Glenn C.
Yelp
Short Review/Best Dishes; Bacon & Onion Flatbread, Lasagna, Bolognese, Alla Norcina. With two people, I'd just order those first two dishes and you'll leave very comfortably full. The food here is solid for the price though I wouldn't go out of my way to go here.
Anyway, I went here with a group yesterday. Place is small and the staff was friendly. They fill the water frequently and ask how things are and it feels like a nice little local spot. The waitstaff will also come around and showcase their different pasta choices (I guess you can say all the pastabilities) which you'd then choose with their wide variety of sauces. In general, the pasta quality is excellent with very good texture being cooked nicely al dente and their white sauce pastas were worse outside of the alla norcina.
In terms of pastas, our favorite was the Grass Fed Brisket Bolognese with slow braised beef sauce and parmesan. We ordered this with mafalde/mafaldine which is the ribbon shaped pasta. Nice rich bolognese which paired well with the excellent al dente pasta. Not a super notable Bolognese but better than average.
Our other favorite pasta was the Alla Norcina listed as with leek sausage, green peas, garlic, cream, parmesan, and chives. The bits of sausage in there had a good chew and flavor and the rest mixed in well. In terms of the white sauce pastas, this was easily the best and it's more unique than the bolognese.
Not recommended would be the Cacio & 3 Peppers (mafalde) which has a mix of black, pink and Szechuan pepper, butter, pecorino, and garlic oil and especially the Old School Carbonara (rigatoni) with guanciale, free range eggs, parmesan, and pecorino. In the former, the black pepper flavor was light so it tasted more of the butter and pecorino. The latter just wasn't good and was easily the worst thing we had with a lack of much guanciale flavor so it just tasted like buttered pasta with too much oil.
Best of the evening was the Bacon & Onion Flatbread with bacon jam, caramelized onions, crème fraiche, and chives. It reminded me of a better version of the standard type of tarte flambée/flammekueche found in Alsace. The bacon jam was cooked down wonderfully and it was a good mix of sweet, savory, and creamy. Excellent and the portion size is big enough to share.
A bit worse but still tasty was the Truffle Theory Flatbread with fresh mozzarella, mushroom crema, black truffle ricotta, garlic, and thyme. The truffle flavor was very light which I almost prefer as truffle can be a bit overwhelming but the mozzarella/ricotta were both tasty and there was some umami from the mushrooms. The price point is a bit higher for this flatbread but the portion was the same so it's easily splitable.
Last of the main dishes was the Lasagna with beef ragu, tomato sauce, béchamel, and parmesan. This is a very meaty lasagna which isn't too bad of a thing as the best pasta was probably the bolognese though I wouldn't have minded something outside of the meat as the flavors were more one note. In short, I would have preferred a bit of cheese in the mix of all the meat as the parmesan flavor on top was a bit light. It got a bit heavy but you can't beat the price as it's big enough easily for two to share.
The Tiramisu at the end with mascarpone, lady fingers, amaretto liquor, espresso & cocoa was just OK. It was one of the more creamy versions with mostly mascarpone and coffee and a very tiny bit of lady fingers. I wouldn't recommend it much as it lacked texture.
The food here was pretty solid. It's not the best Italian food in the city especially for the carbonara but it's not trying to be. The prices are pretty reasonable for the portion sizes and there is a particularly good flatbread among everything else. Mid 3 rounded up for the price point.
