They describe the restaurant as being "set in a comfortable, romantic atmosphere with the bustle of a New York City trattoria. Our cuisine is a fresh, contemporary take on robust old world Italian dishes from the central and southern regions of Italy".
I started out with the Minestrone Soup as a starter.
I liked this a lot. It was different.
There are two types of Minestrone soup. One summer and one winter. This tasted like maybe a combination of the two recipes.
The difference is summer Minestrone is traditionally made with a chicken stock and heavy cream base with a basil and mint pesto, plus asparagus, young green beans, English peas, marjoram, toasted pine nuts, onions, a bay leaf, celery, garlic, and Parmesan or Romano cheese.
The winter Minestrone is a beef stock base with cannellini beans, rosemary, basil, Swiss chard, pancetta, russet potatoes, diced tomatoes, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and Parmesan cheese.
So far, so good. Let's move on to the three main dishes that I tasted.
The first was the Chicken Marsala with mushrooms. This didn't do much for me. It was okay but bland. I'm not a big fan of bland food.
Let's start with the usual seasoning for this. Aside from salt and pepper there's typically paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, dried cayenne pepper, oregano, and thyme. All I could taste was the salt, pepper, and a hint of oregano. Zzzzzzzz.
Another thing is that you are suppose to use boneless, skinless chicken breasts that are cut in halves and pounded thin. Somebody in the kitchen forgot and the pounding thin part. I also would have preferred either thinly cut cremini or oyster mushrooms as opposed to the whole white button mushrooms that they used.
Lastly, when you cook anything you never use very expensive wine but if you use a low grade Marsala you get boring food.
The Chicken Marsala came with a side of spaghetti marinara. This might as well just been a plate of spaghetti topped with ketchup.
Second came the Linguine and Clams in a white wine garlic sauce with grated Romano cheese.
Cooking this is real easy. That's why I was surprised that they managed to screw it up.
Linguine, like all pastas, should be cooked until al dente. That means firm but not hard. Interestingly enough, it's said that pasta cooked al dente has a lower glycemic index than pasta that's cooked soft. But I digress. Anyway, it was over cooked and too soft.
Like I said it's an easy recipe. You steam a few little neck or Manila clams. In a saute pan you heat up some butter, garlic, white wine, parley, red pepper flakes, and a little lemon juice. Then you pour everything over the Linguine. Done.
This plate was almost overdosed with chopped clams that I think came out of a can. I also tasted no garlic or red pepper. Again, I'm falling asleep.
The third and final dish was the Pasta Rosa. This was the hit of the night. I would go back for more of this. You also have a choice of how spicy you want it. We went for the high octane. Can you have too much garlic or red pepper flakes? I say no.
For this the penne pasta was perfectly al dente. Added to that was some cubed boneless chicken breasts, florets cut broccoli, a little spinach, Italian style diced tomatoes, a nice Alfredo sauce, some green onions, plus a little basil. And let's not forget the garlic and red pepper flakes. They also served a lot of it so it could easily be a meal for two.
So, once again, a good start and a good finish, but nothing impressive in between.
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