Little Italy (Buon Appetito)

Went the past Sunday with a large party, never been but had hopes that it would be acceptable to the crew. Got there at noon, table was ready, drink order and baskets of warm bread arrived shortly after. The waiter took our app/salad orders and we were off to the races.

I was concerned that the kitchen would be slammed by all the orders coming in, but I was wrong. After the app’s were fired, the waiter came over to take our entree orders. The food ranged from minestrone soup, antipasto’s old school eggplant parm etc, to fillet of beef tenderloin with gorg sauce. The antipasto had good quality cured meats with one exception, one of the meats was a black forest ham, not really befitting of an Italian anti. The cheeses were standard prov and gorg, but hey for $15. it fed 3 easily. All the entree’s came out hot, looked and tasted great. This is not high-end fru-fru just solid old school Italian done well. The winner was the beef tenderloin, this was easily a 16-18 oz fillet, cooked to perfection for under $25, what a deal. The wine list was serviceable with several by the glass options. They also had no issue with creating separate checks for all. Overall, I thought the food was very good and a good value, will return again to try a few other items.

Next was Pappalecco for gelato. Again we slammed the place but they accommodated well with outside tables. I thought the gelato texture was very grainy, not too pleasant, but that’s probably just me. Hadn’t been to LI for dinner in a while, nice to walk around smell the aromas from the coffee shops and walk around. Also, made a quick stop to the cheese shop on India, reminded me of some smaller shops I visited in Europe.

Love Pappalecco.

So close, so convenient. And so good.

You should try Civico 1845 sometime. Really like that place.

The quality of gelato at Pappalecco has quite declined over the last few months and isn’t great anymore. And try Bencotto or Monello for good Italian in Little Italy

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Thanks HH for the recs will give them a try. This mission had a budget restriction.

You got me with their, prosciutto and formaggio selections. Add a glass or two of red and that’s right in my wheelhouse!

I also like Civico 1845, but our NYC visitor Gup said (elsewhere) that he and his group had a bad experience there, sad to say. Rushed service and poor food was how he described it. Ouch.

Bencotto is a favorite of mine and my companion.

'This mission had a budget restriction". . .
WOW Sledge, when did Big Man on Campus have a ‘budget restriction’?

I hear that Antica Trattoria is quite good and their is a living social deal going on…
Anyone been?

I make such great Italian food, it’s hard to go to Italian restaurants, without a being a critical tool. .

I haven’t been for a while, but yes, Antica Trattoria is very good

RE: Civico 1845

I enjoy dining at the bar. Nice place to enjoy a plate of seafood linguine or some bolognese, and a glass of wine. And watch TV!

And portions are just right. Big appetite diners can get some polpettes or croquettes to go with their pasta, and maybe a second glass of wine.

Nice neighborhood spot.

Thanks DD!!

The group’s rules rule!

Too bad it’s in Del Cerro…

Went recently for the first (and no doubt last time) to Civico1845 and it might be actually our worst restaurant visit in 2015. Really bad food and laughable service, it is a bad sign that such restaurant is able to survive in SD. (The first comment from our daughter when walking out after dinner was that the food was so bad that she never wants to return (and she is normally much more forgiving than us regarding restaurants)

Do you recall the name of a particular dish that was especially displeasing to you or your daughter?

We had five dishes together - Salumi plate (nothing made in house but apparently they are not even able to store stuff correctly, nothing tasted remotely fresh), piatto del nostromo (horrible calamari and octopus in minimal amounts but tons of frisee salad completely overpowered by horrible bitter dressing), linguine alla pescatore (overcooked store-bought pasta with overcooked shellfish and tons of closed mussels), some ragu (forgot the name, our daughter took one bite, looked at us and said that taste horrible (and she is not a picky eater), we took one bite and it was awful, something tasted completely off), casareccia alla norcina (the one dish which was reasonable but nothing you would call good) - they hopefully will soon go out of business

What a shame. I enjoyed what I had both times I’ve been there, but that’s been a little while back now – earlier on into their being there.

Could it have been the same problem I had with George’s Bar’s tacos: Holidays syndrome?

I just wrote it yesterday on this board but we had the dinner about four weeks ago. And the whole attitude and service was in general so bad that I doubt it is only a temporary problem

Went to Monello tonight. Grabbed counter seats by the front door because they were readily available. There was a 2 hour wait for Bencotto.
We started with an order of focaccia and the mini calzones. The bread seemed a bit undercooked, but well seasoned and the olive oil with it was great. The mini calzones were filled with a delightful cheese and black truffle mixture. However, being fried made them a little heavy. The Caesar salad was nicely presented with whole Romaine heart leaves, house made croutons, a drizzle of house made dressing, and a gigantic Parmigiano tuille. The squid ink spaghetti with octopus was fantastic. Pasta was perfectly cooked and sauced just right. I had a bit of the Spaghetti alla Vongole…the wine was super predominant in the sauce and there were tons of clams. I also had a bite of one of tonight’s specials squid ink ravioli filled with salmon in a delightful cream sauce. We were so stuffed there was no room for dessert. Service was terrific. We were checked on just right and water glasses were always promptly filled.
We were just sad that Extraordinary Desserts was closed tonight…nice to see that the owner cares enough to let her staff off for the holiday.

Sounds like a great meal and a pleasant experience, attran99. Yes, sad about Extaroadinary Disserts, but a lot of places are closed on New Years Day.