Dinner @ Bar SU-shin in Hannover

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First of all the key message: you can safely skip this place.

I picked up the place based on the review on Tripadvisor and it turned out to be a bad decision.

The selection of sushi is fairly narrow and non everything in the menu was available.
The food tasted ok (better than oriental pseudo-sushi fast food), but nothing to write home about or to warrant another visit.

Getting the bill split correctly was a challenging task: I surrendered after the third failed attempt at getting the right amounts.

Visciolata del cardinale

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Yesterday I’ve opened a bottle that was waiting for me for a while.

Visciolata del cardinale is an alcoholic beverage of medium strength (14% vol.) made out of wine, visciole (Prunus cerasus) and sugar.
The scent recalls the german kirschwasser with a clear mark of cherry.
The taste is fruity and astringent.
The sourness of the visciole is strong yet balanced by the sugar.
It’s a great conclusion for a good dinner.

I discovered the visciolata during the summer holiday when I visited the grotte di Frasassi and the surroundings.
While the visit to the caves is great in itself I find always nice to have something good to bring home.

Tagliatelle al burro @ Mangiari di strada

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Sometimes it makes sense to blog about a food that is supposedly very mundane like pasta with butter.
In this specific case because it was not a common mass-produced pasta and it was not an industrial butter.

The tagliatelle were hand made in front of the guests.
This makes all the difference in the world: the freshness and the process ensure a very special texture that commercial products can’t match.
If you never tried the fresh pasta I feel sorry for you because you can’t appreciate the difference and are missing a great experience.

I’ve already commented a couple of weeks ago about a great butter: it was great with the anchovies back then and it was great on tagliatelle today.

Why it’s right to send scientists to jail for L’Aquila earthquake. And why not.

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The recent sentence of an Italian court that condemned 7 people to jail after the earthquake in L’Aquila has had quite a bit of coverage on the international media.

The sentence is implicitly accepting an idea that is growing stronger with time and with the increase in the mankind technological prowess: that man can dominate nature.
To say it in an old-fashioned way the idea that we are finally becoming god-like.

If it’s true that science and technology make us omnipotent then it’s right to condemn the scientists that did not evacuated the city.

I believe that this is not the case: each one may like it or not, but no one can decide and ensure that will wakeup in the morning one week from now.
We’re not omnipotent.

We have to do everything carefully based on the current knowledge and it’s right to condemn someone who saved on the iron when building going below the regulatory levels causing the death of a person during the earthquake.
Condemning someone cause he’s not God is not right.

Content of my reading list by amazon (part 6 of 9)

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A bit of acceleration today: two slices of my reading list in one day.
Below you’ll find the sixth part.

You can read why I’m doing this and can also the first , the second, the third,the fourth and the fifth part of the list that I’ve already published.

Saturday, Oct 2 2010
Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the Most Good for Your Company and Your Cause by Philip Kotler, Nancy Lee
Very specific, may be of interest to a relatively small audience.

Saturday, Sep 25 2010
The Eternal Husband by Fyodor DOSTOEVSKY
I’ve read other works of Dostoevsky, but having read the analysis of Renè Girard about this one I was able to enjoy it more than I enjoyed the others.
Being relatively short and restricted to a limited environment and a small number of people it’s easy and quick to read.
The image of Pavel Pavlovich depicted is so real that at the end I felt sorry for him.

Friday, Aug 27 2010
Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
Not bad but in my opinion there are better alternatives in hte SF to invest the reading time. I’ve read the italian translation.

Monday, Aug 16 2010
Nova Swing by M. John Harrison, Jim Frangione
I’ve found the book unbeliveably boring and hoped until the last few pages to get some surprising conclusion providing a meaning to the text but did not happen.
Looked like the chronicle of what was passing trough the mind of a LSD addicted: no real beginning, no real end, no real story.
I strongly discourage my friends to read it.

L’arte di persuadere: Come impararla, come esercitarla, come difendersene by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
Great reading, strongly suggested.
It’s not a manual or an how-to guide, but provides an interesting perspective on the subject of persuasion

Friday, Aug 6 2010
I’m OK–You’re OK Thomas Harris

Saturday, Jul 31 2010
Escolios a un texto implicito by Nicolas Gomez Davila
Great reading, strongly suggested.
I’ll keep it in reach to give a quick read to a couple of pages from time to time.
I don’t like writing on books, but this one is really taking notes with impression.
I’ve read the italian translation.

Friday, Jul 16 2010
Kotler on Marketing by Philip Kotler
Recommended

Thursday, Jul 15 2010
Ritrattino di Kant a uso di mio figlio by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
unbelievably easy introduction to Kant. Strongly recommended.

Friday, Jul 9 2010
Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith
I had a long travel to do and decided to take this book (the italian translation)with me.
It turned out to be an entertaining read

Content of my reading list by amazon (part 5 of 9)

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Hi,
Below you’ll find the fifth part of my reading list and, when available, the related comments I made at the time.

I did a small mistake and got 4 and 5 reversed 🙂

You can read why I’m doing this and can also the first , the second, the third and the fourth part of the list that I’ve already published on this blog.

Sunday, Mar 7 2010
The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling by James Hillman
Recommended

Kinds of Power by James Hillman
Recommended

Thursday, Mar 4 2010
Human Factors in Safety-Critical Systems by Felix Redmill, Jane Rajan
Recommended
While the title suggests this book as with a limited audience I think that every worker should read it.
The analysis of how people interacts with systems and organization can be applied to non-safety-critical scenarios too.
This knowledge will help both individual contributors and managers.

Saturday, Feb 13 2010
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., Mary Doria Russell

Thursday, Jan 7 2010
Oscar and the Lady in Pink by ERIC-EMMANUEL SCHMITT
Recommended
At the first reading, several months ago, I enjoyed this little book but recently I discovered that I almost forgot all the content, so i decided to read it again.
I’m really happy with that decision: while the book is small and written with a very easy and light style the content of those few pages is extremely dense.
It’s uncommon to read in less than 80 pages so much about the meaning of the life and of the death.”

Wednesday, Jan 6 2010
Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque by René Girard
Recommended
I think that the book requires a fresh reading of the analyzed novels in order to provide the full benefit of the offered analysis, but at least 75% of the content can be appreciated in any case.
The value offered is not limited to a greater understanding of the literature but, as it continuously relates back to the real world, it can be at least partially applied in daily experience.
I’ve actually read the italian translation.

La vittima e la folla by Renè Girard
Recommended
The perspective that the author offers on the myth is extraordinary ad helps to see in a different light most of the recent theological thinking that describes the gospel as mostly mythical and fictions.
It’s a book easy enough for people w/o a background on philosophy or theology , but a minimum of classical greek culture would help for sure.

Friday, Oct 23 2009
Milano Calibro 9 by G. Scerbanenco
I liked a lot these short stories.
Dark as is usually Scerbanenco but with a twist of irony that is not very common in the novels
Recommended

Saturday, Oct 17 2009
Traditori di tutti by Giorgio Scerbanenco
Recommended

Tuesday, Oct 13 2009
Ladro contro assassino by Giorgio Scerbanenco
Recommended

Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles: not inside the security area of the Istanbul airport

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The Ataturk airport is Turkish Airlines’ hub and I expected my intermediate stop to be a good opportunity to get a face to face conversation with a service representative and get my issues with my account fixed.

I was wrong: inside the security area there it is not a single place where I could get the problem sorted out.

I was required to go trough immigration to get in the ticketing area and then back trough immigration again to take my flight and I really did not feel like it was appropriate to take the risk of having to provide a long explanation with the customs and losing my flight.

Sometimes companies can make the life so much difficult for their customer that they push customers away,

Guest of Giuseppe Zen @ Mangiari di strada

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Yesterday it was quite late for lunch (3pm) but I did an attempt to check if I could eat at Mangiari di strada in Milan.
They were already taking away the food so I was ready to turn back and skip the lunch altogether when Giuseppe noticed my presence and invited me to join him and his friends for a late lunch.
I felt a bit of discomfort as it was about being a guest instead of a customer and I never had met the other people before.

Well it was good to resist the temptation to leave.

Giuseppe prepared for us his interpretation of the spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino (detail of preparation later in the post) and black bread with butter and salted anchovies.

Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino is a common last-minute disk in Italy and for a reason: the everyday version is about getting garlic and chili pepper to fry in olive oil and then use the oil to dress the spaghetti.
Giuseppe could not go for something that easy and did his interpretation of this classic:
1) instead of getting the garlic in boiling oil he had the oil in the oven at 70 celsius during the night with the garlic inside to get the flavor without altering the natural taste of the oil with the high temperature.
2) he added a second layer of garlic by making a cream with garlic and milk (with a different garlic than the one used for the oil)
3) the chili pepper was added as a paprika-like powder made with his own peppers
All the rest is the chef secret.

Giuseppe’s version tasted better and more complex than the classical one and I had no garlic taste in my mouth in the afternoon.
Sure it’s not a last-minute preparation anymore but I’ll take his interpretation over the traditional any time if I’m offered the option.

The butter and the anchovies were not the average run of the mill either:
the butter had a clear taste of the grass like in the best cheeses and the anchovies maintained the taste of the fresh fish that usually is completely missing in the salted version that are commonly available.

Turkish Airlines: great in-flight food, not-so-great customer care

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In the last 12 month I’ve had 20 flights with Turkish Airlines.
The food was always nice and I’d say that it’s the best available in any airline at least as far as economy class is concerned.

It’s more than 15 years that I don’t fly business hence I can’t comment on the current food level: in the past Iberia was great while Alitalia and Lufthansa were nothing to write home about.

Too bad that the customer care for the frequent flyer program is not at the level of the food.
I’ve compiled the module in the in-flight magazine several months ago, taken the tear off card and started to register the related number at check-in time.
Given the long time without news from the program I tried to register the card on the website, but it’s not possible: I only can get a new card number when registering.
I wrote an email to milesandsmiles@thy.com asking for support 1 month ago: no answer at all.

Today I’ve tried dialing the customer care: there it is no way to register the card I’ve used so far.
Nor to get the flight moved to the number I already got from the web.
A new account was created and the flights have to be added one at a time; and some of them appears to be already registered but it’s not clear if this is referring to the paper-only number or to the Miles&More account that I also have.

After 35 minutes we were only at flight #2 and the rep asked me to send in the boarding cards.
Guess what? I have not kept them after the flights.
Line dropped.
Morale dropped.
No smiles.

Dinner @ Al pompiere

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In 1999 and 2000 I used to eat at this restaurant quite often and with good satisfaction: I wondered if the place was the place still worth the visit after 12 years.
I was in Rome on a business trip and took the opportunity to test it.

I got the 3 classical fried starters baccalà, fiore di zucca (zucchini flower stuffed with mozzarella cheese and a salted anchovies) and carciofo alla giudia (artichoke), as main course I got costolette di abbacchio panate (fried suckling lamb ribs) with puntarelle as a side dish. Withe wine of the house.
Last but not least the dessert: a very nice cake, crostata di ricotta e visciole.

I was overall satisfied with only a couple of exception:
The flower was only acceptable, not great.
The wine gave me a headache the day after.
The bill was a relevant one (55€): skipping the flower and the wine it would have been a good deal for the quality.

Do I recommend the place? If money is not an objection yes, if your budget is limited and your hunger is not I’d say no.
If you happen to be in the area it’s worth to jump in and see if you can get the crostata di ricotta e visciole only: 6.5€ invested very well.