Eataly's "La Pizza & La Pasta" for Some Amazing Pasta Dishes!!

If you read the title notice that I only underlined that the pasta was great...and for sure it was (more on the pizza later).  If you love pasta and find yourself in Eataly you must stop by and have a meal here.  Reviews say that weekends can be crazy, so we stopped by here for a family meal on a weeknight and just had a minimal wait.  "La Pizza & La Pasta" is one of Eataly's more reasonably priced restaurants, as practically everything in the store is VERY expensive.

To start we ordered the anipasti misto, a selection of four appetizers with I believe some items that rotate on a regular basis.  That night there they had olives, an amazing shaved Brussels Sprout with Parmesan salad, roasted peppers, and I believe pickled salsify.

The salumi misti was also excellent and features four varieties of cured meats.

I had very high expectations for the pizza here and was sadly let down.  We ordered the "Verduretta", which  had eggplant, zucchini, peppers, parmigiano reggiano, mozzarella, tomato sauce, and basil.  The toppings here were all excellent, and the crust around the edges was good, but the middle of the pizza was VERY soft and seemed soggy.  

But by far the highlight of the meal was the excellent pasta here.  All the pasta dishes were under $20, and the Cacio the Peppe, pictured here, was simply prepared with al dente spaghetti, with black pepper and a copius amount of cheese.  It was perfectly cooked and just tasted awesome.

The other pasta dish, which used a homemade pasta, with homemade cured tuna and a rich tomato sauce,

was also amazing.  The tuna has really permeated the sauce and pasta, and with every bite the tuna flavors really come through....sooooo sooooo good!

Eataly

200th 5th Ave (Flatiron District)

(by 23rd st)

New York, NY 10010

646-398-5107

  

Summer 2011 NYC Restaurant Week Review: An Amazing Meal at Aldea

Wow, what a great decision by my brother to check out Aldea for lunch, which is helmed by George Mendez of Top Chef Masters fame.   The restaurant serves Portuguese/Mediterranean cuisine and just earned their first Michelin Star this year.

They were participating for lunch for restaurant week, and three courses were the usual $24.07.

Outside the restaurant week menu, we saw the Uni (sea urchin) open faced sandwich and HAD to order it.  The uni was dressed with tomatoes and shiso, and tasted minty and refreshing...which was a very nice counterpoint to the velvety sea urchin.  I actually prefer this dish over Marea's sea urchin and lardo, which is a bit heavy with the rich sea urchin + rich lardo flavor.

Yes, it's one of the most expensive sandwiches you will see at $19, but man was this dish luxurious.  You know you want this sandwich!!

For soup we got the tomato cucumber gazpacho.  There's bits of tomato and cucumber inside and the sphere in the center is not an egg but as super soft buffalo mozzarella, drizzed with some basil oil.  This soup was a simple vegetable soup but man all the ingredients here just combined so perfectly.

   

The other appetizer we got was a rustic pork and duck terrine, drizzed with a muscat wine gelee and served with a side of arugula salad and toast.  The wine gelee was really surprising and gave a lot of zing to the terrine.

For entrees, we got the farro risotto with cucumber, orange, and wild mushrooms.  There's also some Greek yogurt added to the risotto to give it some more body, and was lighter than say...parmesan cheese.  The farro risotto was excellent.  I didn't even realize that the dish was vegetarian until I was typing this!  It was hearty and delicious.

The other entree we got was the skate wing with zucchini ribbons, sherry, and duck jus.  The skate was cooked perfectly and the sherry and duck jus foam added an extra layer of flavor.

For desserts...we got the Pavlova with fresh berries, passion fruit, and coconut sorbet.  I don't think I've had a Pavlova before and this dish was a surprise to me.  It looks like a mousse but it is actually very light and crusty, almost like a crispy meringue.  The fruits and the coconut sorbet were perfect toppings.

The other dessert we got was the blueberry bread pudding with creme fraiche sorbet, although the flavors were a lot more familiar, this was still a very solid dessert.

All in all a great meal and a great deal for $24 a person....very creative, high quality dishes made this one of the most memorable Restaurant Week meals ever!  And this was just lunch!  I can only imagine what their menu would be like if they offered the $35 dinner option...maybe next time!

31 W 17th St
(between 5th Ave & Avenue Of The Americas)
New York, NY 10011
Neighborhood: Flatiron

(212) 675-7223

NYC Eats: Sampling Food at Madison Square Park Eats!

Last year I didn't know about the gathering of food trucks and other food vendors at Madison Square Park Eats, but this year I was able to more than make up for it by going on two different weekends!  The food vendors are staying put at Madison Square Square Park till the end of the month (5/11).

Here are a few of the highlights:

The Bee Sting Pizza at Roberta's (based out of Brooklyn).  The pizza has mozzarella, tomato, spicy sopressata, and the secret ingredient...a drizzle of honey!  It goes very well with the spicy sopressata and the crust is amazingly light and airy.

A pic of Roberta's menu.  The Bee Sting may be $9 but it's definitely worth a try...

Next up is Asia Dog, which has wacky Asian inspired ingredients topped over a hot dog.  Here's a look at their menu.  I've gotten the Wang Ding and Viet before, and both were pretty good.  

This time around, I pretty much ordered the weirdest sounding item on the menu...the Ito, which 

is topped with kimchee apples and japanese curry.  It tastes as weird as it sounds and ended up not worth trying out as the kimchee apples were a very overpowering and I couldn't taste anything else.

Eataly, which is actually right across the street from the park, had their own stand selling some fried items such as a Fritto Misto, as well as Crispy Heritage Pork Ribs with Fried Chickpeas.  The pork ribs were very tasty and crispy as advertised, and the fried chickpeas were also cripsy, light, and airy...both were delish.

Next up is a pretzel from Sigmund's Pretzel Shop:  They had a truffle and cheddar pretzel.  While it tasted good, it sounded a little cooler than it was.  You could see the tiny specks of truffle but the taste didn't really come through.  The texture of the pretzel itself was good though...

Next up was my brother's favorite stand.  Stuffed Artisan Cannolis.  They had a deal for three mini cannolis for $5.  The flavors we had were girl scout cookie, banana creme pie, and chocolate and peanut butter.  All three were actually excellent and I might be stopping by their actual store in the Lower East Side in the near future!

One food item that I was pretty disappointed with was the Calexico food cart.  They're actually pretty well known but I'm not sure if it was an off day (it IS a street cart after all), but their carne asada taco was very dry when I got it.  Their chipotle pork had the very opposite issue, it was too wet and doused with too much watery sauce and became difficult to eat.

If you're hankering for a drink after downing all that food, try out a unique soda flavor from P&H Soda.  Pictured here is the hibiscus soda, and yes it tastes just as good as it sounds, like a flowery carbonated hibiscus tea (if you've ever had that).

There are other notable stands at the venue, including Momofuku Milk Bar (make sure to try their crack pie!), as well as a Cuban sandwich place and a crepe stand (Bar Suzette), among others.  You have until the end of the month to try it out....and then you'll have to wait till next year!