WHO WON? FAMIGLIA CANIGLIA
The Caniglia family had some big days last weekend: a giant family reunion, the Santa Lucia Festival and a steak battle pitting two pairs of Caniglia cousins (and their respective steakhouses) against each other in a steak battle expected to air on national cable TV in August or September.
The Travel Channel's “Food Wars” show filmed at Piccolo Pete's and Eli Caniglia's Venice Inn late last week and lined up a couple of judges to taste each restaurant's strip steak at Pauli's on Saturday.
Both steakhouse teams said it made for a fun, crazy weekend.
“It was quite hectic,” said Dee Graves, who owns Piccolo Pete's with her sister, Donna Sheehan. “Everybody was scattering in 15 million directions with the reunion and everything. But it was really something.”
Battle conditions weren't ideal, since both restaurants had to bring prepared steaks to Pauli's for judging.
“I don't think it features a steak at its best when it travels, no matter whose steak it is,” Graves said. “But Frank (Skryja, the chef) made a couple practice runs. He did real well. It took him like 7 or 8 minutes to get there.”
Graves' cousin Chuck Caniglia, who owns Venice Inn with his brother, Jerry, said getting the steaks to Pauli's was exciting — and a little scary. Two friends with speedy sports cars volunteered to drive them.
“Jerry and I got in two separate Vipers and were going 90 miles an hour down Leavenworth,” Caniglia said. “I told the guy driving, ‘Slow down! We don't want to get killed.' But we got our steaks back in pretty good time.”
Which restaurant won? The network has sworn the participants to secrecy about that point until the show airs, and neither camp would confirm the outcome. But such news travels fast in Omaha, and we're not similarly beholden. So if you want to know the victor, read the very end of this column.
The real winners: the Omaha dining scene and the Caniglia restaurant legacy.
* * *
AFRICAN FARE AT IRIE
Irie, the bar and dance club near 11th and Farnam Streets, has new kitchen operators and a new Africa-by-way-of-India concept for its menu. Rose and Charles Chongo opened the H.O.C. at Irie in May and are running it with help from their adult children, among them a chemist, an engineer and an accountant. H.O.C. stands for House of Chongo.
Daughter Mubanga Ofafa said her parents owned three restaurants in their native Zambia, in southern Africa.
“The part of Zambia we lived in had a big Indian population, so we picked up a lot of their dishes,” said Ofafa, who married a Kenyan and brings some of his cuisine to the kitchen as well. “Our restaurant is African with a bit of a twist — some Indian dishes, some British dishes and African dishes from the west, the east and the south.”
Ofafa said the restaurant serves Indian chapati (flatbread) and samosas (deep-fried dough pockets of spiced ground beef), chicken and bean curries with yellow rice, sosaties (African beef and chicken kabobs), southern African stews, ugali (a thick porridge, like fufu but made with cornmeal instead of cassava and served with curries and stews) and a dish from Botswana called seswaa. “It's beef that's cooked forever, with onions and mild spices, tender and shredded, kind of like pulled pork,” Ofafa said.
H.O.C. also offers English rum-raisin pudding, pineapple-upside-down cake, Italian tiramisu and African mandazi, a sort of donut that swings both ways: as a savory appetizer with a vegetable relish called kachumbali, or as a dessert with a sweet sauce.
H.O.C. is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and delivers to downtown and Midtown areas at lunchtime. Ofafa said kids eat free on Mondays and Tuesdays and every day during the College World Series, and there's an ongoing discount for students with ID. The number is 504-4901. A website's in the works.
* * *
NEW CHINESE-AND-MORE BUFFET
A+ Buffet & Mongolian Grill, 14426 West Center Road, had a soft opening last weekend and is to be fully open on Wednesday, owner Jun Guo said.
The new buffet features Chinese dishes, seafood, a small sushi selection and a Mongolian grill (you select the ingredients and they cook them to order on a big flat grill). Guo said prices are $6.99 at lunch and $10.99 at dinner for all you can eat or all you can fit in a to-go box, not including drinks.
Guo said A+ is a first restaurant for him, though he's worked in restaurants in Chicago, California, Dallas and Omaha. He said he is running the business with help from family, including his father, who has 20 years of restaurant experience.
The number is 334-4889. There's no website just yet.
* * *
COME ON IN . . . FOR DINNER
Midtown lunch and brunch spot Come On Into My Kitchen has added Tuesday and Wednesday dinner hours for the summer. Owner Gene Cammarota said he'll be open from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. other weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays, through Labor Day.
Cammarota said the added hours are an attempt to make up for the dropoff in private parties over the summer — and a chance for him to depart from his lunch menu. Look for new dinner specials and some old favorites (like seared salmon with sun-dried-tomato-butter sauce, crab and shrimp nachos and New York strip with pinot noir maitre'd butter) from Cammarota's Brass Grille days. The restaurant is at 5423 Leavenworth St.
* * *
SAD SANDWICH NEWS
Worker's Take-Out, the sandwich and hot-dog counter spot next to O'Leaver's Pub, closed on Wednesday after a nearly two-year-run at 1317 S. 50th St.
The eatery was known for its blue-collar vibe, Chicago-style hotdogs and Italian beef and Cuban pork sandwiches. Owner Christopher Machmuller said the business just didn't have the sales volume in recent months to support an expansion and the added overhead that came with it.
“I suppose I could have stretched it out a few more weeks, but it just wasn't hitting the mark,” he said of his decision to close. “The dream isn't completely dead, but its life at that location is over.”
Machmuller said he has no immediate plans to open Worker's elsewhere.
* * *
RAW BRUNCHES
Jane's Health Market in Benson has begun serving raw brunches from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays.
Owner Jane Beran said her deli staff prepares the brunches, which have ranged from Italian and Mexican and Thai to continental breakfast. The dishes are made from produce, seeds and nuts and nothing's cooked or dehydrated at a temperature above 104 degrees — in hopes of preserving the food's natural digestion-enhancing enzymes. The cost is $10 per person, not including tip, and it's served to-go or to eat in (there's seating in the front and the rear of the store) until it's gone. Past brunches have included spaghetti, lasagna, soup and salad; egg-and-dairy-free “quiche,” crepes and juice; and a rich chocolate cake with an almond crust.
* * *
TASTE OF OMAHA
The city's biggest annual food fest gets under way today along the downtown riverfront. More than 50 area restaurants, food vendors and caterers are participating in Taste of Omaha this year, setting up booths and selling samples of their signature fare — everything from kabobs to crepes — in Heartland of America Park and at Lewis & Clark Landing. There's no admission to the event, but all those tastes will cost you.
How it works: You trade cash for tickets ($5 for 8) and tickets for tastes (usually 4 to 12 tickets per sample or dish). So come hungry and bring cash. Organizer Mike Mancuso suggests $10 to $15 per person and notes there are ATMs throughout the festival, should you run short.
The event, which also features live music, wine tastings and cooking demonstrations, runs from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. today (the Heartland vendors open at 11 a.m., but the Lewis & Clark vendors don't open until 5 p.m. on the first day), 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. See Thursday's go! magazine for a pullout map of the vendors -- or follow the links at the top right of this page to view the map or read more about the event.
* * *
DRUMROLL, PLEASE . . .
Venice Inn.
— Nichole Aksamit
Got restaurant news, questions or tips? Call food writer Nichole Aksamit at 444-1069, or e-mail nichole.aksamit@owh.com. Dining Notes runs Fridays.
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
