I wanted to like it, I really did. My boyfriend is quite fond of it, and I really love Italian food, and it's on that charming little stretch of Broadway... but it just disappointed me over and over. I really don't want to dog on this place, so I'll try to keep the negatives to a minimum, but there's no avoiding the fact that the food just wasn't very good (I feel like it's perhaps gone down hill - I went there a few years ago, and I remember it being pretty good, though not amazing). The biggest problem was that someone had a very liberal hand with the salt. I like salt, but wow. This was intense.
The problems started with the rolls - pretty uninteresting bread, but apparently heavily salted on the outside. Served with a trio of butters - the pesto butter was lovely, but the other two tasted like they'd been in a refrigerator for so long that they'd begun to morph with it. Gross. I started to feel a bit deflated.
For appetizers, we did the Polenta Due and the Zuppa di Cippole. The polenta was two polenta cakes, one topped with shrimp scampi, one with mild giardinara. A strange combination, no? Indeed. I thought there must be some method to the madness, that it would surprisingly turn out to be a harmonious melange, but no. The shrimp were fine, the giardinara was fine, but the polenta cakes were pretty bland, and the flavor combinations were schizophrenic. The onion soup was covered in a thick layer of provolone, very nice, and had a strong fennel flavor, which was great. Unfortunately, it was also unbelievably salty - after two or three spoonfuls, I drained my water glass.
The mains were likewise uninspired. My boyfriend had the Fusilli del Boscaiolo - fusilli with fennel sausage, mushrooms, and peas in a light tomato cream sauce. He was pretty happy with it, but not thrilled. I had a few bites - it was fine, but nothing to write home about. I had the Pollo Verguvio - a chicken breast in a white wine sauce with roasted potatoes and sauteed spinach. The white wine sauce was - you guessed it - incredibly salty. And also just not that tasty. The chicken was cooked just fine, maybe a wee bit dry. The potatoes just weren't good to me, maybe because I was just utterly demoralized at that point. The spinach was probably the highlight of the meal, and it was just plain old sauteed spinach.
The final blow, of course, was the check. We had a groupon, which lessened the pang, but seriously, if I had dropped almost $30 on that meal, I would have been vexed. Honestly, I'm sad to say it, but I really would not recommend the place.
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