THE DEL POST-O

Ok ok, cheesy title. But I had to do it. Well, you guys are all gonna hate me, cause despite having some great meals in New York this past weekend, I barely took any pics. But I don't think it's fair to blame me. You gotta blame the restaurants with their low lighting, which made it impossible for me to take any decent pics without flash. (And no, I wasn't gonna be firing away with the flash during the meal).

As you all know, I was planning on making up our disappointing dining in Paris with some excellent dining in NY. So on Friday night, we drove down. I wanted to eat at Enoteca, which is a little lounge area within Mario Batali's Del Posto Restaurant. It's right off the bar and separate from the main restaurant, and you can get smaller dishes for much less than a normal dinner at Del Posto. Of course, you still get amazing service and great food since, the staff and the kitchen are still the same. The thing with Enoteca is that they only take reservations starting at 10am the day of. So of course, I was on my cell phone at 10am. Luckily, it only took 2 calls to get through, and I was only on hold for 10 minutes. I made a reservation for 3 at 8:30.

We ended up in NY much earlier than we had planned. We didn't run into much traffic, which was a good thing, especially on a Friday night. So I called Enoteca, and tried to move up our reservation, but they were full. No problem. We ended up grabbing a quick snack and showed up for our reservation on time. Now, Del Posto is one of those mega restaurants located in Chelsea on 10th Ave. (right across the street from Morimoto). It's a huge, elegant restaurant, with a large double stair case in back, all marble and dark wood.

We were quickly shown to our table. Del Posto has this great deal when you get four courses for $41. You get to pick from the entire menu, and you get your choice of one appetizer, a primi, a secondi and a dessert. The whole table needs to participate, but we had no problem with that. Juliet, who also went with us, got a wine pairing for an additional $19. After we ordered, we got a lovely basket of homemade breads, served with butter and a side of whipped lardo (aka smoked pork fat, if you've ever watched Molto Mario, Mario Batali loves to use this stuff).

For my first course, I got the autumn vegetables with saba. This wasn't the most creative thing on the menu, but it was executed really well, and the best part was some type of lettuce veggie thingy that they used. Kinda like arugula, but I'm not sure what it was. It made the entire dish totally yummy. Tom got the octopus, which he liked a lot. It was very well prepared and tender, while Juliet ordered the Carpaccio. I think she was expecting something else, she was pretty surprised when the thinly pounded raw beef showed up, but she did eat most of it and found it very "beefy".

For the primi, I didn't have many choices since almost everything had beef or pork, so I got a well prepared penne with marinara. Nothing super exciting, but the pasta for all three of our dishes were perfectly cooked. Tom got the gnocchi, which he though was excellent and pillowy. Juliet got the orchiette, which I think she also enjoyed.

My secondi was my very favorite part of the meal, and perhaps the best thing I ate the entire weekend. It was turkey osso bucco. Now osso bucco is normally made with beef, but I had read reviews of the amazing turkey osso bucco and I was not disappointed. The meat just fell off the bone and was completely soft and tender. Also, it was served on something similar to polenta, though that wasn't quite what it was, but it just smelled of butter and was the most delicious thing you could imagine. Juliet said it tasted just like normal osso bucco. I loved it, but at this point, I'd gotten so full that I couldn't finish it all. Meanwhile, Juliet ordered more beef, which she didn't particularly like. She said it lacked flavor. Finally, Tom order the fried shrimp and artichoke alla Giudia. This is an authentic Roman dish, started in the Jewish ghettos of Rome. He found it a bit too salty, but I found the shrimp to be perfectly fried, and not overcooked at all.

To finish our meal, I had the trio of gelatos. I wasn't overly impressed with them. My favorite one was probably the caramel, but I think they could've been more intensely flavored. Tom ordered the sweet potato cake, which I found kinda odd and Juliet ordered the rum cake, which I didn't try (I'm not a fan of rum), but she enjoyed it a lot. The wine pairings that Juliet got were also very good, and an excellent deal at $19. I thought service was really great, too. It really made me miss how wonderful service really can be in NY. It does truly make a difference, the pacing of the meal, bringing out dishes all at once, just really small things. One thing I was impressed with was when our waitress began to pour Juliet one of her wines, and she ran out. So she went to get another bottle of wine. Now proper protocol is that you pour the new wine into a new glass, and not just add it into the previous glass, and the waitress did just that, also allowing Juliet to sample the bottle after she'd opened it. Yes, I know I'm picky, but for me, it really is all those small things that make the difference.

Overall, I thought our meal was excellent. So if you're in NY, you need to take advantage of this amazing deal. You'd be hard pressed to find something nearing the quality, service and price anywhere. So go now! Before they wise up and raise the prices. A wonderful meal to start off a yummy weekend of eating.