Hearing good things about Maialino, I cannot help but make a reservation during Restaurant Week when I found out they are participating. It’s inexpensive compared to what one would pay for lunch, as most of their pastas hover in the upper teens, as the main courses are in the twenty dollar range. And it’s run by Danny Meyer’s restaurant group, generally speaking over my many years of eating out, a bad experience is rarely encountered. I’ve asked three friends to join me and we’re all hungry, anticipating greatness as to what Chef Anderer’s kitchen has in store.
Views of the dining room
Entering the dark lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel yet as I’m into the bar area, the bar and dining area are bright and rustic with dark walnut wood. It feels pretty cozy.
I went to SD26 last Friday with Helen and Seungmi in tow for Restaurant Week. Part of the allure was the fact that this is the reincarnation of the old San Domenico (think refined and genteel) that went downtown hip.
Top left, clockwise: Kitchen view, Salumi area, and Interior
Entering the restaurant from the windy, bitter cold, we’re greeted by the hostess and saw the automated wine dispensers, something that reminds me of Clo Wine Bar in the Time Warner Building in the Upper West Side.
When we entered the dining room, it’s minimalist in design: a huge bar before one enters the dining room; the dining room done in neutral beige walls with high ceilings, while the private booth areas were in painted in a bold red, the open kitchen, and a salumi area which stank from the opened wheels Parmigiano-Reggiano. The odd things were the fabric art objects that hung along the back wall, close to where my table was. Seungmi called them “pumpkins” – colorful, fuzzy pumpkins, in my opinion. (I don’t have a photo of them because I have a bad angle from where I was sitting.)
Place setting and RW menu
Perusing through the Restaurant Week menu, we pretty much agreed on the same appetizers and went almost our own way through the meal.
(I’m giving you the slideshow treatment for this blog post just because I can’t catch up if I do my routine post. When you reach the slideshow, you may click on the photo to read the captions or go to that particular Flickr photo page.)
Probably all of you who do follow the food critics, notably Sam Sifton of the NY Times, read his Marea review that’s published this week. I do agree with him that this is an expensive, casual restaurant.
The ricci, the one to two biter uni toasts with lardo draped on top was excellent (and not available for lunch when I went there the first time in June 2009).
You can never go wrong with the pasta dishes. All are robust and intensely flavorful. My favorites were the one I had this particular evening with a friend – Agnolotti and the Fusilli. The former was my personal favorite. The ravioli filling was creamy and earthy from the veal which played along the earthy mushroom sauce. I dreamed about that pasta dish for the entire weekend. The fusilli was great in its own way. The house made pasta tasted like dried (Chef White stopped by our table and commented it’s made of semolina and durum flour and water. No eggs here.) The little quip that my friend and I had was the order the pasta dishes were served. We recommend the fusilli to start (it’s a bit lighter and acidic) then proceed to the agnolotti (heavier and much richer).
To those of you who are really waiting on my Hong Kong/China vacation posts, please do be patient. I’m trying to post up the Restaurant Week stuff before it’s irrelevant to read (like the Gramercy Tavern post I did previously; they’re not participating RW now).
Last Thursday, I’ve arranged lunch with Mary to Alto for Restaurant Week. The two reasons why I want to go to Alto are: 1.) I want to see Mary. It’s been too long since we’ve eaten out. 2.) Curious about their food yet not willing to fork my a large chunk of my money on a non-RW time.
Interior
As we trudged our way over from the Upper East Side to Midtown and walked right through their small outdoor dining space into a similarly narrow lounge area where the maître d’ was located. After checking in, we’ve been escorted down to the dining room – narrow, lined with plushly banquettes and neutral-colored walled, and for the other half of the room, wine bottles are filled from floor to ceiling. Patrons here are mostly business lunchers.
Bread service
The bread served here are pretty good. We have a choice of foccacia, olive roll, and a regular white roll. I chose the olive roll and Mary gotten herself foccacia. The bread was served warm, the texture was good and the flavors were balanced, though my olive roll was a bit more saltier than the one I had in Gramercy Tavern last week. The olive oil provided was fruity and viscous, nice to dip with the bread. Continue reading “Restaurant Week at Alto” »
Probably you’ve read enough food blog posts about Porchetta that your sick about reading it. Well, I’m one of those pesky bloggers who would jump ship to try something relatively new. I’m not saying I’m trying everything new for the sake of being “hip” but more of the idea of loving to get my hands on an awesome sandwich. What made me travel all the way down to East Village from the Upper East Side was for the love of pooorrk. Don’t you know I love pork fat (or any animal fat)? Continue reading “Another Porchetta Review (and a dessert suggestion)” »
Late yesterday afternoon, I went over to Il Buco‘s “Sagra del Maiale” in hopes to get my hands on a piece of the 200 lb Ossabaw pig that’s slowly roasted between two large iron griddles with wood fire above and below. Alas, I came in late at 5 PM that all that remains is its head and hooves. Damn. Continue reading “Il Buco’s "Sagra del Maiale"” »
After much delay due to odd circumstances and events in my life, I finally made it to Babbo! After hauling my butt from Tailor (as you read from the previous post) with Helen in tow, I’ve rushed over to Giulia and Robyn finding out the status of our endangered table. What happened during the time I was finishing up the pre-dinner at Tailor, Giulia called and left me with an urgent voicemail indicating that the maître d’ will let our table go since the full group didn’t show at the reserved time. When I spoke to her, she said I have to deal with the stubborn man and demands me to get the table stat, since she’s starving. Continue reading “Babbo (Finally)!” »
Notes: In case you haven’t noticed, I’m approximately a week behind what I should be blogging about. Somehow after finishing school, I’m becoming a lazy bum, just procrastinating the inevitable task of writing a post. Anyways, this is a post that’s taken place last Tuesday. If you want to jump to the review of my lunch at Fiamma, click here.
Somehow, I went backwards that I started my afternoon with dessert. A decadent, dense one in fact: a chocolate cheesecake at Birdbath.
Note: If you want to jump to the review of my lunch at Del Posto Enoteca, click here
I’m summarizing my old stuff since it’s not really notable, per se. What I’m referring to were my visit to Macaron Cafe (which you can start viewing photos and my comments on them from here) and a lunch at Balthazar at their bar since there weren’t any tables available when I visited that afternoon (those food photos start here).
Just to sum it up, the macarons from Macaron Cafe were hit-or-miss but it’s really inexpensive. From what was available that morning: cranberry, chocolate, and key lime (which I bought one of each), the best of the three was the key lime but a far cry from Pierre Herme’s heavenly macarons. They’re the size of my palm (about 3 1/2 inches) for $2. It’s the cheapest in the city so far.
For the past week, I had three midterms and a ten-page paper due, all crammed within four days. I was suffering with stress that I want to scream in vexation due to my aching head. Isn’t college life just awesome? At least I survived the roughest week and there’s a little sprinkling of tests for the next two weeks, which the last one would be two days before my birthday. At least my professors spared me of pain and torture on that day. Thankfully.
On Monday, I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast at home, so I head over to Bouchon for the sake of having something before I pass out in class due to low blood sugar levels and my need for caffeine since I stayed up ’til 1 AM; having 4 1/2 hours of sleep isn’t fun.
I know…I said I’ll stop going to Bouchon but then again, they’re kind of my savior for the week since my stressed mind doesn’t want to think where I could eat as well as where I haven’t been to.
