Osteria Morini

What a lucky girl I was to get quality Italian two nights in a row!  The vibe and setting of Osteria Morini could not have been more different from the previous night's meal at A Voce.  Instead of the white tablecloths and sleek modern lines of the Time Warner Center, we were seated at rustic wooden tables with paper placemats.  Though the china looked like it came out of Grandma's cabinet, this was no red sauce place.

We ordered family style, not bothering with any of the meats or fish since we knew the apps and pastas were the winners here.  We ordered prosciutto, coppa, and parmesan to start because cured meats are the best way to start any shared Italian meal.  It came alongside the pea/fava bean/mint/speck crostini that was calling my name from the moment I picked up the menu.  It was super fresh and in no way mushy like you expect peas to be.  The seafood salad with capers was a light way to start the meal...followed by the heavier cheese-stuffed fried squash blossoms.  The outside was not as crispy as I would have liked but the flavor was there.  The next appetizer was a special that evening and it was the "wow" dish of the night.  Rich, cheesy polenta was the bed for sausage stuffed rabbit that was topped with a fried egg.  It's a good thing we were splitting this between three people because the whole dish would have put me over the edge; though like a lemming, I would have willingly jumped that cliff.

The next stage of food was the pasta round.  We ordered three to share with the guidance of our Ethan Embry look-alike waiter who steered us away from one dish and in the direction of a much better one.  Though I was most excited to try the lumache verde (spinach pasta with lamb ragu and ricotta salata), I found it overly salty.  Ok, so not a true winner there, but the garganelli (pasta quills, radicchio, truffle butter, prosciutto, peas, and cream) and the creste (shrimp and sepia ragu with fava beans) were both great pasta dishes.  You know how you can go to any Italian restaurant and order pasta with cream sauce and peas?  Well this is the dish you're craving but never actually get.  Though creamy, it wasn't uncomfortably doused like at a neighborhood restaurant and the peas were sweet and firm.  The creste was lightly sauced to let the minced shrimp come to the forefront while the fava beans brought this seafood dish a little closer to shore.  We also ordered a side of cauliflower and escarole gratin.  This is a splurge of a side dish if I ever saw one and boy was it worth it.  The cauliflower fell into the background a bit and served as more of a reason to have cheese sauce in a bowl, while the escarole gave you something to really bite into.

We were too full for a real dessert so we just ordered one scoop of the caramel biscotti gelato.  Just a small taste was all I needed to finish the meal.  And what a meal it was.  I have heard about the genius stylings of chef Michael White and have been wanting to try his restaurants for a while.  The food was wonderful without too much hooplah.