Last night, my sister and I saw Guster at the Beacon Theatre, a small theater about 10 blocks north of my apartment. It was a fabulous show -- after intermission, Guster played their entire album, "Lost and Gone Forever." We sang, we laughed, we danced. It was great.
Anyway, before all that excitement, we had a lovely dinner at Salumeria Rosi around the corner from the Beacon Theater. Salumeria Rosi is part tiny restaurant and part salumi shop. I have stopped by there many times to pick up some of their cured meats and grissini (thin breadsticks). They make great pre-dinner snacks.
Salumeria Rosi's menu is made up of a selection of small plates - think Italian tapas. As a general rule, I do not like the small plate style of dining. I never feel like I've eaten enough. But I will go along with it if I'm dining with only one other person. Any more than that and you only get a bite or two of each small plate - so unsatisfying.
We started with three small plates: burrata, the world's most delicious mozzarella cheese; caponata, a delicious sweet and sour eggplant relish; and mortadella di bologna with pistachios, which, as its name suggests, is essentially Italian bologna. YUM! I LOVE bologna. I was annoyed that our $3 plate of mortadella only included two slices of it. Since I buy it at their deli counter pretty often, I know that you can get 1/4 pound of mortadella for $5, so $3 for two slices was a rip off. I also was surprised that the two grissini we requested cost $1 each, instead of $0.25 each, which is what they cost if you buy them to go. Hmph.
Next we shared 4 additional small plates: roasted brussels sprouts with pancetta and garlic; rigatoni all'Amatriciana, a pasta sauce made with cured pork, red onions, and tomatoes; homemade pork sausage cooked in a tomato sauce with chickpeas; and soft polenta with a butternut squash and vegetable ragu. The sprouts, pasta, and sausage were delicious. I love al dente pasta and this rigatoni was cooked perfectly and had just the right amount of sauce. But the polenta dish was underwhelming. The polenta was much too runny for me and the ragu was lackluster - no texture contrast among the vegetables. Just mush upon mush.
For dessert, we shared a pumpkin bread pudding with a vanilla anglaise sauce which was really wonderful. It was remarkably light and fluffy for a bread pudding. And not too sweet.
Overall, we were pleased with our meal. The service wasn't great, and the hostess reminded us at least twice that she'd need our table back by 8 pm even though when we left at 8 pm, there were many empty tables. Also, the wine by the glass was really expensive - $20 for a glass of barolo!? As my long lost friend Andrew Brophy would say, that's bonkers! But everything but that polenta dish was really good. So I will certainly be back.
**
Details:
Salumeria Rosi
283 Amsterdam Avenue (between 73rd and 74th Streets)
New York, New York
(212) 877-4800
Dinner for two: ~$150 nearly half of which can be attributed to the super expensive wine
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