Italian Food & Wine and More

Back when I was the Director of Tennis at the Tokyo Bay Hilton Hotel (the official hotel of Tokyo Disneyland, about 20 minutes from the center of Ginza), there were a number of great restaurants there. High-level Japanese, gourmet Chinese, Indian, Korean Barbecue, and Asian noodle bar all were part of the well-run food and beverage department of the hotel. However, one of the best dining experiences was the Italian food at Piazza Roma, under the care of my friend, chef Piero Zani.

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Vinography.com led with an edgy piece, featuring a great photo yesterday pointing out the writing of Jancis Robinson, who speaking recently in Ronda, Spain, proclaimed that wine critics were parasites. In an article appearing on Decanter.com, she is quoted as saying: “We must always remember that we are parasites on the business of winemaking.”
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“Poco, ma Buono,” in Italian, literally, “Little, but Good,” is a deceptively simple phrase that sums up in a remarkably succinct way the Italian approach to so much of what is great in the wine, food, and culture.
Take, for example, espresso (not “expresso”). Invented by a Milanese businessman as a way to encourage his workers to speed up their coffee breaks around the turn of the century, it represents a true condensation of all that is great about coffee in one mere ounce of tawny brownish-gold elixir.
Yet this is not what we here in America have come to expect…

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