Kathmandu :

1905. Spring Street, New York City. Italian-American Chef Gennaro Lombardi opens the first Italian-American restaurant in North America.

2005. Kantipath, Kathmandu Shobha Raimajhi celebrates 100 years of the building her restaurant 1905 is housed in.

It’s an old Rana palace made romantic with a lake, walkways and Rana rooms with leaded ceilings and a feel of Venice. 1905 (the restaurant) in 2006 gets an Italian-American Chef Vincent Ginocchio to create a complex and delicious menu culled form his culinary studies in Vermont and from his stint in Nevada City, California working under Chef Roberto, a Mexican maestro with a Dutch Guru.

Vincent came to Kathmandu with the Nepali owner (Krishna) of a restaurant in the same city called Didi Bhai all of which he recalls with Italianesque hand gestures and an accent straight out of Brooklyn. “I want to start a dinner club and I am going to plant a herb garden. And tonight I am going to give you a surprise menu,” said Vincent as Prakash Khadga served

the Crab cakes with white bean salad and Bok Choy dressing. It was East-West fusion as the Crab cakes flavoured with celery bell pepper and mayonnaise mixed with the coolness of the Bok Choy Pacific Rim dressing, while the Beans salad with a rich and reduced Ragout went wild on our palates.

“Chef Roberto mixed Asian and European cuisine and taught me more in the time I spent with him than in all the previous years studying cooking. His presentations were

inspired by Nouvelle Cuisine but his portions are larger and he has a fondness for combining Asian elements into his food,” said Vincent.

The Pork rack atop creamy polenta finished with a rosemary glaze was a perfectly balanced almost South-East Asian sweet-savoury creation. The Polenta followed the classic American food writer Rombauer recipe which says, “Just as our greatest artitectural surprise in Italy was to find St Francis’ first church a log cabin, so were we amazed to discover that even more delicious and interesting things are done with Cornmeal in Italy than in our deep South.”

Vincent’s Polenta added a creamy after taste to the pork. “I listen to old Italian-American music sung by people like Dean Martin while I cook. It makes it fun,” said Vincent as the Seared Scallops atop a citrus cous cous salad served in a pool of Ginger broth was placed before us.

And it tasted as good as it looked with the cous cous bound together with citrus that would have pleased Father Clement Rodier who developed the Clementine — a hybrid of the tangerine and Seville oranges in 1902. The ginger added a tartness and the scallops were crisp and then soft...

Crisp and soft was the Sesame seed coated Bekti fish with Wasabi mash and Asian cole slaw. It was a dish of dreams. The fish had a gorgeous crust, the Wasabi mashed potatoes hit a sharp note and the Asian cole slaw was Vincent’s version of the Asian cuchumber normally made with onions, cucumbers with a lemon dressing. Vincent made it with cabbage that was al dente which made it slightly resistant to the bite.

We wound up with a Chocolate mousse that came in small pieces and surely contained all the rich and righteous ingredients like cream, eggs, coffee powder, cocoa powder and chocolate. It was rich satisfying and as Italian-American as Vincent.

Geese screeched in the lake and Louis Prima was singing Buona Sera it’s time to say good night..., which we did reluctantly making promises to go back to 1905 several times in 2006. For surprises, call 4225272, 4215068.