Our Thursday lunch reservation was at Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria on Great Jones Street, where we had enjoyed a wonderful dinner in June of 2014.
Alimentari e Vineria is the sister establishment to Il Buco, which is around the block on Bond Street. It's a combination grocery store and restaurant, offering salumi, cheeses, freshly baked bread, and imported oils and vinegar up front, and a rustic lower-level dining room a few steps down in the back.
After starting with a nice bottle of Chianti and freshly backed bread, we moved on to an assortment of salumi for two.
Salumi Della Casa — culatello, prosciutto, mortadella, picante, toscano The Alimentari e Vineria menu states their salumi is prepared in house with pigs raised hormone and antibiotic free. However they do it, the ribbons of cured meat were delicious. Since we weren't lunching at Lupa this time around, this was to be our pasta fix. We ordered the roasted gnocchi and the lasagnette.
Roasted Gnocchi — market cauliflower, guanciale, pecorino (housemade)
Lasagnette — house made pork sausage, kale, parmigiano (housemade pasta) Both dishes were very good. The gnocchi were not Lupa's fluffy little pillows, but the preparation was tasty. The deconstructed lasagna was the better dish; the sweet house made pork sausage was delicious. We were satiated, but it would be a long time until dinner. We had 8:00 tickets to "China Doll" at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.
"China Doll," a highly anticipated new play written by David Mamet for Al Pacino, was still in previews. Mamet described it as "a play about a wealthy man, his young fiancé, and an airplane. The man has just bought a new plane as a wedding present for the girl. He intends to go into semiretirement, and enjoy himself. He's in the process of leaving his office, and is giving last minute instructions to his young assistant. He takes one last phone call . . . The characters are Mickey Ross, a billionaire; Carson, the assistant, and a telephone. I wrote it for Al. It is better than oral sex." It wasn't. But it was a wonderful vehicle for Pacino, and that made the evening worthwhile. The play ended late and we were hungry. We were even hungrier after walking the 1.7 miles to our 11:00 dinner reservation at The East Pole. This would be our third consecutive after-theatre visit to the Upper East Side restaurant, a few blocks from our apartment. After being seated, we were told the kitchen would be closing soon, but we knew what we wanted. We started with the grilled radishes; it's The East Pole amuse-bouche. We then moved on to the reason we keep returning to this restaurant which focuses on "local, seasonal, organic produce and sustainably sourced proteins."
Grilled Radishes
The East Pole Cheeseburger — bacon, duck fat chips, pickles Copyright © 2015 TwoForTheTable.com |
