What the heck is brown sprouted rice? I didn’t really know, but my friend C was telling me about how much he loved it. So then I had to investigate. It is brown rice that is allowed to germinate by soaking the rice. The rice actually starts to sprout. If you look at it closely, you can see the little sprouts sticking out of one of the ends of the rice grain. It’s slightly creepy.

Ok, so what’s so good about sprouted brown rice? Well basically, it’s really good for you. While I love white rice more than just about anything in the world, it’s not particularly nutritious. Brown rice is much better for you. And brown sprouted rice is even better. The whole germination part basically makes the nutrients more available and more easily absorbed during digestion. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), is a naturally occurring amino acid created during the germination process. And there are claims from studies that say this stuff can help with things like lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, boosting the immune system, improving sleep, and inhibiting cancer cells.

Are any of these claims true? No idea. But seeing as how brown rice in general is better for you, and this stuff is supposed to be even better than regular brown rice, why not eat it? It tastes similarly to regular brown rice, but slightly more green. It’s hard to describe, but that’s the easiest way for me to describe it. And it is even more firm than regular brown rice. I’m not a health nut by any means. You can probably tell from the types of food I eat, but sometimes, I do what I can to be a teeny bit healthy.

Sometimes I get cravings for certain dishes. The other week, I desperately wanted to go to Tampopo, but it just didn’t happen. So this week, I was determined! Just before I headed out to G’s monthly movie event, since I was going to have to be in West Philly anyway, I stopped in at Tampopo 3. Tampopo tends to get mixed reviews. Some people love the ramen, some people hate it. Some people think their sushi is only ok. I don’t care about any of that because all I care about is their fresh tuna bi-bim-bob. It is possibly one of the most perfect dishes ever.

There is nothing in it that I don’t like. And the beauty of it is that nothing is cooked. Well, except the rice, of course. There is raw tuna, avocado, asian pear, cucumber, lettuce, and purple cabbage. These are all lovely things all on their own. But together, along with the zesty and slightly spicy and nutty sauce (which is technically cooked), it’s just perfection. Get it with brown rice, because brown rice is awesome, and it has a more firm texture that goes along really well with the other mostly crunchy ingredients. I literally left nothing in this bowl. And since they didn’t give me a spoon, I chopsticked out every little kernel of rice. I wasn’t leaving anything! It was a lot of work but totally worth it!

By the time dinner rolled around my first night in Italy, boy, was I starving. My last proper meal was the dinner on the plane, and after that, it was my sad breakfast of juice and fruit, and a few crackers and snacks throughout the rest of my work day. I was so hungry I had a headache. Ok, maybe it was the lack of sleep, but in any case, I was tired, pained, and needing real sustenance. So we went to a castle. You know, like you do in Europe. Just hop down to the neighborhood castle for some grub.

This is a family run restaurant housed within an eighteenth century castle. It’s pretty damn cool eating in a castle, I must say. They serve regional cuisine, a la carte, and they have a pretty extensive wine list. There’s bottles everywhere. It’s rather impressive and insane.

There’s also old furniture in there, tons of it nineteeth-century. They also use this drawer set to hold bread. Open up a drawer, pull out a loaf, and cut. I need me a magical set of bread drawers at home.

To get to the dining areas, you have to meander through corridors and hallways in this said castle, where they just have tons of stuff everywhere. Furniture, stacks of stuff, wine, food, whatever. It’s truly rustic.

Luckily, they have english menus, or else I would have been screwed. It’s a small menu, with starters, firsts, seconds, sides, and desserts. It’s more of a risotto and meat heavy menu, not pastas. Breadsticks and breads from the drawers! No butter with your bread here!

L and I shared one of the antipasti – the trout. It was some pieces of marinated trout, along with some rocket, a couple slices of tomato and some balsamic syrup. As L said, it was lovely (she’s Scottish)! And I also enjoyed the presentation, as I didn’t expect it to be so pretty!

This was the wine that we ended up picking, after many indecisions and help from the server. A 2005 chianti, I totally loved it! It also helped me sleep. The ratatouille was delicious. I let me taste some of his. It was really oily though! They definitely don’t skimp on the oil here.

He got one of the steaks that are cooked on a hot stone. C also got the steak as well. She got hers butterflied. She made us try some of the steak too, and damn, it was extremely tender and had an excellent flavor, even without anything on it. She also got simply prepared potatoes.

L and I both got risottos, which is a regional specialty. L’s risotto had some sausage in it and was made with a wine. You can see how different it looks from mine.

I got a saffron risotto with chicken livers. Ok, when I ordered this, in my head, I was thinking chicken gizzards and not chicken livers. But I know what liver is, and that I don’t like it. But for whatever reason (I blame it on lack of sleep), I was thinking this would be like gizzards. Well, no, it was definitely chicken livers, in all their extremely strong livery glory. I wasn’t digging it. It’s funny because it actually looks like mushrooms. But mushrooms they definitely are not! But that’s ok, because I just ate around the livers, and the arborio was strong and delicious and not mushy at all. They know how to make their risotto here.

This was a good meal and a nice way to ease me into this week-long italian gorge fest. Even with the app and the risotto, sans livers, I was still really stuffed. The prices here are also extremely reasonable! The risottos were about 11 euros or so? That’s so cheap! And especially for european, that’s pretty much a steal. Prego!

L’Altro Tempo
Piazza Generale Perrucchetti, 3,
20062 Cassano d’Adda MI, Italy
0363 65095