We were over at Caruso's yesterday for some slices and Frank Sr. asked us if we made a drink with chocolate, espresso and cream that wasn't a mocha espresso.
"Bicerin?", we asked.
"Yeah, that's it." Turns out Frank had recently seen it mentioned on a foodie show.
With the Winter Olympics starting in 10 days, the word "bicerin" (Bee-chair-een) should become much more familiar to American coffee and chocolate lovers. It's all but the official drink of Torino, which will be hosting this year's Games. The bicerin is so connected to Torino that there's even a cafe named for it, the historic Al Bicerin.
Whenever the Olympics rolls around, the network coverage includes some vignettes of local life (and who can forget Pierre Salinger getting tanked on slivovitz with the locals during the Sarajevo games?). We're betting that every NBC reporter will be heading to Al Bicerin at least once for a taste.
Bicerin has been on our menu board since we put the new ones up before Christmas. A few people who've been to the Piedmont region of Italy have been pleasantly surprised to find it offered in Pittsburgh and have enjoyed ordering one here.
The bicerin is especially terrific as an evening drink with some cannoli or cookies, and as we've learned by making them, bicerin is absolutely awesome for breakfast.
Granted, unlike the Al Bicerin, we're using Omanahene chocolate, not Giandujotti that's been simmering for four hours. But in our opinion, the only thing that could possibly make the experience more pleasurable would be drinking it in Torino.
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