For The Land And Sea Faring

Wednesday night found me at Torrisi Italian Specialties, finally, over a year after the buzz-y place opened.  Reservations are now accepted, which meant getting through the hallowed doors is easier, though I got mine--an unfathomably early 5:30--on OpenTable.  The dining room is small and meant to resemble an old Italian home, I think, with lace drawn curtains and old, mismatched plates in varying patterns that could have appeared at my grandmother's dinner table had my grandmother been inspired by things less Liberace and more Fred Astaire.  The menu is fixed, with a series of snacks leading into a pasta course, a meat course, and a cookie course.  The night we were there, and additional dessert special ran for $10.  We had to order it.

Mozzarella, house-made.  A perfect pillow glazed with olive oil and accompanied by two crusty heels of garlic bread.  Then an oil confit of mackerel, hot and cold, savory and sweet.  Sweetbreads came grilled, in my favorite incarnation, over giardinera, Italian pickles.  The acid cut perfectly through the fat of the veal.  Our last snack course: tender fermented broccoli rabe in a feather light robe of tempura batter, bitterness be damned.

Pasta was a clever take on pasta e fagiole.  A fresh linguine in broth arrived with cannellini beans, pork belly, ham oil, and kale.  I could have eaten three more bowls.  Ditto for my fish, breed unknown, which came swimming in a tomato broth with unshelled mussels.  Duck was sliced very thick and cooked skin on and though it and it's accompanying tender were perfect, the hearts were slightly overcooked.  I overlooked the detail because the coconut almond tart, topped with meringue and reminiscent of the best Almond Joy I ever had in childhood made up for any of the meal's indiscretions.  So, too, did a cookie plate of a tiny cannoli that did not betray its ricotta, a rainbow cookie, and a few other perfect confections.

The next afternoon, it was on to lunch at glossy Oceana, where I sat at the bar with a bottle of Aligote and enjoyed a decent lunch.  A beet salad was woefully undercooked ("I like my beets with texture," my companion said, but this was a technical error).  Even though I don't like beets, I appreciated the combination of orange supremes and beet wedges on the plate.  Hiramasa tartare, with just a hint of hot pepper and cubes of pear, was more successful--a clean, well-executed dish that I would eat again.

My soft shell crab entree was fine.  Just fine.  The crust didn't stick quite right and the pineapple salsa didn't have enough creaminess to adhere to the crab.  A side of ramps were cut so small as not to resemble ramps at all.  Alas.  A final plate of cookies satisfied my sweet tooth--the standouts were a coconut macaron sandwich stuffed with chocolate and a soft iced lemon cookie.  Good for lunch, but no brain busters here.

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Torrisi Italian Specialties
250 Mulberry Street
New York, NY 10012
212.965.0955

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Oceana
120 W. 49th Street
New York, NY 10020
212.759.5941

A Trip To Long Island... City

It's farther than you think to traverse Queens. I guess that's why I do it so infrequently.  On Friday night, after a hot yoga class, my friend and I sought sustenance on Vernon Boulevard, a tricky endeavor these days.  We ended up at Alewife, a new breed of beer bar.  You can take your draft beer to go, for one, making for a truly enlightening experience (my friend selected a draft with the not-so-subtle name Arrogant Bastard to bring back to her arrogant bastard of a boyfriend back home).  For two, they serve delicate, local food.  The service may have been off tempo--did all the small plates need to arrive at the same time?--but the food showed surprising depth and clarity.

A quartet of meatballs, billed as soup dumpling meatballs, indeed spilled forth with juice like the Chinese variety and tasted Asian enough, though they were quite surely made from meat and not dough.  Littleneck clams were slathered in onion and a green pesto and came over an addictive grilled bread that was both crunchy and soft, owing to the broth beneath.  Soft shell crab, tempura battered, hit all the right notes: salty from the batter, sweet from the pickles, creamy from the aioli, bitter from the roasted turnips.  Grilled asparagus with brown butter may have had a little too little of the condiment (gasp!), but who can really complain about asparagus this time of year?  Maitake mushrooms drowned in whole butter, anyway, and more than made up for it.

A thick cut salmon tartare with creme fraiche would have been perfect if only it had been better seasoned. Shisito peppers--three hot ones in our bunch!--made up for that egregious lack of salt.  A final concession to spring came in the form of grilled ramps, a crispy hen egg, yuzu, and brown butter.  Cravings satisfied, I still think I will miss them when they are gone.

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Alewife
5-14 51st Avenue
Long Island City, NY 11101
718.937.7494