My Life in Meals

You’ve probably heard about all you can drink brunches, but an all you can drink dinner?!

Welcome to Piola in Union Square, a large Italian eatery where on Wednesday nights ladies can have unlimited house wine (red or white) with any entrée after 8pm.  As you can imagine it’s full of groups of girls from NYU (which was my friends and I just a few years ago), as well as those long graduated (which is us now!).

They have an enormous selection of specialty pizzas, as well as a more limited menu of salads and pastas. The food is consistently good, not life changing or anything - but you’re obviously not coming here for the food!

On our last visit here, we ordered two pizzas and a pasta to share between three of us. I’ve tried a number of their pizzas over the years and I have never gotten a bad one. The Penne Rosate pasta (pictured above), with smoked salmon, tomato sauce, cream and parsley is my favorite pasta on the menu, but the gnocchi is very good as well.

Mareverde Pizza - Shrimp, brie cheese, arugola, tomato sauce and mozzarella (pictured above).

Ortomisto Pizza - Fresh tomatoes, eggplant, spinach, sweet peppers, zucchini, broccoli, tomato sauce and mozzarella (pictured above).

Piola runs all sorts of other gimmicky nightly specials like all you can eat gnocchi night on the 29^th of each month, or all you can eat pizza night on Sunday evenings. Check out all their specials and promotions here.

I highly recommend you plan your next ladies night here! It gets pretty packed, so make a reservation for a guaranteed table with minimal amount of wait time!

Piola
48 East 12th Street
New York, NY 10003
(212) 777-7781
Website
Price: $$

I recently went for an anniversary dinner to Asellina in the Gansevoort Park Hotel. This is a perfect date night or special occasion spot, the decor and ambiance were absolutely beautiful (see photos here), and the food equally excellent!

We started with the Wood-Fired Meatballs with cannellini beans, culatello and fontina cheese. The meatballs are definitely a must have on the menu - they were beyond delicious. The sauce was different from your usual marinara, it was much lighter and creamier. Alongside the meatballs, we ordered the Artisanal Italian Cured Meats plate, which was so fresh and has such high quality cuts of meat that you really feel like you were sitting in a restaurant in Sardinia, the native homeland of the chef at Asellina.

My fiance has visited Asellina before and raved about a pizza with a fried egg on top. Unfortunately when we saw the menu it was not there! The waiter informed us that the pizza we were referring to was only a special they sometimes have and we were extremely disappointed. Instead, we ordered Wild Mushroom Pizza with stracchino cheese and spring onions. Next time, I would suggest skipping the pizza, as it didn’t really live up to the other specialty joints like the Co.’s or Motorinos of the city.

We finished of with the Pappardelle with wild boar, red wine and fresh nutmeg. The homemade pasta was delicious, but the ragu was a bit salty. It  reminded me of a very similar pasta dish I wrote about here at Mario Batali’s Eataly, which was equally delicious, if not better.

Asselina
420 Park Ave South
New York, New York 10016
(212) 317-2908
Website
Price: $$$-$$$$

Eataly is where foodies die and go to heaven. If you like high quality food, ingredients, produce, wine, gelato, coffee and much much more, your going to want to spend hours roaming around this behemoth food mall. Eataly has something for everyone - whether your there to just people watch and leisurely enjoy a latte, shopping and preparing for an authentic Italian dinner, or sitting down to manja with friends and family. Brought to you by Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich, and their other Italian partners, this is a must visit for any Italian food (really any food!) lover in Manhattan.

I recently stopped by after seeing Black Swan at a nearby theater. Ok ok, I definitely picked the closest theater possible because I have been dying to go to Eataly since it opened! After taking a stroll and touring the massive marketplace with awe and amazement, we decided to make our first stop La Piazza, the standing table bistro in the heart of Eataly. The menu consists of only the highest quality Salumi & Formaggi (meat and cheese for my non-foodie friends out there!). There are no reservations, but there is full table service, as well as wine and beer by the bottle and glass (on the pricey side - one glass of red wine will run you around $14). We kicked off the night with La Mozzarella and Prosciutto, which consisted of some of the freshest and finest quality mozzarella you will find without actually getting on a plane and traveling to Italy. My one (slight) critique was that it could have used a bit more salt sprinkled on top with the olive oil and grated pepper. It was accompanied by pieces of freshly baked and very crusty bread, which was apparently made from yeast that was smuggled into the United States straight from Italy inside 19 travel-size shampoo bottles. It doesn’t get more authentic (or illegal) than that!

Next, we wandered over to La Pizza & Pasta for dinner, one of the more casual full service dining restaurants in Eataly. Again, another eatery with no reservations, so we ended up waiting around 30 minutes. After agonizing over which pie on the menu to order, we finally went with the Maruzzella, which had a well-charred crust topped with tomato sauce, anchovies, mozzarella, black olives, and fresh basil. It was good, but in a city that is in constant rivalry for the best Neapolitan style pie, Eataly’s pizza was not quite at a level of the Motorino’s of New York.

Next, we moved on to the pasta menu and decided to go with the Fettuccine con Coda alla Vaccinara, perfectly al dente home made pasta topped with an oxtail ragu sauce. This pasta was absolutely excellent, I practically licked the bowl clean! It reminded me of the kind of pastas Batali is known to serve up at his four star dining establishment Del Posto, for probably half the price.

All in all, a casual but wonderful night touring the “Little Italy” of Madison Square Park. I look forward to going back many a more times to sample all the goodies Eataly has to offer.

Eataly
200 5th Ave
New York, NY 10010
(646) 398-5100
Website
Price: $$-$$$

You’ll very soon come to know that Serious Eats is my all time favorite food blog. It’s founder, Ed Levine, is the original old school New York foodie. You’ll also very soon come to see my passion for all things hot and spicy! That’s why the minute I saw this recipe for Sriracha Marinara with Meatballs on Serious Eats, I knew I HAD to try it. Meatballs, yum! Sriracha, yum! What’s there not to like?

Of course I tweaked the recipe a bit to make it EXTRA hot! My version below…

Ingredients:  

For the meatballs

• 1 pound ground turkey
• 10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed of excess moisture
• 3 tablespoons plain dried breadcrumbs
• 1 jalapeno
  
• 1 teaspoon red chili powder
  
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• cooking spray or oil
  

For the sauce

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
• 3-4 tablespoons sriracha sauce, or more to taste
• 1 tablespoon red chili flakes
  
• 1 pound whole wheat thin spaghetti
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste

Note: Not everyone can handle the heat like I can, so of course feel free to put sriracha, chili flakes, jalapenos and chili powder to your liking!

Procedure:

1. Combine the turkey, spinach, bread crumbs, jalapeno, red chili powder, oregano, salt, and pepper in a bowl and mix well by hand in a large bowl. Roll into about 20 meatballs, arrange on a baking sheet, and spray with oil. Alternatively, you can roll them individually in a small dish of oil to coat.

2. Preheat the broiler, then cook meatballs until golden brown, about 10 minutes, turning once to ensure even cooking. When they are done they should look like this:
   
3. While the meatballs are in the oven, heat olive oil in a large, heavy pot over medium until simmering. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes, then add garlic and cook for 1 minute longer. Add tomatoes, chili flakes, sriracha, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Simmer 10 minutes, then add meatballs and continue simmering until they are cooked through.
   
4. Cook pasta in a large pot of salted water until al dente, reserving 1 cup of pasta water before draining. Drain pasta, add to sauce, and toss well to coat, adding pasta water if necessary to create a loose sauce. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Voila! Serve with salad and/or garlic bread and enjoy!