 The last question is, as a Chinese American man, I love, I love pasta. Well, we're about to bust a suit. From the Godfather to Jersey Shore and from garlic bread to Chef Boyardy. Since arriving in the 1900s, Italian Americans have made their mark in American culture. So we're here to ask the real questions today. Is spaghetti and meatballs authentic? Do Italians consider themselves white? Did pasta come from China? Listen, we're going everywhere from Italian American food to dishes straight from Florence. Get ready because everything in New York feels like a mini movie. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to our brand new series called the World NY NYC is filled with so many different cultures that came at so many different times. But perhaps one of the most iconized through media is the Italian American. So today we're here with our friend Marco Lombardi. Hello, everybody. My name is Marco Lombardi from the Lower East Side, 100% Italian, four generation, half an athlete on half Sicilian. This is Emilio Bellato's authentic Italian food. And it reminds a lot of my grandmother's cooking. So we're going to have fun. We're going to feast. Hey, don't worry, guys. We're social distancing. We had masks on. We just took them off of the intro, but, yo, Marco, we got to eat. Let's feast, guys. Aren't you guys? We are sitting in front of round one here at Emilio Bellato. So Emilio Bellato, it's authentic, but it's also Italian American at the same time, correct? Yes, correct. So I think most of these dishes we have right now, I think they're mostly all Italian American because everything has cheese on it. All right, guys. So we have the appetizers right here. We've got the croccia bread. I usually eat garlic bread, usually with some mozzarella cheese on it. So this is like very Italian like for me to eat. So for the first dish, we got meatballs with spaghetti and we got the marinara sauce with a little basil. And this looks amazing, guys. All right. So we got our lasagna with, I think that's what's it all cheese on there with a nice marinara sauce? This is the chicken palm. It's another like staple of like Italian American tradition right here. This is like what I grew up eating on like Sundays. It's a very light sauce. You have your linguine and your clams, nice seafood sauce. Hell, yeah. So did you got to serve it up with the tongs, too? Oh, of course. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, one day I actually put my fork in there and I got to scream that and hit with a wooden spoon. Oh, I stopped doing that immediately. My grandmother doesn't play no games. Spaghetti meatballs. That's good. Wow. Yo, that is not all of garden. That's not all of garden. That is not all of garden. That's super good, too. Oh, the pasta is really firm. I like it, man. Yes, yes. We're getting into the lasagna now. The layers are really soft. I feel like that's house-made. That's house-made for sure, I ain't no clam. Let's do the linguine with clam, man. That's, yo. That's my favorite. This linguine with clam, I think is the best one we have. This reminds me, honestly, of a Sunday, 4.30 p.m. Sunday, watching football with my whole family, and my grandma's cooking this for most of the day. But, did you guys try the anchovy caesar? Yeah, I don't think we... Yo, the anchovy... I think anchovy caesar, I'm sorry. Anchovy set that off. So, real quick, what's the difference between your two sides? So, you said you're half Sicilian, half Napoli Don. Those are both in southern Italy, but what's the difference between the two? So, Sicily is an island called Italy. Yeah, your waist health. You're, like, close to Africa called different. So, in Sicily, you have more farms, and it's an island off of Italy, and you're right by the Mediterranean Sea. So, you're darker. You're just darker people. And with... More mixed with the North Africans. Exactly, yes, yes. Northern Italy, you share the border, like, by France. You could look pretty different north to south. Exactly, yeah, like, way different. Like, a guy from, like, northern Italy can have blue eyes, curly hair. When a guy from the south, he's more of a dark, dark type of features he has. You would say then you're, like, you know, funny way to say you're, like, half light-skinned and half dark-skinned. Exactly, yes, yes, yes. In context of the Italians, yeah. So, it's funny, because when people ask me, like, are you white, I'm always like, no. And they laugh at me, they're like, no, like, you're a white guy. And I'm always like, no, I'm actually an Italian from Sicily. So, yeah, that's really interesting. A lot of people don't know, because I think a lot of times when people come from any region to America, it's just like, oh, you just, you're this. It's just one thing. It's just one thing. But when you go to Italy, they're super provincial, right? They're super like, but where are you from? Where are you from? Which pasta do you eat? Which sauces do you eat? Yeah, which style of dish. Yeah, no, exactly. And it's funny, because whenever I tell people, like, half Sicilian and half Navledon, they're always like, which one do you prefer? Because they don't. I guess they don't like each other. And I believe it's because of Sicily. That's where the mob started. So, people really, they don't like to talk about it at all. And it's like, frowned upon, I guess, to be like Sicilian. So, there's times where I have to, like, fill the person out. And I'm like, oh, I'm Navledon. And then you're like N-Watt of Sicilians. So, you can't even get tribal within Italian-Americans based on where your grandparents are from. When you were with the Sicilians, or are you ever playing up the wise guy, like, identity? And then when you're with the more northern side, you're more like, yeah, of course, the Romans. The Romans, you know, they were cultured guys, you know? They were great people. But yeah, you know, not really all the time, though, honestly. But you're saying back in the day, it was more like that. Yes, absolutely. People cared more. Oh, people cared more. All right, we are wrapping it up here at Emilio Bellado. And we're going to go take a quick walk around little Italy. And then we're going to end off the video at a very, very traditional, authentic Italian spot. Where do you like to go in? I don't like to go in little Italy. To be honest, it's too touristy, but I like to hear. I understand that. Forget about me. Other places. I want to learn too. I want to go to a nice place. I'm looking to learn every f***ing day. Tell me where. Almost. How about you guys? You're going to come in with this. What do you think? What do you like? Close to Italian. It's Italian food, but a little bit Americanized. You know how meatballs started with spaghetti meatballs? It's Sunday in southern Italy. We make meatballs. We fry meatballs in lard. And we eat them because in southern Italy, we don't have much alabor. And it's very expensive. So everybody had a pig. Once a year, they kill the pig. They take the fat, they make lard. And they make meatballs. And when they made meatballs, the majority is bread. Because a long time ago, meat was a lot of money. So they would put a little percentage of cheese, eggs, and they would fry the meatballs. The meatballs, you eat nice and warm every day. The next day, when you get tired of them, they put a little sauce on it, and they make a little tomato with... Oh! So putting the meatballs in the spaghetti was almost like a way to get the leftovers eaten. Yeah, there you go. We make food very simple here. Simple food. Like I said, the best ingredients bring the best product. The money can buy maybe four or five ingredients. That's the key. Right. And it's made with loads. With a lot of love. A lot of love. And you know what? The owner is always got to be there. Okay, so the clam linguine and the chicken parm, those were the best I've ever had. And Emilio, the owner, definitely did live up to the hype, too. It was like a scene out of the Sopranos. It reminded me about how good Italian food can actually be. The portions are huge. The ingredients are great. But bring some friends, because you know, the good stuff ain't cheap. What is a Lower East Side Italian's opinion on Little Italy? It's very nostalgic to me. Even just the smell of like the pastry shops. Even in Little Italy, there was a feast in September. It's old culture and all the time, and all the generation, you know, a lot of them are older now. A lot of them like moved out of the neighborhood. And it's just not really the same anymore. I had barely been into Italian restaurants before, to be honest. And that is definitely one of the more expensive ones. But the higher quality ones. And it gave me that real authentic experience. All right, just like Emilio Bellato said, we got to get an espresso. This is actually my first time getting a true espresso. Did you do this growing up? Yeah, more for like family events, though, more than anything, before we drink it, guys. Salute. Salute. When we walked in there, man, something that you kept talking about was the rainbow cookie. It's my favorite Italian pastry. You know, you got your chocolate on the outside. You got your jelly on the inside. And, you know, the best thing about it is that... It's almost like a PB&J, right? Oh, this is the color of the Italian flag. Yeah, yeah. Rainbow cookie. I feel like that each layer has a different flavor. I'm getting more of the chocolate with the jelly. Cortino. This name, you had to get some clarification on, right? That reminds me what we're eating right now of how our Italian pastry shop smells. That's what you're eating. Oh, it does. All right, let's get in these cannolis real quick, man. That's really good. That, like, cinnamon vibe right now, right? Apparently, this is something from Italy. That's really good for a man. Because it almost tastes fermented, right? It's fermented, yeah, yeah. I guess this is a crazy weird way to put it, but, like, how do you fit in with, like, English whites? Like, more, like, people's opinions. You know what I mean? They're grandparents. Great grandparents. Don't speak another language. It's been English for, like, ten generations. I get along with them pretty good, to be honest. I get along with everybody pretty well, but... Do you feel like they look at you different and you look at them different? I think they look at me different just the way I speak, the way I talk to people, the way my culture is. But for me to look at other people like that, I usually don't tend to do that. I know that I get looked at in a different way for the most part by the English-Saxon whites. For sure. Because how I speak and how I look, especially, you know, they see the watch, the jewelry. They're immediately thinking a lot of things, right? They're immediately going to, like, tropes in their heads and movies. And that's where, like, the stereotypes begins. It begins there, you know? I'll look at this Italian guy from New York City, from Little Italy. Do they ever be like, hey, man, like, you know somebody, Yeah. One day I was driving and somebody asked, like, oh, you're Italian? And then he looked, like, you know people, and I'm like, yeah, everybody's in the back of my truck. And they're like, oh, my God. Like, they step right on the wheel, like, so I get that a lot, to be honest with you. But I just laugh about it now because I got that for so long that to me it's, like, normal. What do you think about people who I guess are more, like, the situation of GOMOs where they're, like, trying to come up in American society and they feel those stereotypes are holding them back? Whereas, like, for you, maybe, you know, in you, you play ball. You're more in the urban community. You're kind of, like, more multicultural like that. But what about the Italians that are trying to enter high society in America where that WASP background might be something more desired and more trusted than the Italian? Yeah, because I think it's hard, actually, but I also feel that that those guys who make it, they did everything they can, like, to be where they are in society. And you're always going to get your stereotypes. You know, it's just how you go about it. Like, Cuomo's brother didn't go about it in a good way. You know? He kind of confirmed it, right? Yeah, and he kind of confirmed it. But she apologized, which I respect for those Cuomo's so much, both of those brothers. But you have to try to look at those stereotypes and laugh about it if you want to try to be better than I guess you could say, like, your average Italian. Cadoli King, right? Cadoli King, pal. What's happening, man? This is Brent Marko. Hey, Marko. What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you guys mean? He's Italian-American and we always talk about, like, how can the Italian-Americans continue to represent Italian culture? How do they keep doing it? Even though little Italy is shrinking. Let me tell you something. All of them, they were shrinking. Chinatown's shrinking, too. Yeah, that's true. And we were kids. We were all Italians around here. But as our kids got older and we want to, especially me, I want my kids to go to better schools and move out of New York City. Not literally in particular. Just out of New York City. Right. And we went to Rubu to Jersey and we got better schools for them. That's right. But as an Italian-American, I still live with my wife. Right. I still, you know, I still buy your pastries. I don't speak the language, too. I understand it. But the culture's still there. The people are still there. The food is still there. I believe they're still there. My man, Harry, he's from the Nicaragua. He's from the Nicaragua. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's one of the last Italian kids in this neighborhood. Now, when you say Nicaragua, Nicaragua downtown? Not in Brooklyn. The Nicaragua over here, right here. Right here? Yeah. What's your name? Mark Lombardi. Do you relate to me? Yeah, it's Mark Lombardi. Oh, V. Lombardi? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's my man, V. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you the extra. Baby John. Yeah, definitely. Hey, hey, hey. You see that smoke? That's community. Community right here. Yeah. He's the neighborhood. It's not Little Litly. No, it was never. The Chinese invaded them. It's the Chinese that did that. Now, for Little Litly, it's still Little Litly on Mobile Street. For sure. Because we have the restaurants. They got a different group over there. They're locals. Yeah. People residents. Oh, yeah, it's commercialized. Absolutely. His name was not commercialized. Chinatown and Little Litly have been next to each other for many years. We have an organization called Two Bridges. Oh. Sure, you heard that. Right here. I've heard of Two Bridges. Yeah. So that's the organization. After 9-11, we went broke. Chinatown went broke. And when we advertised Chinatown, right, and we just took together two of us. The last question is, as a Chinese-American man, I love pasta. I love ravioli. I love portolini. You know what they say. But I love noodles and dumplings. But they say, what happened? We robbed the buses from the back. What do you think? Or you don't know it doesn't... I wasn't around then. I love Chinese food. But these people know that when they come out of this area, they've got to come to Little Litly and Chinatown together. Yeah. Make that show. Go to boat. Hey, make sure you send them my love. I will. Take care. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I haven't seen them in my baby John. You know, definitely. I haven't seen them in my whole world. Yeah. Like many of the Brazilian foods I've seen, and like a lot of other non-Italian American kids out there, when it comes to ravioli, lasagna, and baked ziti, I've only ever have the Olive Garden version or the microwavable version. So how about this time we just try a Master's version. Art, you guys, we having an Italian American feast at lamello. There's so many different levels between right here. This is what I eat on Sundays. Stuffed mushroom. What's inside is essentially a lot of vegetable and a lot of cheese. It has like that nice butter sauce on top of it. Yes absolutely. That's what makes it American. In Italy mostly they don't usually butter. They use a lot of olive oil. Here we have some well-done garlic bread. Told me it's almost like bruschetta at this point. Wow. Can we dip our garlic bread in the mushroom sauce? It's gonna be a sin if you don't. All right so we're talking to the manager here and he's actually Albanian but he speaks Italian and Spanish. In Albania I just learned because I didn't know anything. It's actually really close to Italy. All right David I have a piece of fresh basil for you and a stuffed mushroom. I feel like it's a 1975 mulberry street. How you doing? The Italian-American-American-Italian piece has arrived. So this is a very American Italian dish. You know you got the ziti pasta and you have your cheese and in Italy you're never gonna find a dish like this but if I go to Italy and I ask for big ziti I'm gonna get gonna get kicked in the head. Well they didn't tell me to get out of the restaurant. Buon appetito a tutti bello. Big ziti. I might have had it at like a hospital cafeteria before. This is good though. This is better. And in Italy you might not find the portions this big. Like we eating for three of us I feel like they should be ten of us eating all this. This is shrimp parmesan. We better drink them. Kind of prawns are these bro. These are like lobsters. Let me serve up this vodka sauce. For me it's like the most basic dish honestly and I actually had this yesterday. What is vodka sauce? Is that a mix? It's a heavy cream sauce. It has a touch of tomato sauce, parmesan cheese and vatmen. Are we gonna get drunk after eat this? Yeah it doesn't have that much to get you drunk but you'll be like kind of that kind of tipsy. Vodka penne. This one's really good. Wow I gotta say man I'm surprised because you look at it it looks plain because there's no meat but the pasta is cooked perfectly it's still very chewy. Do it. That is a lot of cream. That is dangerous. Alright. In a good way. Yeah I'm an animal so I just going right with the fork and just make a mess. Chicken fettuccine Alfredo. I don't think anybody in the world can hate that except maybe people from Italy. So we got the chicken franchise with the rigatoni. I would say the chicken franchise like kind of lacks some of the conventional appeal. I feel like it's very like light like it's good for for now. After having this meal authenticity does not necessarily directly correlate with deliciousness. John I need to see you eat like two of those shrimps. I don't know why this is my favorite part when so excited. God. We're not at all gone anymore. We had a good discussion off camera because we concluded something. I would choose honestly the Italian American dish. Obviously the real authentic Italian but but if I'm trying to impress a female I'm going to take it to probably Emilio Bellato's show off a little bit teach of the real culture of Italy and then after two or three dates I bring it here and then maybe a dollar pizza the next day. Alright that wraps it up for the Italian American section and our next spot we're heading to is actually a Tuscany spot. Okay so time for some food that's so Italian Marcos never even tried it. Tuscany is a region known as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance having a major influence on architecture, art, statues and all that high culture. In fact it has a pretty different reputation than Sicily so this is gonna be interesting. How different is the Tuscany cuisine from something that we might be familiar with if we just had the Sicilian? It's more south. They use a lot of the tomato coarse and of course down there in the south they use more seafood. In Tuscany they have the meats. We're here in the south village at Altesi restaurant. This is run by people from Italy. We just spoke to the manager. He's from Italy. He tried to speak Italian to you. Yes I had no clue what he was saying. Did you see his reaction when you're like no I don't speak Italian. No you don't speak Italian. Yeah he got so upset. He goes you don't speak Italian. I think he said don't speak Italian. This is sliced beef from Tuscany with arugula. This is the Vitello Tannato. This is the Carpaccio, the raw beef. Have you ever had that before? Never had it before. It's really good. Yo this is the best Italian food I've had in one day man. Let's try this Berrata. Berrata is a very creamy soft mozzarella cheese over arugula. If you take the camera we get this all for free right? So it's on the house today. Yeah don't you I like that. Enjoy. The Sicilian hustlers. Oh man. Tagliatelle with ragù. This is lamb. Taglioni squint pasta. This is taglioni the squinting pasta. This is definitely something I feel like traditionally is more from Italy versus Italian-American yes. Oh how spicy. Oh I love that spice. Gotta kill it gotta kill it gotta kill it. All right the lamb is amazing in this but the spice bro that's what takes it dude. Along with the top notch calamari we could also feel there was some inter-Italian hierarchical shade being thrown between Marco and the manager. You know it was all in good fun but it does go to show you the diversity within Italy. So let's end off at a gelato spot that was just opened by a guy from Milan. Who knows who we'll meet next. I can tell that while we're filming this and walking around a lot of people are looking at you because I don't think that many people your age speak with your type of New York accent in this part of town. So it's either my accent or I'm just really really loud. Right. So we could be a little bit of both. All right we're just looking for just a gelato. All right all right. Sicily specifically it's a melting pot because you have historically you have the Morse conquest that came through about 500 years ago you have the Franco Gala conquest you have Greeks you have a lot of Greek influence. So when you go to Sicily there are certain parts of Sicily that when you have like in Catania which is northeast Arabic influence when you have your southern regions of Sicily you have your Greek influence eastern you have your Greek also and then your northern eastern region of Sicily that's when you have like your Gala influence your Viscos that came up. You have music you have culture and I think that's skirted over a lot when you're talking about when Americans think of Sicilian culture. I think it's unfortunate that's just my own personal opinion. Do you think it's just like a media thing that people found like they could make money off of it so that's the angle they just get to push and push because people think it's like it's cool in a bad way. Yeah I mean you know you have the elements of drama that play in and the elements that you can play up the media obviously it's a lot more interesting to have a saga about crime and you know violence. It's helps. Hollywood loves that because it's helps you know. And it's all simple also. It's a lot simpler story to actually throw. Right. Like why paint it with 20 brushes when you can just take one big brush. Exactly. Unfortunately you know your southern Italian culture your northern Italian culture is very very different. Not only culturally even in the modern sense but historically as well. Your cuisines of southern Italy are completely different from northern Italy. Your music is different. Your art is different. And your level of modernization is also even nowadays when you go to northern Italy mean as far as industries concern but it's more than what we even have here. So what would be your recommendation to like Italian Americans who like like what should they do to maintain Italian culture in your opinion? Study the history. I'm not history. I heard your voice on the history channel. The narrator. I know I did. But clearly you have done some studying. You looked into it. Yes. Italian has been in America for like a hundred years. Yeah. Roughly now in 2020 they're still kind of considered a little bit different than I guess like an Anglo white. They're more melted than they were. Right. What do you think other immigrant groups that are still in their second generation can take away from something like in their fourth of it? I know the best answer to this. Don't lose your language. The Italian Americans as a group have assimilated more than any other group and they lost their language with any other group. And that's the one thing that I can recommend. Yeah he's not talking about Chinese but it applies to me. So don't lose your language. That's the biggest thing that I can tell you. That's it. I'm marrying a girl from China. That's it. We came back to Mojolado. Which one do you like better? Fill it or not believe me? Yeah. You gotta choose. Which one would you choose? Yeah. I think she's feeling the pressure. Oh man. I like that. Good man. That other guy at the other spot didn't like. All right. Here we have a dessert that he kind of made up. This is the chocolate salami. Wow. That's really good. That's interesting. Chopped up biscottis in like a thick dark chocolate brownie. Yo my biggest takeaway in all seriousness today was I'd actually never really been exposed to like this Italian world. I don't want to be stereotypical but it kind of did feel like a movie. I love being able to experience this with you. Marco, appreciate it bro. Yo thank you for having me guys. It was great man. It was like man I feel honestly like more American. Thanks for having me guys. It was great. It was great. I learned a lot of things from you guys too today. So I appreciate that man. I appreciate that. Like I said Marco, to me I don't know if you feel comfortable calling yourself you know an up-and-coming like comedic personality or whatever. Yeah maybe one day guys. Maybe one day you'll see me somewhere. I'm predicting it. Hey leave it in the comments below if you would like Marco to go be a comedian sometime. Yeah if you would want to see Marco explain more stuff in a pretty way. Let me know. Let me know baby. All right we're gonna have people vote but yo man that was such a cool video because to be honest it did force us to do a lot of research about Italy to actually look into the story behind all the mob stories and the culture and why they became like this. But also why that that's just a stereotype. That's just a small percentage of people. Thank you so much for watching this Italian American episode of the world and why huge shout out to Marco Lombardi again. Yo man guys we're family now baby. Could your name be more Italian? Lombardi? Lombardi I'm sorry guys. My bad. All right you guys thank you so much for watching. Please let us know your favorite thing that we ate in the comment section below. Please let us know another Italian American fact. Your favorite movie, your favorite tippet. There's so many in popular culture and until next time we out. Yo I was just saying that you know how cool that was because we're in little little Italy in the Canole King. He knew your family. Yeah. And then my good friend over here uncle the uncle driving us. He's from the entire Chandon which is the very specific city that my mom is from. It's such a small world. Like look how it just happened you know it's such a small world and it's like I said the Italians and their Asian culture they're so tight knit and that's why I love it. Yeah I love you guys. I love you guys. You guys family. Yeah thank you. We feel the same way man. And you know what's dope? Like just like you out that camaraderie with everybody in little Italy when you told them the apartment you're from, the building you're from. Everybody knew. Yeah. And then it was just kind of like us with our friend right here saying like oh you're from where my mom is from? Like oh it's lit it's lit. Small world though man it really is. Yeah and like you said that sort of familial almost like back to the old village days. Exactly.