Maybe Wheel will comment more fully, but here's my quick take. We went to ESCA last night, which is the all seafood restaurant in the Mario Batali empire (you know, the guy with the food show, the long red hair, and the funny shoes who brought us Po, Lupa, and Babao.) The menu had us absolutely dizzy. We literally wanted to order evey single thing (well, O.K., only MB and I wanted to order the sea urchin.) All Italian wine. A great Northern Italian white from the area (Tirol) we traveled through last year, and an amazing example of the elusive (red) Lagrain (sp?) grape which we searched for in Italy, but now it seems finally found the one we wanted right here in NYC. With the Quinterelli for dessert we were feeling no pain. Oh, the food? Great. The fried fish was amazing (vongole and the frito-misto (sp?),) maybe the best I've ever had. Pasta's (as you might expect at a Mario restaurant) were perfect, although the perriwinkle and chilie was not as amazing as we had hoped. The eel (appetizer) was also not a favorite (although surely not bad.) The beet and botarga salad was a winner, as was the big stuffed clam (anyone remember what that was called?) I'd say: order lots of appetizers. Expensive; sure. Weird location - 43rd and 9th; for sure. Good time; good bet.
i am not trying to get technical but they do have one chicken and one veal dish, and i agree with jim all the way
the fried clam's WOW (just need a hot dog bun!!)--lagrein is from sud tyrol as the locals call it / also known as alto adige, the producer was josef hofstatter, in italy we were looking for giorgio grai but last night's was yummy--the eel was different (overcooked??) and from some cove on long island, they said it was big and in its stomach were 3 snappers (staff meal??:>)--the stuffed clam?? are you talking about the tasty crab and corn bread-e thing baked in the crab shell...
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- jim 10-01-2000 4:25 pm
i am not trying to get technical but they do have one chicken and one veal dish, and i agree with jim all the way the fried clam's WOW (just need a hot dog bun!!)--lagrein is from sud tyrol as the locals call it / also known as alto adige, the producer was josef hofstatter, in italy we were looking for giorgio grai but last night's was yummy--the eel was different (overcooked??) and from some cove on long island, they said it was big and in its stomach were 3 snappers (staff meal??:>)--the stuffed clam?? are you talking about the tasty crab and corn bread-e thing baked in the crab shell...
- Skinny 10-02-2000 1:54 am [add a comment]
Oh yeah, stuffed crab. And I forgot to mention the cuttle fish gnocchi which was my favorite of the pastas we tried.
- jim 10-02-2000 4:48 pm [add a comment]