

Alex Simons Lifetime Achievement: John Fontana – Arizona Art Alliance

Congrats to all the winners!

Off to the side of Shayside’s Walnut Street is an Italian cafe that goes by the name of Girasole. From the looks of it, you’d expect it to be a little bit dingy and perhaps a little bit pretentious. It turns out it is neither of these things, being both airy and friendly. Yet, I wasn’t looking to make friends, I was looking for some grub.

And grub is what I found – more specifically the gnocchi variety of grub. Their gnocchi was plain and classic, being served with a marinara sauce with mozzarella. But before I could get to that, it came with a choice of soup or salad and I chose the Escarole and Beans soup. Essentially it was marinara sauce with beans so I liked it.

As for the gnocchi, I was also pretty pleased with the dish. The dumplings were nice and soft while the marinara sauce and mozzarella met them with a good balance. In fact, there was enough mozzarella so that every bite had a hit of the good stuff.

Girasole may not stack up to the likes of Piccolo Forno, but it is undoubtedly a solid spot that doesn’t seem capable of disappointing.

Tucked into a row of warehouses in Gardena there is a big secret. In fact, the secret is so well-hidden, if you weren’t looking for it, you could miss it altogether. This secret is Eatalian Cafe, an Italian restaurant that resides in a warehouse itself and serves up some classy cuisine.

Eatalian specializes in pizza moreso than other Italian food, so our group decided we needed to start out with one of those. After little debate, we decided on the Pizman, which came with tomato sauce, mozzarella, speck, porcini and gorgonzola. Porcini, despite sounding like a beautiful cured meat, is actually a mushroom, yet I realized as someone splitting a pizza I would have to pick it off myself.

The pizza took a surprisingly long time to cook, but when it came out, we went right to work on it. The dough was incredibly thin and I was happy to see that the toppings spread all the way to the edge of the pizza, leaving little extra crust. The crust that did remain was perfectly crisp. In all, the pizza truly reminded me of pizza in Italy. Granted, I haven’t been there for twelve years, but it sure brought back memories.

I also had myself some gnocchi. That sexy potato pasta is made fresh and came with a choice of sauces. I asked the waitress for help and she failed to narrow things down, so I opted for their meat sauce. As usual, this was a good choice and the gnocchi did not let me down.

It’s almost a shame that Eatalian Cafe is hidden away in a row of warehouses in Gardena. It’s a restaurant that deserves to be shared with the world, yet its location is part of its charm. Anyone willing to seek it out will be rewarded with a tasty treat.

Sometimes it’s hard to decide where to eat. Sure, I have a list of places, but they aren’t always in convenient locations. That’s when I turn to things like Groupon, because if I’m going out to eat somewhere I’m unfamiliar with, I’ll be damned if I pay full price. On this particular eve, I found a discount for an Italian place in West LA called Campagnola Trattoria.

When we arrived, we found Campagnola Trattoria inhabited a nice-sized space and had a nice-sized menu to go along with it. We started things out meaty, with the Bresaola E Pecorino, which translates to slices of cured beef, with olive oil and shaved pecorino cheese. It’s a loose translation, but the combination is something quite delicious, which I found to be very similar to carpaccio, but better. But as good as it was, it can be a bit overwhelming and is definitely for sharing.

For my main course, I opted to design my own pasta. Usually this means I order gnocchi with whatever sauce catches my eye that night, but there was something on the menu that threw me completely off. It was a pasta called Malloreddus and the menu described it as “Semolina Sardinian Gnocchi.” It’s actually closer to the ancient gnocchi and needless to say, I had to try it.

I ordered it with Carbonara sauce and when it arrived, it looked like a bunch of silk worms swimming in old milk. Yes, it looked that good. But in all seriousness, it was really delicious. The carbonara sauce had a great balance of flavors, and the pancetta was especially good. The pasta was great as well. although the malloreddus had very little in common with normal gnocchi, aside from being dumpling-esque, it was a worthy replacement. Well, at least for a night.

In general, I have to say I was impressed by Campagnola Trattoria. Yet, I did feel that the prices were a bit steep. Sure, I had a discount, but without it I might have left with the feeling that I unloaded too much of my wallet on very good food that I could have eaten elsewhere for less.

While in San Diego with a couple of runners the night before the Rock and Roll Marathon, we needed some carbs. I wasn’t running, but I am never one to turn down a carbo-load. Knowing nothing of Italian food in San Diego and not really wanting to go to Olive Garden (no offense to the Garden, but we wanted to support something local), we turned to Urban Spoon. Yes, there’s an app for that. This directed us to Volare, a sort of whole in the wall in a sort of sketchy part of town. It looked perfect.

We walked in and there was a wait. Some were regulars talking about how amazing the place was and others were also loading up on carbs before the race as well. After about 20 minutes, we were brought to a table. I opened the menu and was astonished. There was not one pasta dish above 10 bucks. I know that’s not crazy, but coming from LA it is amazing. We started off with a cheesy garlic bread and then I opted for their gnocchi with romano sauce. The waitress told me the sauce was a creamy marinara, and this sounded just great to me. I was wrong, but first came the cheesy garlic bread.

The bread wasn’t just some poor man’s pizza without sauce, instead it was composed of a baguette topped with garlic butter and cheese melted over it. It was a great carby way to start the meal. Unfortunately the meal didn’t finish as strong.

When my gnocchi came out, I was excited. At least until I saw what was in my sauce. Mushrooms. Everywhere. Nowhere in the menu were mushrooms mentioned and the waitress definitely said nothing of the vile fungi when describing the sauce. This was no good and I was forced to eat around these terrible things. I liked the gnocchi, which was soft and bulbous. I even liked the sauce, which worked really well with the gnocchi. Unfortunately it was hard to enjoy these things while eating around mushrooms.

It seemed I was the only one suffering, though, because my eating companions really loved their meals. Like truly loved them. Nonetheless, just tell me when I’m gonna be stuck with mushrooms. I want to like places like this, but mushrooms in my sauce make it tough.

A long long time ago, the girlfriend and I went on a binge of buying up restaurant gift certificates. They would have specials like $20 for $10 and other such things that seemed like no-brainers. Fast forward to six months later and loads of these gift certificates are sitting around collecting dust. We could take it no more and decided to use one at a restaurant called Food Fair by Diego. It is in the strange area that is sort of West Hollywood or Beverly Hills or Melrose or something like that, so even though the name sounded like it would be a pretentious joint (how many typical restaurants put the chef’s name in the restaurant name, it actually turned out to be in a one of those corner strips and was kind of a hole in the wall.

Which is not to say it was dirty. Inside, it was immaculate, with candle-lit tables and nice art on the walls. But it was also empty and the hostess was awkward for some reason. Possibly because we were the only customers, but maybe for other reasons. But this was a Saturday night so we were pretty surprised. Finally, after some seriously awkward moments, the waitress came out for us and the awkwardness ended. After we asked, she explained that the restaurant was empty because it was really more of a weekday place because it was near a bunch of businesses. I hoped that was the case, because otherwise it meant the food would be pretty bad.

After looking at the short, but good-looking menu, we decided to start out with their Homemade Gnocchi ($8). The sauce changes daily, but on our night it came with a creamy sauce with some sort of sausage. It came with tomatoes, but for the girlfriend’s sake we kept them in. The gnocchi itself ended up being some of the strangest I had ever tasted. It seemed like a roll of gnocchi had been made and cut up, rather than making individual dumplings. It wasn’t bad, just not exactly what I was expecting. And actually the sauce and sausage wound up being better than the gnocchi itself.

For the main course, I got myself the Smoked Gouda and Peppered Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwich ($8). It was a tough choice, but it barely beat out the Grilled Goat Cheese Sandwich. It came with tomatoes, which I ordered without, and a choice of salad or homemade chips. I was leaning towards the salad…wait just kidding, of course I chose the homemade chips. The sandwich that came out was somehow cut into thirds. I have no idea how they pulled off that feat of sandwich-making, but it looked quite tasty. And it was. The break was crunchy and buttery, while the bacon and gouda were a match made in smoky heaven. The chips were also quite good and despite being homemade were sliced quite thin and were crunchy.

By the time we left, another couple had sat down inside. It made me feel a little better, but I still felt as though the restaurant should have had more patrons. The food was certainly worth a visit and was a pretty good price. Plus, the menu changes seasonally, so they should be able to draw in repeat customers. Maybe if the name sounded less pretentious, they could get more unvegans like me to jump on the Food Fair.

With a name like Al Gelato, you kind of expect to be walking into a gelato shop. This is not the case with Al Gelato in Beverly Hills. Sure, the place has gelato, but it is also a full-on Italian restaurant. Aside from realizing that it wasn’t just a gelato place, I also found that Al Gelato didn’t carry a lot of the pretension that Italian restaurants seem to have. There was no mood lighting, no fancy table cloths and no people with strange accents that weren’t quite Italian. Despite this, I found that the prices still fell into what you would expect in Beverly Hills, with very little under 10 bucks and pasta prices jumping up to 15 if you wanted any meat.

I decided to go with my favorite pasta, gnocchi. This came with their house marinara sauce. The girlfriend and I also decided to split a giant meatball, which also came in that marinara sauce. Both of these came out at the same time and I quickly forgot about the prices I had thought were too high. That meatball was truly giant, while the bowl of gnocchi was massive. There was a leaf sitting on top of the gnocchi that was slightly unsettling, but I realized it was basil and not some terrible vegetable invader. Good thing for Al Gelato. I jumped into the huge bowl of gnocchi and was amazed by the sauce. This stuff was damn good. It was really quite thin and just few levels of coagulation above being a soup. I soon realized what made it so good was that it was really sweet. I don’t know if this was from some crazy breed of tomato or a ton of sugar, but either way the sweetness became deliciousness on my tongue.

The gnocchi, on the other hand, could have used a bit of work. It seemed to be homemade, but the texture of it was far more spongy than gnocchi should be. I like my gnocchi to almost melt in my mouth, while this needed some heavy chewing. Fortunately, anything would have tasted good in this sauce. The meatball, due to being meaty and not spongy, happened to go much better with the sauce. Even without the sauce, I expect the meatball would have made me happy.

After finishing up the meal and getting our bill, we grabbed our credit cards to pay the bill. We were immediately told that they don’t accept credit cards. Seriously? Beverly Hills in 2010 and you don’t accept credit cards? And who carries around cash these days? Definitely not my girlfriend or me. So after a 20 minute walk to the nearest ATM (which was lucky enough to be Bank of America), I was finally ready to pay my bill. This was a rough way to end the meal and although this didn’t reflect on the food quality, it reflected on my personal opinion of the place.

So for some damn good marinara sauce, decent pasta and delicious meatballs, check out Al Gelato, but make sure to stop by the ATM before dinner.

We headed over to Santa Monica to grab some pizza. Unfortunately, once we had parked and filled the meter, we realized that the pizza place we wanted no longer existed. Unwilling to let a few quarters go to waste, we decided to take a little walk and see if any other restaurant might be able to tickle our fancy. What we found was Spumoni. Though not a pizza place, at least it was Italian.

They had some interesting-looking brunch specials, but we decided this wouldn’t be enough to tackle our hunger and we asked for the real menu. Within a few moments I knew exactly what I wanted: gnocchi. By far my favorite type of pasta, this place had a whole section on their menu devoted to the stuff. Of these, it was their gnocchi bolognese that really caught my eye. I ordered some and hoped that this gnocchi was worthy of its own section.

The gnocchi arrived piled high with meat sauce. So far so good. I began eating and quickly fell in love with the sauce. The stuff was so meaty and flavorful and just loaded with good old fashioned meat juice. The gnocchi wasn’t too shabby either. Loaded with the meat juices, these bits of potato pasta had some good flavor. The pasta itself didn’t quite taste homemade, which didn’t mean it was bad, but just felt lacking a little bit. Nonetheless, the meat sauce more than made up for whatever was lacking. Also, it was nice that the bowl was just loaded. All too often a fancy Italian place drops off like 8 bits of gnocchi and assumes that will be enough to satisfy. Not Spumoni, though. There was enough leftover in the end to feed myself another meal the next day.

Although our lunch started out with the disappointment of missing a pizza place, we ended up pretty satisfied with Spumoni. It’s not the best pasta in the world, but they sure do know how to cook up some meat sauce and how to place emphasis on gnocchi.

For a restaurant called the Bottle Inn, you would expect them to have a great selection of wines. What you wouldn’t expect, however, is for their wine cellar to become a dining room. Nonetheless, if you have a big enough group, that is where they seat you. It’s almost like a tease to should you all the amazing wines you could be drinking, yet it’s still pretty damn cool. Although the wine was quite distracting, I was able to take my mind off of it long enough to read the menu.

Everything on the menu looked amazing and it took me a long time to decide, but in the end it had to be the Gnocchi al Pesto. While waiting, we drank some fine Napa wine and stared at the stack of Opus wine that was probably worth more than my life.

When my dish came, it looked lovely. I find too often that fancy Italian restaurants dish out Spartan portions, but Bottle Inn did not. Excitedly, I began eating. The gnocchi was amazing. They were like little fluffy pillows of potato-ey happiness that just melted away in my mouth. The melting feeling is really the test of good gnocchi and I was so happy to have found that here. The pesto sauce on top was also pretty

amazing. Being a family event, I was able to test out the rest of the dishes on the table as well and found everything to be pretty awesome, especially the Farfalle alla Carbonara and the Chicken Polenta Lasagna.

The only downside to my Bottle Inn experience was the price. Of course, the dishes were all worth the $20+ price tags, but it just means that it won’t be a place I can return to as often as I’d like.