Fine Dining
Last night we went out for supper, and it's probably less the fault of this little cityette we live in than the fact that gustatorily our standards are not particularly ritzy, but we ate a place that used to be called Mike's, and served pub food, basically, and now has reinvented itself as an Italian, or Italian-esque, restaurant. You know, pizza, pasta, veal parmigiana with red sauce and linguini on the side, that sort of thing.
Anyway, now it's called Trattoria di Mike's, and I am not a fan (though I ate there anyway). "Di" in Italian marks possession, as the word "of" does in English, and so does the apostrophe-ess ending in English. But it seems to me that the whole phrase is meant to be, or look, entirely Italian, and Italian does not use the apostrophe-ess (it's an Anglo-Saxon thing). It's like a really clumsy double genitive ("the trattoria of Mike's") spanning two languages. I understand that the restaurant's original name was Mike's and they're hanging on to the brand, but "Trattoria di Mike's" sounds pretentious (and wrong),"Trattoria di Mike" is a better name if you want to go Italian, and honestly, what's wrong with "Mike's Trattoria"? It's not as if a hundred and seventy-five years after its introduction into English, "trattoria" wasn't a fully naturalized citizen by now.
Anyway, we split an appetizer of fried calamari (so good) and then I had fettuccine carbonara, which was delicious, but probably bad for me (cream plus parmesan plus bacon equals not perhaps so healthy for the coronary arteries), so I was wondering what the damage was. I Googled "calamari calories" (best not to even talk about the carbonara): the first website that came up was called The Daily Plate, and here is a snip from their fried-calamari page:
Under the heading "Other users of the Daily Plate often eat the following foods with this item," it says "muscles", and that can't be right, can it? It almost certainly means "mussels", right? They couldn't mean "muscles", which, to be absolutely literal about it, is what most meat actually is, could they?
Anyway, now it's called Trattoria di Mike's, and I am not a fan (though I ate there anyway). "Di" in Italian marks possession, as the word "of" does in English, and so does the apostrophe-ess ending in English. But it seems to me that the whole phrase is meant to be, or look, entirely Italian, and Italian does not use the apostrophe-ess (it's an Anglo-Saxon thing). It's like a really clumsy double genitive ("the trattoria of Mike's") spanning two languages. I understand that the restaurant's original name was Mike's and they're hanging on to the brand, but "Trattoria di Mike's" sounds pretentious (and wrong),"Trattoria di Mike" is a better name if you want to go Italian, and honestly, what's wrong with "Mike's Trattoria"? It's not as if a hundred and seventy-five years after its introduction into English, "trattoria" wasn't a fully naturalized citizen by now.
Anyway, we split an appetizer of fried calamari (so good) and then I had fettuccine carbonara, which was delicious, but probably bad for me (cream plus parmesan plus bacon equals not perhaps so healthy for the coronary arteries), so I was wondering what the damage was. I Googled "calamari calories" (best not to even talk about the carbonara): the first website that came up was called The Daily Plate, and here is a snip from their fried-calamari page:
Under the heading "Other users of the Daily Plate often eat the following foods with this item," it says "muscles", and that can't be right, can it? It almost certainly means "mussels", right? They couldn't mean "muscles", which, to be absolutely literal about it, is what most meat actually is, could they?
posted by pyramus | 9:42 AM
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