Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

At long last, we meet you Marta! Marta is an Italian restaurant in the lobby of the Martha Washington hotel in Gramercy/Flatiron.  It opened a little over half a year ago, and it was nearly impossible to get a reservation.  Marta was the talk of the town.  I read a review in Time Out New York that brought tears to my eyes and saliva to my mouth; I want to know what pizza crust shattering like fine blown glass tasted like!!  I follow them on Instagram and all their photos are mouth-wateringly enticing.  We tried getting a table on a walk-in once in January and were told it would be a three hour wait.  Was the hype worth it?  Turns out...YES! Reservations are a little easier to come by now.  We popped in for lunch today and were greeted with a sexy/dark/minimalist aesthetic and massive cherry tree branches in vases sprouting to the ceiling.  The wait between ordering and pizza reception was a little longer than I anticipated...

All my life, I've lived near L&B Spumoni Gardens, known as one of NYC's best pizzerias, but haven't ventured there until this weekend.  With sunshine and blue skies on the forecast, we planned a 35-minute walk down 86th Street in search of pizza, especially after seeing Time Out New York's Best Pizza list. We got two square Sicilian slices at L&B.  You can also get round slices (which...I didn't immediately realize meant came from round pizza, rather than actual round...slices...of pizza :-P), but you really only go to L&B for the Sicilian pizza.  We sat in the little outside dining area under the beaming spring sun and chowed down on delicious pizza.  Normally, I'm not a fan of Sicilian pizza because I much prefer thinner and crunchy crusts, but even though L&B's had a thicker crust, it had an amazingly crisp bottom and a pillowy fluffy center. Mozzarella cheese sits directly on top of the crust, which is covered by a sweet-tangy toma...

Today, I had a beautiful lunch at Otto Enoteca Pizzeria and it made me realize and appreciate how life-changing good Italian food can be.   In pictures ripped from my Instagram: We had a few cheeses to start, accompanied by my favorite truffle honey .  Gladly, no one else in my dining party was such a fan, so I hogged the whole dish and proceeded to drizzle it on absolutely everything!  I had a delicious arugula prosciutto pizza, which oddly means I had pizza a grand total of four times this week (and lasagna twice more...YOLO).  In hindsight, I'm in awe of the fact that I had Italian food so frequently this week by some random coincidences, but it's all been delizioso . Posts from our other Italian eating adventures to come!

What more could you ask for on a Friday evening than the company of your closest friends, beautiful weather, pizza, and ice cream? Last Friday night (TGIF), I had just those four things as I dined at Peppino's in Park Slope.  Peppino's is a brick oven pizzeria with an intimate, rustic-looking dining area.  Eight of us were gathered around a table, practically salivating after a long walk to get there.  We split a meal, family style, consisting of an antipasta dish, two salads, and three small pizzas (margarita, alla vodka, and diavolo). The food was pretty standard Italian cuisine, which reminded me how good simple food with unpretentious ingredients can be.  I had a bite of mozzarella, a bite of sundried tomato ( very  good), some Caesar salad, some mixed salad with balsamic dressing, a slice of margarita pizza, and a slice of pizza alla vodka.  I had all the quintessential tastes and colors of Italy: tomato, basil, cheese, balsamic, vodka (just ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX! In celebration of my favorite co-blogger's birthday, and in enjoyment of today's beautiful weather, Alex and I ventured around Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in search of a suitable place for dinner.  We were content to slowly stroll through the peaceful, tree-lined streets of Bay Ridge, stopping in Middle Eastern bakeries to peek at the baklava and watching in curiosity at eyebrows being threaded. Finally, Alex settled on Giacomo's, an Italian restaurant with a brick pizza oven.  The wait staff was very friendly and the ambiance was inviting and classy.  We were seated quickly and our food came in no time. Since we were in a celebratory mood, I craved something hearty and indulgent: spaghetti carbonara.  My plate had a heaping pile of spaghetti and a puddle of carbonara cream sauce, complete with pancetta bits, onion, and black pepper.  I was a little afraid at first that the pasta would get clumpy and the sauce would form a film over it on...

At long last, I can check one thing off my food spreadsheet: artichoke pizza from Artichoke Bastille's Pizzeria. We went to the one on 14th Street that apparently has a new tiny dining room.  We ordered a large pie to split between three people (hi NSM!)...which was maybe a mistake because after 2 slices each, we were already in food-pregnancy states, and there were still 2 slices to go.  Leftovers! The artichoke pie was beautiful.  It was enormous and thick, unlike the usual New York pizza (you know what I'm talking about, the thin crunchy crust that barely holds up when you lift the slice).  The pie was covered in this cream sauce, dotted with wilted spinach and chopped artichoke hearts. First, I dug into the crust.  This is how I eat pizza, end of story.  The crust tore off easily, and was flaky rather than dough-y!  Such an interesting texture.  The pizza was piping hot and retained that heat while we ate.  Once I bit into ...

I know I've just written about Otto, but tonight I had a marvelous dinner that cemented its reputation as one of my favorite restaurants in New York City.  Did I mention that I shook hands with and exchanged a brief conversation with Mario Batali???  STARSTRUCK. We ordered a cheese platter that came with a trio of condiments: truffle honey, cherries in brandy sauce, and apricots in mustard and chili oil.  The cheeses that we ordered were: triple cream goat cheese, ricotta, ubriaco, quadrello, and rosso di langhe.  Hands down, this cheese platter was the highlight of the meal for me.  Although I wasn't really sure what I was eating, besides the more obvious ricotta and creamy goat cheeses, all the selections were delicious, creamy, and rich. We specifically asked for cheeses that wouldn't assault our noses and taste buds, and this was a great selection.  The ricotta was fluffy and light, the goat cheese was similar to French brie that Alex loves so mu...

On my birthday weekend, Alex and I were going to have a quiet, peaceful dinner at Luzzo's, a brick oven pizza place near Alphabet City.  The place was small and people waiting for tables were squashed all around the entrance.  The hostess said we could sit downstairs, so we headed down a rickety staircase but when we entered the dining area in the basement, a bunch of people sitting at a long table shouted "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" and hoisted gifts and iPhones in the air.  I gasped, froze for a few moments, and then turned around and started sobbing, happy tears of course.  There are videos of this on people's iPhones apparently...how embarrassing! I was a little bit too aflutter to really remember what we ate, but between our group of 8 people, we split 4 pizzas.  Thinking back on it now, I literally don't remember what we ate, but I do remember it was good.  The pizza was a bit soggy after a while because we all started swapping slices/fourths of ...

As fate would have it, last week I basically met Mario Batali. Met his gaze, that is.  I was walking to campus when I saw an unusual sight stopped at a traffic light.  I promise you, it was the orange Crocs that I saw first.  Then the orange helmet.  And that sexy green Vespa!  It had to be Mario Batali!  And, as I walked in the crosswalk no more than 5 feet in front of him, we totally made eye contact.  Actually just last night by pure coincidence, I watched A Day in the Life: Mario Batali.  He explained his philosophy behind food and even though it sounds a little cliche and cheesy, it was basically: to use simple, fresh ingredients to cook things people wouldn't normally make at home.   Today, Alex surprised me with an after-8-hours-in-lab dinner at Otto Enoteca Pizzeria, one of Mario Batali's restaurants in New York City.  We've eaten here before, last summer when we all looked kind of like little...

Hey.  Hey guys.  We're going to let you in on a really great secret.  Can't get reservations for Valentine's Day dinner next Tuesday?  Forget that.  You and your hunny should check out Saluggi's in Tribeca.  We had dinner there last night and I'm still craving their food (and Alex is still eating their food; more on that later). When I first walked into the place, I thought we were having dinner at a run-of-the-mill pizzeria.  It's fairly dark inside, but its bare brick walls are illuminated by a neon pink scripty sign of "Saluggi's NYC".  At the back, the kitchen and bar were pretty open, but it was a little odd looking, since the dining area seemed to blend seamlessly into the waitstaff's prep area and kitchen....  They don't earn too many points for decor in my book, save for an interesting painting of a subway car facing me, but their food makes up for that. Everything on their menu sounded delicious, and was moderately pric...

Sorry for being missing in action so long.  We've suddenly become very busy folks.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: it's tough being a second-term senior! Last week, we visited the Food Hall at the Plaza Hotel for dinner.  The Food Hall is not your typical restaurant.  It is in the style of traditional European food halls.  Now, what is a food hall, you ask?  A food hall is like a food court after you put stiletto heels and lipstick and a little black dress on it.  There are many stations that prepare different foods and usually high tables for you to stand around and sip your wine with your pinkie held out. By far my favorite food hall is the one in Harrods, the mega-department store in London.  Both times I visited Harrods, I neglected the "shopping" part and just wandered around its food hall.  When you first enter Harrods, you see the typical department store offerings: handbags, gloves, scarves, leather goods, cosmetic...