Osteria

Le pizza tradizionale margherita: tomato, basil, and mozzarella - The pizza at Osteria has been lauded for being the best pizza...ever. The flavor was delicious and the ingredients were fresh (especially the mozzarella). While I don't want to be the only one to criticize this pizza, I wish it didn't sag when you picked it up. I once heard that a really good slice of pizza is one that has a thin crust, but that doesn't droop when you pick it up. The pizza at Osteria will be 100% perfect after it attains that feat!


"Ciareghi" house made cotechino sausage with polenta and sunny-side up egg - Too salty, but the polenta was out of this world - it "calmed" the dish down and had a wonderful soft texture.


Candele with wild boar bolognese - While I normally don't like to order pasta at restaurants, I decided to do so at Osteria because Mark Vetri's pasta at his namesake is the best item on the menu. The candele was a bit too heavy for my liking, and I would have preferred a taste, as opposed to an entire bowl. It was heavy - and thus perfect for the cold winter night on which I was there - but too much for one person.


Chocolate flan with pistacchio gelato - I was not disappointed that this was not flan, because it was chocolate lava cake instead! The best chocolate lava cake I ever had was at a small french restaurant in the Upper East Side of Manhattan (L'Etats Units), but this may have topped that. The chocolate cake on the outside was soft and moist (not too well done like it sometimes is). The center was bursting with delicious, warm fudge that ran perfectly all over the plate and into the cold pistachio ice cream that created a perfect contrast.