Not-So-Guanciale Pizza at Otto

On Thursday night I took myself out for dinner at Otto, Mario Batali's informal pizza place near Washington Square Park. I'm a huge fan--a quartino of wine, some veggies or salumi, and a pie or pasta dish is great, reasonably affordable, and then comes Otto's olive oil gelato, which changed my life the first time I had it.

Seriously, that stuff is so good...I ordered it the first time just because it sounded weird and I am a fan of weird ice creams. But it's super ultra creamy, the mouthfeel is like magic, and they serve it with just a bit of crunchy sea salt... While I pride myself on dessert-related willpower, I will never turn that down.

I'm noting Thursday's dinner mainly because it was a rare disappointment.  The guanciale pie was their pizza del giorno. And it was good, and yet...I had a mental expectation of lots of chewy, smoky, wonderful, jowl. And what it really was was, well, chick pea pizza. There was a little guanciale, I think, but it was chopped super-fine and there wasn't much of it. I didn't send it back, since there was nothing really wrong with it.  But it definitely didn't live up to my expectation.

Anyway, go to Otto. Save room for dessert (I did 3 flavors: Guiness stout and roasted fig along with the olive oil--weird ice cream flavors attract me, like I said--and the stout was fantastic). But if you go on a Thursday, I think you can skip the guanciale pizza.

Macchina

One of the great things about my neighborhood is every time I start to think I'm tired of living here, the restaurant situation evolves and it's like food-wise at least, a new neighborhood comes to me.  The newest of the new crop is Macchina, a fancy pizza place that just opened at the corner of 105 and Broadway.

The decor is modern, with lots of brick, maybe a little retro/hipster/cliche, but it's got great windows that open up when the weather's nice. The service was great, and most importantly the pizza was very good. They've got the crust down (very Italian style, whatever they've got going on oven-wise, it gets fantastically hot).  This is a pizza bianca with thinly sliced potatoes, bacon, and gorgonzola. A great combination of flavors.

We also got the carrot 'agnolotti' which was tremendous--it's  great that people have recently discovered how to roast carrots to the point that they're almost like meat. Root veggies in that form are on the verge of being overplayed in NY restaurants at the moment, but that doesn't stop a well prepared carrot from being delicious, and here, in a pasta setting with amaretti, mint, hazelnuts, and brown butter...well, who needs the flesh of an animal?
 
Macchina has taken some hits in the early Yelp reviews for being overpriced for the neighborhood, and overpriced for pizza. I think the criticism is justified to an extent, but, hey, they post the prices publicly, if you opt to eat there, I don't think it's fair to get upset later about how much your pie cost.

My slightly larger problem with Macchina is that the menu, though good, is pretty limited. Four white pizzas and four red pizzas to choose from (plus some pastas and a few 'secondi'). I realize they're just getting started, but any corner pizza shop in the city can put together more combinations and permutations of ingredients than Macchina has.  Hopefully as they hit their stride the menu will get more diverse.

Still, I'm psyched to have them around, looking forward to trying more of their offerings.

Fiori di Zucca Pizza at Marta

I had lunch with a friend this week at Marta, the inexplicably Italian, very trendy place that basically is the entire lobby of the swanky Martha Washington Hotel.  I love the space, it's very beautiful and sleek and modern, with floor-to-ceiling windows that open wide onto 29th Street on a beautiful summer afternoon.  Though if you're going to name a hotel the Martha Washington, it's an odd choice for a restaurant.  I checked, and she and George never left the country, I'm very doubtful she'd've known what a pizza was if one bit her.

Anyway,  friend R and I got the fritto misto (many fried veggies) and the butter lettuce salad, and the fiori di zucca pizza.  The starters were...fine, I guess?  Nothing to especially write home about, the veggies a little greasier than you'd want them to be, but tasty, and a nice change from the seafood that  normally comprises a fritto misto.

The pie was just beautiful.  Take a look:

Gorgeous, but, sadly, it was kind of boring.  I mean, squash blossoms at their best aren't that packed-with-flavor, and neither was the mozzarella, and the crust, while nice enough, didn't do much in the flavor department either.  Thank god for the anchovies.

I've been thinking about what I'd do to make it more interesting, without completely overwhelming the blossomy beauty of it.  A bit of the old truffle oil would be the crowd pleasing, too-easy solution.  But I think a more interesting cheese, like a fontina or taleggio, and some kind of fresh herb--like oregano or thyme maybe, is what this is calling out for.