Last week or the week before that I met up with L., C. and B.C. for dinner at
Osteria. The lot of us all went to the same high school. I see L. regularly, but I hadn't seen C. in a few years and the last time I saw B. was in Brooklyn during a
Sonic Youth show I wasn't paying attention to. But B. has recently moved to Philly, so dinner was planned. I started with the pork trotter rillette with pickled vegetables, mustard and polenta crostini as a starter. I liked it well enough, but the rillette, while extremely creamy/rich, didn't actually have that much going on as far as flavor and I was a little sad by the small amount of 'pickled vegetables' present. The mustard was nice.
For my main dish I was drawn to the robiola 'postage stamps' with trumpet mushrooms and thyme. Here is the thing. This restaurant and its chef both have really great reputations. Like, James Beard quality reputations. And yet I was really not all that impressed with this dish. The ratio of mushroom to pasta was low, and while it was certainly cheesy, the dish wasn't a mind blower and for $16 I expected either a larger portion or an eye opening experience with either bite. Neither was the case. The rillettes were similarly underwhelming.
B. and L. each ordered one of the pizzas, which I think is probably the best way to approach this restaurant if you're on a budget and want to get the most for your moola. C. ordered the chicken liver rigatoni, and I had a bite of that - good but again not quite as sublime as I might have expected because of the rep and the price tag.
Though I'm not singing the restaurant's praises, I did have a great evening with the 'gals' and was glad to catch up with B. and C. I'm hoping L. will eventually email me the photos we later took outside the restaurant. Or I think I hope it. I was wearing a cute outfit.
For my main dish I was drawn to the robiola 'postage stamps' with trumpet mushrooms and thyme. Here is the thing. This restaurant and its chef both have really great reputations. Like, James Beard quality reputations. And yet I was really not all that impressed with this dish. The ratio of mushroom to pasta was low, and while it was certainly cheesy, the dish wasn't a mind blower and for $16 I expected either a larger portion or an eye opening experience with either bite. Neither was the case. The rillettes were similarly underwhelming.
B. and L. each ordered one of the pizzas, which I think is probably the best way to approach this restaurant if you're on a budget and want to get the most for your moola. C. ordered the chicken liver rigatoni, and I had a bite of that - good but again not quite as sublime as I might have expected because of the rep and the price tag.
Though I'm not singing the restaurant's praises, I did have a great evening with the 'gals' and was glad to catch up with B. and C. I'm hoping L. will eventually email me the photos we later took outside the restaurant. Or I think I hope it. I was wearing a cute outfit.
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