Rome Travel Food Tour 🇮🇹 Gelato, Pasta, Pizza & Italian Street Food

For the next 24 hours I'm taking you hostage. We're gonna have authentic Cantonese dim sum, juicy steak-filled mission burritos, cheesy crispy pizza, but I can't tell you everything we're eating. Some things have to be a surprise. Now you only have one option when you get to San Francisco airport and that's get in your car and you're gonna get the best burrito you've ever had. El Super Burrito is one exit away from the San Francisco airport. They serve tacos, tamales, enchiladas, but when you come here you have to get a burrito. They're incredible. They serve mission style burritos which originates from the mission district in San Francisco. It's where you have a huge tortilla and they actually steam it so it becomes really flexible. You can load it with rice, beans. Mine is the El Super Burrito and it has rice, beans, steak, guacamole, cheese. For as big as it is, I have never not finished this burrito. That's how good it is. I don't think there's such thing as taking half home. When you start it, you finish it. So the juice from the steak is dripping down the burrito. What the chef did after she made the steak, she got all of the extra juice from the steak and put it in the burrito and little details like that really enhance the taste and it just makes for a really juicy tasty burrito. If it's not dripping on your hand, it's not juicy enough. Now you might be wondering why we came to Millbrae and we didn't just go directly into the city, but I've been here more times than I can count and I will say they are consistent. They have the best tortillas, the best filling, the ingredients are fresh, they're tasty. I've never left here thinking, oh okay that wasn't my favorite burrito. Every single time I leave here, this is the best burrito I've ever had. Their sauce with the chicken is so delicious. I've been coming here for over 30 years before Nicole was born. It's the best. Burritos are a California staple but Mexican food is also my favorite cuisine and I think it's because it's the one that I feel the most culturally tied to. My grandma's Mexican and when I was younger, I would always spend the night at her house. In the morning, I would wake up, she would have eggs and chorizo, rice, beans, flour tortilla waiting for me in the kitchen. Now she wasn't making mission style burritos in her kitchen but a lot of the same ingredients in this burrito are the same ingredients that she would use in her cooking and I think that's why I have such an appreciation for food because it's not even about the food, it's about the love that goes in to making each meal and it's about sharing your culture. We just sat down at Tony's Pizza in the heart of North Beach. Now in 2024, it ranked number five on the top 50 best pizzerias in the world and Tony himself is a 13-time pizza world champion so I have very high hopes for this restaurant. I have never been here before but I can already see the pizza looks delicious. So what pizza are you making? Margherita, the traditional Neapolitan style. And where are you from? I'm from Napoli, Napoletano. What do I make for you? I just told my mom to pour some chili oil on the pizza and I was not recording it so unfortunately you guys do not get the shot of the chili oil being poured all over the pizza but that's okay. You can see the crust is leaning off of the plate. It's huge. This is a huge pizza pie. Oh my gosh. Mom, this is swimming in chili oil but good thing I like spicy food. Wow. The dough is a little bit chewy but Neapolitan pizza does have a little bit of like an elastic like texture but it is so flavorful. One thing that I always complain about with Neapolitan pizza is sometimes it just won't be salty enough. It's like it's not seasoned enough and they actually put salt in their dough and they drizzle it on top after so the flavor is perfect. The San Marzano tomatoes taste so fresh. The mozzarella cheese is delicious and you get little bursts of the flavor of basil. Neapolitan pizza is baked in a wood-fired oven for roughly 60 seconds and these ovens are hot. They're around 900 degrees Fahrenheit. There is no room for error in this oven and at Tony's the art of making this pie has been perfected. Here we have the canotto style pizza which is a newer pizza in Naples and canotto means raft in Italian so the outsides of the pizza, the crust, are really really thick. It's actually pretty airy like a raft. Besides Tony's, I would say the second best location to eat this pizza would be outside on a spring day with a glass of wine. It's almost like because there's burrata and you have such big pieces of basil you still feel like you're eating something light but you still get the heartiness from the dough even though it is quite airy. Now this is a New York style pizza. It's huge. So this pizza is crispy. You get the crisp from the crust and then they're using ricotta so it's creamy. It's not greasy which I feel like sometimes New York pizza can be a little bit greasy but this is creamy. You taste the meat from the sausage and the pepperonis. Now we're doing things a little different today. Instead of going savory first we are getting a pastry first and let me tell you I would say this is my favorite pastry on earth. The very first time I had it was when I was in Chinatown and then two months later I went to Hong Kong. I had terrible jet lag. I'd wake up every single morning at like 5am and the first thing I would say was let's go get some bolo bao. It is just as good in Chinatown as it is in Hong Kong. There's like a crispy sweet sugary crumble on top but the inside is pillowy soft. It honestly feels like you're biting into a cloud. It's called bolo bao but it's also referred to as a pineapple bun. There's no pineapple in this but the top looks like a pineapple. It's so tasty but it's made from really simple ingredients. It's flour, water, sugar, milk, yeast, and egg yolk. I know that sounds basic but it is so freaking good. I would say the earlier you get these the better but right now it's like almost noon and this is still really really good. It kind of tastes like it was just baked and it absolutely was not. Growing up I will admit I was a little bit ignorant to just how diverse Chinese cuisine is and I didn't really gain a clear understanding till I spent time in Chinatown in San Francisco. They have everything from northern Chinese food to Cantonese food to Sichuan. Thank you. The pork inside this dumpling is so tender and then the skin is a little bit chewy but you can sink your teeth into it. Now here we have turnip cake which is pretty much shredded radish and rice flour. It's super jiggly, it's so moist, it's squishy. It's like potato. It's like a potato. Really? I can see what you mean. It's good. So correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure it has pork inside so you get that texture, the chewy texture from the pork and you're able to sink your teeth into the radish and into the rice flour. It's delicious. The pork is nice and juicy. It's a little bit sweet. There's some hints of some sweetness in there and it's counteracted by the saltiness of the soy sauce and look at this bun and it's pan fried so it's nice and crispy on top. Ria's Deli and Market is one of San Francisco's, I don't think I can say hidden, but it's definitely a gem. In 1993, James Choi's parents took over this liquor store. His dad worked here every day for 25 years. When James took over the store in 2006, he had a big vision which he now has well accomplished, making the best sandwiches in the bay. Like making food for me is not work. It's like more of my hobby and what I like to do and I get to make a living out of it so even better. So I tell my kids you know not do things what other people might want you to do or what you think is gonna make you more money but it's always about like what you love to do you know. You want to be happy and and money is not always the key to happiness. My chef teacher told me always salt your tomato for your audience out there. Always. Never. And I heard that once from a chef and I never not salted my tomato. Really that's the key. I'm dumb enough to like listen to people that are amazing. So we pickle our onions in champagne vinegar. We'll say oh your sandwiches are good and I was like we failed somehow there. We don't we good we'll take good but like we don't like talk about shades of toast in the morning with the full staff like what kind of colors we want to see on our bread to be good you know. We want to be great in a fun way. All right here you go Nicole. All right so we got the Valencia sandwich from the best spot in the bay to get sandwiches. They've won awards for the past four years except for last year they forgot to enter but every year they've entered for the past four years they've won the best sandwich in the bay. Dutch Crunch kind of has like more of a rough top to the bread so there's a little hack you can just flip it over and it's not going to scrape the top of your mouth. So that's the way I like to eat it but to each their own. Dutch Crunch is actually from the Netherlands but it became really popular in San Francisco in the 80s I believe and it's one of the go-to breads to get in San Francisco because it's so delicious and it complements almost every sandwich. I think it's the best bread hands down. Within the Valencia there's so many different flavors you know there was salt added to the tomatoes so from the salt on the tomatoes and the pickles you get that perfect hint of saltiness and then it's a little bit vinegary from the pickled red onions and the cheese makes it a little bit creamy. You're also getting the creaminess from that avocado and not only do you get the crunch from the bread you've got crispy bacon on the inside. The bread is hot so it still feels really comforting. Mint chip? Mint chip? All right did you want one? I'll have a bite first. So we got an It's It To Go. I got the mint chocolate chip one but I am going to enjoy this ice cream sandwich. I hope you guys enjoyed this video and if you did I will see you in the next one. Bye!