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Anticipating Oliveto

Posted 30 September, 2007 at 4:42pm by Michael Chu
(Filed under: Dining)

So, I'm getting ready to drive up to Berkeley/Oakland to dine at Oliveto Cafe and Restaurant. I've dined there once before and the food is remarkable — it's one of those places where you know the entire staff cares about food. One of things that stands out about Oliveto in my memory is not just the delicious food, attentive wait staff, and exquisite preparation of Italian cuisine - but also the menu. Tonight's menu should be posted around 5pm (about an hour before my dinner reservation) at http://www.oliveto.com/dinnermenu.pdf. (They always post the dinner menu at around 5pm and it changes every day.) I'll try to remember to download it tonight and post it here so it's more permanent. Anyway, the menu is always an adventure… I've been doing food writing for the last three and a half years (and been decently successful at my style of writing) and the menu confounds me. It truly is a culinary adventure just deciphering it. So, go and print it out and scribble notes over it and figure out what each menu item means. If you figure out one menu item, then post in the comments - I'll be doing the same. The early bird gets the easy entries…

Here's one from the Sept. 29 that I just couldn't figure out:
Chitarra nera alla colatura di alici - black guitar that filters anchovies?
My best guess is that it's a black pasta (either guitar strings like capellini or cut by a chitarra as in linguini shaped…) with a sauce made of anchovies…

1 comment to Anticipating Oliveto

Michael Chu, September 30th, 2007 at 10:57 pm:

  • So, chitarra nera alla colatura di alici is a guitar string pasta that has been dyed black with squid ink and served with a sauce that contains filtered anchovy oil.

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