Food

Osteria Morini

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One of my favorite joints for Italian food in the city. The pasta is excellent value, especially Monday nights after 9pm when they serve ten dollar pasta. For the quality, ambiance, and brand, $10 is exceptional.

Torcia

Tagliatelle

Ambiance

The restaurant has a warm and cozy atmosphere that makes you feel like you're in a small Italian joint in the middle of nowhere Italy. It's not modern or overly pretentious, but still maintains a clean semi high caliber appearance. It's down to earth and relatively low key with wooden decor.

Food

I've yet to try a pasta I didn't like, except the cappelletti—truffle ricotta ravioli with prosciutto—the combination of butter+cheese+prosciutto is extremely strong. It makes me feel itchy for some reason. Objectively speaking it was very good, but in general, the overly cheesy/buttery texture along with prosciutto makes me slightly uncomfortable. However, everyone I know that has been to Osteria Morini loved the cappelletti. I'll admit a few dishes were slightly too salty but their complementing sauce helped tone it down. Overall the pasta is solid—simple and traditional. The pasta is handmade, which is the bare minimum for good pasta. The desserts are also quite good—not too sweet.

Stracci

A few of my favorite dishes: 

1) Garganelli

As mentioned above, I did not enjoy the cappelletti yet I did really enjoy the Garganelli—very similar in taste—but a much better balance of flavors. The radicchio is the main player that helped calm the heaviness of the cream and prosciutto. 

2) Stracci—wide ribbon pasta with wild mushrooms

I love wild mushrooms. The wide ribbon noodles are cooked al dente with the rosemary oil moisturizing every bite along with the way.

4) Tortellini di mele

This is more of a dessert pasta in my opinion. It's on the sweeter side but not overwhelmingly sweet. A good replacement for dessert if you're in the mood for more pasta!

4) Torcia squid ink pasta

Not nearly on the same level as the squid ink pasta at Ai Fiori but it is definitely a solid runner-up with crispy brussels sprout to enhance every bite. 

5) Tortellini panna

6) Gramigna—macaroni with pork sausage

7) Dark chocolate almond tart

8) Goat cheese custard with figs and grapes

Price

The best value is Monday nights after 9pm. I would expect to spend about $25-35 per person including tax and tip depending on how much you order. For two people, 3 pasta and a dessert is more than enough. Any other day I'd expect to spend $35-50 per person including tax and tip.

Wait

Reservations are not too difficult to get. During peak times such as Monday and weekend nights, I think the wait can be as long as 1.5 hours. I definitely recommend reservations during those times. 

Tortellini di mele

Garganelli

Spagehtti

Tortellini panna

Cappelletti

Tortadi semolino—lemon semolina cake

Cioccolato e mandorle

Tartaletta di autunno

 

Ushiwakamaru

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At 9:40pm, we were seated to begin our omakase meal on a Friday evening. The small space located in East Village with wooden decor gave its authentic Japanese allure. The staff was extremely friendly and attentive—changing our tea when it got cold and attending to our needs.

Omakase begins at $70 per person with a variation of sashimi and nigri—or only nigri if that's what you prefer. We chose a starting point of $80 per person with sashimi and nigri. We began the meal with a some lightly seasoned lotus root and a platter of fresh sashimi. The fish was tender, tasty, and most importantly fresh and high quality. Shortly after the sashimi, we had fried shrimp head. Is it bad to say that it was probably the best piece we had? With a sprinkle of salt and lemon—it was salivating. 

Lotus Root

Fried Shrimp Heads

We began our first nigri piece with freshly killed shrimp. Very tasty—a shrimp well done. This is where things started to get more interesting. The Chef slowly began to take his sweet time. A regular that sat next to us began intense 10 minute long conversations with the Chef. They drank a lot and talked a lot. A little too much. The Chef started getting sloppy and serving us nigri with straight-out-of-the rice-cooker hot rice. The overly warm rice did not contrast well with the cool raw fish. It was near the end of the night so he was probably losing concentration. We were starting to get a little irritated. 

Shrimp

We ordered fried uni in addition to our meal. What a great idea. I still prefer uni as is....but fried is not a bad idea. It's crunchy, fried and really flavorful. We were served a few pieces that are not even worth mentioning as it was poorly prepared with overly warm rice and a lack of proper seasoning. The seared otoro was very juicy and delicious as always—but it's hard to screw up oroto as the fish itself does the job for you. 

Our last piece was the hokkaido uni which was very good, except the Chef accidentally put soy sauce and apologized for it. Again his sloppiness was very irritating. The soy sauce wasn't actually that bad—it slightly toned down the creaminess and added more savoriness.

In addition to our omakase we ordered the tamago and famous quail egg with caviar. Probably two of the best pieces—which wasn't even part of the omakase. The tamago at Ushiwakamaru put an emphasis on the true egg flavor as compared to other places where there was more emphasis on the fish component. It was light, sweet and surprisingly refreshing. It almost looked like pieces of pineapple. 

Fried Uni

Hokkaido Uni

Tamago

Seared Otoro

The quail egg with caviar was very delicious. The subtle creamy and melting egg mixed with the slight bitterness of the caviar added great texture to the bite. It was well balanced and flavored. We finished our meal close to midnight. 

Our entire omakase comprised of the sashimi platter, fried shrimp head and seven pieces of nigri for $80 per person. In addition, we ordered the fried uni, tamago and quail egg with caviar ($9 piece). Overall we spent roughly $140 per person including tax and tip. Not terrible as most high-end omakase is around this price. However, the Chef's lack of focus and technique will not bring me back to this spot. 

Qual egg with caviar

 

Annisa

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*Update: I visited Annisa a second time in 2015 and the food quality had gone down hill. I was very disappointed with the performance. The meat was not cooked to its best ability and the flavor pairings were half-assed. It felt like they stopped caring and did the bare minimum to maintain its pedigree. 

Anita Lo is the owner at Annisa where they serve new American contemporary cuisine based on the Chef's experience in Chinese cooking and French techniques. I came here for my 24th birthday about a week ago and ordered the tasting menu. I guess we had just made the cut because they were recently stripped of their one Michelin star, but nonetheless, it was a great dining experience. I would definitely return to this spot despite that. I was also a little shocked by their proud B rating...hmm. But the quality was excellent and the restaurant was definitely very clean.

Food

We ordered the 5-course tasting menu. We started with fluke sashimi that was fresh, tender and light. It was probably my least favorite of the 5 dishes, still good, but nothing exciting. The second course was Annisa's famous foie gras soup dumplings. It was so good! I love dumplings in general, so the foie gras with duck was extra unique and special. I could eat 10 of these easily. As the entree, we had the famous marinated miso sable dish with tofu. It was fantastic. The sable was very well cooked, extremely tender and moist.  The agedashi tofu with the slightly sweet sake dashi miso broth was also nicely done. I highly recommend. The texture of the sable and tofu was almost like silk. As the second entree, we were served the grilled koji-marinated berkshire pork loin with radishes, smoked avocado, and a poached egg. The edges of the pork were well grilled and slightly smokey. The insides were well cooked and tender. It was a well-balanced dish with meat, greens and a side of dairy (egg). It was tasty but nothing spectacular. Lastly for the dessert, everyone was served a variety of desserts from their menu. I ended with the best one, the pecan sea salt butterscotch beignets. It was so good. Exactly how beignets should be. At the very end when we got the bill, they served mini coconut popsicles. It was refreshing and delicious. Also extremely cute. 

Fluke

Miso Marinated Sable

Foie Gras Soup Dumpling

Grilled Koji-Marinated Berkshire Pork Loin

Pecan and Salted Butterscotch Beignets with Bourbon Milk Ice

Ambiance

The space was a lot smaller than I anticipated. It was quaint, charming and intimate. Initially, I thought one of the waiters was slightly rude and impatient because I had made a reservation for eight people and one guest was running late. I did not like that they were not willing to wait for one more person. But after my last guest arrived the service was great from then after. 

Price

I believe this place is reasonably priced. Especially the 5-course tasting menu at $85 per person. It was just the right amount of food, if not a little excessive. If you choose not to get the tasting menu, for about three courses I'd expect to pay roughly $70 per person excluding tip/tax. So you may as well just get the tasting menu.

One other thing to note. They are very great about splitting bills. I know most restaurants do not allow more than two or three cards. But they accepted eight credit cards!! I was shocked. An added bonus. 

Reservation

I made reservations a month in advance and still didn't get the exact time I wanted. I would definitely recommend making reservations at least 1.5 months in advance for prime dining times.