Episode 0297

That's right. We are at an Italian restaurant and we are ordering food. So this is going to be very helpful next time you are at an Italian restaurant with your friends and you're ordering up some dishes.

Let's take a listen to our dialogue and we'll be back in a moment to talk about what's going on.

Good evening, ladies. My name is Josh, and I'll be your server tonight.

May I take your order?

Do you have any recommendations?

Well, I personally like the chicken penne with cream mushroom sauce, but the prawn fettuccine is also very nice.

Ooh, I'd like to have the grilled chicken. But can I have spaghetti instead of penne?

Of course, ma'am.

And for you?

I, uh, I'll have the horse tripe.

So first of all, we have two different kinds of sauce, really. The first is cream mushroom. So what's a cream sauce, Marco?

A cream mushroom sauce. So basically this is a cream from like milk, and you have mushrooms in it and it's I don't know, I think everyone has seen it. It's a very thick white sauce. It has little slices of mushrooms in it and it's kind of sweet.

That's right. And so often times you see there's cream sauces, which are white, and tomato sauces, which are red. And this here is a cream sauce, so it's white and it's got chunks of mushroom in it. Right? Very tasty.

And uh the waiter also offered prawn with the pasta. So what is a prawn?

Prawn fettuccine. So prawn is like a big, it's like a word for shrimp. I always think of jumbo prawns, which are these big, big, big shrimp.

Big shrimp.

So they're basically the same thing. Shrimp and prawn are basically the same.

That's right. And they're they're a seafood that when they get cooked, they curl. And so they look like a circle, but they're pinkish or red. They're they're very tasty.

Okay, so now let's take a look at the different types of pasta. So we have three different types of pasta that the waiter suggested. So the first one is

Okay, we're going to say all three in the American way, but I'm going to tell you the the Italian way is quite different. So I'll say that afterwards. The first is penne.

Okay. So this is a type of pasta. What does it look like?

It is like a small tube. So maybe maybe three centimeters long. And it is round and it has a hole in the middle. And so it's a kind of pasta.

And what about the fettuccine?

So fettuccine is a long noodle, but it's flat. It's not round, it's flat. Fettuccine.

So it kind of looks like a like a shoelace.

Yeah, it's long and flat.

Okay. And then we have spaghetti, which I think many people know and this is probably the most popular one.

That's right. Spaghetti is very long, just like fettuccine, but it's very, very thin and round.

So it kind of looks like maybe a pencil, a very long pencil.

But very thin, more like hair, actually. Yeah. And there are thin kinds, so they have a special name, but this is um this is just a normal pasta that you will see everywhere. It's very long and you can twirl it, you can spin it around your fork.

Okay, so that's what we have. We have penne, fettuccine and spaghetti. Now, uh the other woman ended up ordering horse tripe. Now, this isn't also another Italian dish. What is this exactly?

Well, horse is the animal. So this is a this is tripe that comes from a horse. But tripe is a certain part of the animal that we we it's a food name actually. So when we eat the stomach lining, the part of the stomach that goes around the stomach, uh it's kind of squishy, soft. That is called tripe. And you can have tripe from many different animals, like cows or pigs. But in this case it's horse tripe. So it's basically that that thick piece of like spongy material around the the animal's stomach.

Okay. When you cook it, it looks very funny.

So this is uh and this is actually a a famous Italian dish as well, right?

I think so. I think they eat it in the south more, but um you can definitely get tripe in a lot of different places in Italy.

Okay, very good.

So there you have it. A lot of different uh dishes, Italian dishes. We've taken a look at a couple of pasta dishes. Why don't we take a break, listen to the dialogue again and we'll be back with fluency builder.

Good evening, ladies. My name is Josh, and I'll be your server tonight.

May I take your order?

Do you have any recommendations?

Well, I personally like the chicken penne with cream mushroom sauce, but the prawn fettuccine is also very nice.

Ooh, I'd like to have the grilled chicken. But can I have spaghetti instead of penne?

Of course, ma'am.

And for you?

I, uh, I'll have the horse tripe.

All right, we're back. So now we're going to give you three key phrases for fluency builder.

So the phrases we have selected for you today are phrases that you are sure to hear anytime you go to a restaurant in America or any other English speaking country. But basically you have a waiter who comes to you if you sit down and and this is what they'll say. The first thing they'll say is I'll be your server.

I'll be your server tonight. So he introduces himself, he says, good evening ladies, my name is Josh, and I'll be your server tonight. So when he's saying I'll be your server, it's another way of saying I'll be your waiter.

Your waiter, that's right. But server can be a man or a woman. And a a waiter can only be a man. If it's a woman, it's a waitress.

Okay. So waitress for a woman, waiter for a guy, but if you use server, it's for men and women.

Yes, I'll be your server. And I just like to remind you that um this is more common in America because in America waiters and waitresses or servers, they have to earn tips and so they're very nice.

Uh-huh, okay. So this is why they they introduce themselves, they are very nice to you, and then they ask, may I take your order?

May I take your order? So the verb to take here doesn't mean to to take it from you, it means um to to ask you and then they'll write it down. Okay. So the server will ask you what you want to order and then we'll write it down. And uh the order is what you have decided to eat, so that's the food that you order.

Now, this next phrase is very, very handy, especially if you're in a country that maybe you don't know the dishes well or if you're in a restaurant that you want to see what they recommend, you can just say, do you have any recommendations?

Do you have any recommendations? Okay. So this is a a way to ask the server, what's good?

So what he thinks is good or what the restaurant serves very well?

Okay, so you could say, I've never been to this restaurant before. Do you have any recommendations? Or maybe even, you know, Marco, we're having dinner and I know that you really like Italian food and I don't know much about Italian food. So I can ask you, do you have any recommendations?

Okay. So, this is a way of asking what is good here, what is the what is what is delicious in this restaurant?

What's good to eat?

Okay. All right. So three phrases there for you. Why don't we take another short break and let's listen to the dialogue for the last time.

Good evening, ladies. My name is Josh, and I'll be your server tonight.

May I take your order?

Do you have any recommendations?

Well, I personally like the chicken penne with cream mushroom sauce, but the prawn fettuccine is also very nice.

Ooh, I'd like to have the grilled chicken. But can I have spaghetti instead of penne?

Of course, ma'am.

And for you?

I, uh, I'll have the horse tripe.

All right, so talking about pasta. Now, one thing before you mentioned uh that all these different types of pasta, they're basically the same thing. They're just different shapes, right? That's how you distinguish them.

Well, yeah, they're they're basically made from the same ingredients and so you have most of them are kind of a yellow color, but sometimes you have pastas that are a dark like a brown or a green. That depends on what kind of things you put into the dough. But generally they're the the same ingredients, but they are different shapes, like they have curly ones, and they have long ones and short ones.

All right, so how do you pronounce uh we said penne in uh in English, in American English, but in proper Italian it would be

Penne

Penne. So you you double pronounce the consonant.

What about fettuccine?

Fettuccine. Oh, it's fettuccine.

Fettuccine. Um in in American, we say, uh fettuccini. Like fettuccini Alfredo is a very common American Italian dish. But in Italian it would be fettuccine, so you might hear it differently.

And what about spaghetti?

Spaghetti.

Spaghetti. Oh, you pronounce the double T as well.

That's right.

Okay, so uh you said that uh obviously there are a lot of other types of pasta. What about this pasta that's uh I think it's made of spinach. It's green.

Yeah, that's uh that's just a a spinach pasta, basically. So they put the spinach in the dough. Um, but you can also find very many um shapes, like the angel hair pasta is very popular.

That's very thin.

It's very thin. That was the one I was saying is it's almost like hair, it's so thin. It's very it's long as well.

What about those little curly tubes?

Um you they look like penne, but they're kind of curved, like they look like little uh N's or U's.

Oh, you have um macaroni. Elbow macaroni, we call them in America and they look like your elbow on your arm. So we call them elbow macaroni.

What about the ones that are um they have like a spiral. They kind of look like springs.

Those are called fusilli.

Fusilli. Uh-huh.

Orecchiette?

Orecchiette. And they look like your ear and that's what that means in Italian. It means your little ear.

Oh, really?

Yeah, so ear pasta.

Wow. And what about ravioli? This is probably one of the most uh famous uh dishes, ravioli. What what is this?

A ravioli is like a square. It's like a square pasta. But it's more like a pocket or a pillow. And inside you have ingredients like meat or cheese, usually, it's very popular. So you have this cheese inside this little this little packet. This little, yeah, this little dough. It's very soft and very warm. And then on top sometimes people like to put butter or tomato sauce.

Really delicious. So that's the main differ like this was obviously all the pastas that we mentioned, they're just uh they don't have anything inside them.

No, they're just dough. But uh ravioli is a special kind of pasta that's like a it's almost like a dumpling in a way. It's it's stuffed. There's things things inside.

The English Pod audio review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

A waiter or waitress.

Server.

A suggestion or proposal.

Recommendation.

A large shrimp.

Prawn.

Pasta in the shape of long narrow strips.

Fettuccini.

Pasta dish originally from Italy.

Spaghetti.

A type of Italian pasta.

Penne.

The stomach of a horse used as food.

Horse tripe.

Let's try that faster.

Pasta dish originally from Italy.

Spaghetti.

Pasta in the shape of long narrow strips.

Fettuccini.

A waiter or waitress.

Server.

The stomach of a horse used as food.

Horse tripe.

A large shrimp.

Prawn.

A type of Italian pasta.

Penne.

A suggestion or proposal.

Recommendation.

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Good morning, sir. May I take your order?

I want an order of fries.

Recommendation.

Do you have any recommendations for dinner?

Recommendation.

I'm sorry, I don't have any recommendations.

Recommendation.

I'd like to hear your recommendations.

Personally, I like chicken more than beef.

Personally, I don't like this color.

Personally, I don't think it's a good idea.

I'd like to have some tea instead of coffee.

Can I come at 8 instead of 9?

Instead of going to work, I stayed home.