Otto

My friends Jess, Sarah, and Katie and I went to Otto on the night before the Santa Margherita event. Otto is one of Mario Batali’s restaurants, but it’s actually pretty casual and quite cheap (especially for New York). It’s basically part wine bar and part pizzeria.

The menu is designed for sharing, comprising of a variety of antipasti, pizzas, and pasta. Everything we had was wonderful and it was great being able to try so many different things. The wine list is enormous, but we ended up settling on individual glasses of wine. We were surprised to discover that each glass of wine is actually a small carafe and is a really good deal at $9-10 a glass!

We started with the Pea and Pancetta Bruschetta, which was topped with some fresh mint.


We then got three kinds of Antipasti:
Summer Corn and Fregola
Mussels, Peperonata, Mint
Squash and Pecorino


Our pasta came next. We ordered the Rigatoni con Sausage & Escarole.


We tried two of their pizzas: Funghi & Taleggio and Pane Frattau (tomato, pecorino, egg).



We couldn’t resist ordering a couple of desserts to round off our meal. I had read great things about the olive oil gelato so I knew we’d have to try that. The dessert was called Olive Oil Coppetta and had the olive oil gelato, lime curd, pineapple rosemary conserva, passionfruit caramel, and cashew cacao brittle. We also got the Black and White, which was layered with milk chocolate chip gelato, hazelnut croccante, crème fraiche gelato, chocolate sauce, and caramel crema. Both of the desserts were very different, but equally delicious!


Overall, our meal was really enjoyable and the atmosphere was great for catching up with friends.

Penelope: A Fantastic NYC Lunch Spot

We arrived in New York the afternoon before the Santa Margherita Great Taste Challenge in time for a late lunch. Thankfully, we had done some research beforehand; we were so hungry after we landed that we probably would have gone to the first place we saw! We had decided on a little restaurant called Penelope, so we made the short walk from the hotel to Murray Hill.

Penelope felt really quaint even though it was just blocks from the hustle-bustle of Midtown. The weather was beautiful, so the floor to ceiling windows were opened up to the street.

We ordered the guacamole as soon as we sat down. It turned out to be a huge portion alongside different types of toasted bread, which was a nice change from standard tortilla chips. As you can see, we sort of dug in before I got a chance to snap a picture:


It was a tough call, but I decided that the BBLT was calling my name. It had double the bacon of a regular BLT, a black pepper balsamic mayo, and was served on toasted sourdough bread. It was, by far, the best BLT I’ve ever had.


Katie went with the panko-crusted calamari salad with spinach, papaya, mango and a green goddess dressing. I stole a bite (or two), and it was also amazing.


I’ll definitely be back!