A Leisurely Lunch at Otto

Okay, I have to start this post just by showing these pictures. OMG how good does this food look!!



These are the Brussels sprouts con vin cotto and the Octopus, celery and lovage.

I honestly had to look up what lovage was(thank goodness for wikipedia) and it's basically a plant that resembles celery.

It doesn't really matter because in the end the taste of these two dishes were ridiculously good and I am honestly salivating a little just staring at them right now.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Mr. T and I headed out on Saturday ready to do some shopping and hit up Bottlerocket's Thanksgiving wine and food tasting.

We got to Bottlerocket about 2:30 and the line was already huge!!

Mr. T is not one to wait in line for anything, so after some discussion we decided to leave the line, do some shopping and go enjoy a nice lunch at Otto instead.

For those of you that don't know, Otto is one of Mario Batali's restaurants that is known mostly for it's pizzas and wine.

We had been here a couple times at dinner and it was always hectic and rushed. I never really had a good time.

But after enjoying such a fantastic meal at Babbo last year I said I needed to give Otto another try when it wasn't so crowded. So this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

As we walked to Otto the beautiful sunny day we were having gave way to dark storm clouds and as we we entered the restaurant we realized we would probably have to wait out a storm for a while.

So rather than just ordering a glass of wine or two we decided to go for a whole bottle!

What else can you do on a rainy Saturday afternoon?

After trying out a couple different wines we ended up with a very nice bottle of red from the wonderful bartender.



After selecting our wine we decided to start out with some appetizers.

Our first order was some prosciutto.



I have to say, this is some of the best prosciutto I have ever had in NYC. It was perfectly sliced and had a soft, creamy texture that was simply delicious.

We also ordered the Sformato di Parmigiano salad.



This was basically a cheesy egg custard of sorts with a radicchio salad covered in balsamic vinegar.

This was also excellent. The sformato had an interesting texture and taste that went perfectly with the strong balsamic and salad.

We gobbled both of these up in a matter of minutes.

Our first dishes were all so good we decided to order some more and went for our wonderful sprouts and octopus you saw above, as well as an order of the Rigatoni con Sausage & Swiss Chard.



The pasta was of course cooked perfectly and the swiss chard and sausage were mixed with a little garlic butter sauce that made this dish outstanding,

The nice thing about the dish was that it wasn't too heavy. Sometimes after a bowl of pasta I feel like just going to take a nap. After this one I felt surprisingly light and ready to eat some more even.

Which is good because if I had been too full I may have missed out on one of the most fantastic desserts ever!!

This is called the Black & White.



The bottom is milk chocolate chip gelato, covered with a creme fraiche gelato with hazelnut brittle pieces mixed inside, chocolate sauce and topped off with a caramel crema.

Separately, these ingredients wouldn't work, the bitter caramel, sour creme fraiche and sweet chocolate all have their cons but together they combined to make one of the greatest tasting desserts ever.

Words cannot describe how wonderfully delicious this was. I could have eaten about ten. Sundaes have always been my favorite dessert treat and this is definitely one of the best.

We finished our meal off with a couple of macchiatos and happy filled bellies.

One of the best parts of the meal was the price. For all of this food and a fantastic bottle of wine the total was a just under $100. That is quite a good deal in my book.

The best way to enjoy Otto is definitely like this. Go at an off hour, sit at the bar and just while away a lazy afternoon with the one you love. What a perfect way to spend a Saturday.

Otto Pizzeria

Comments

Kathy YL Chan said…
"The best way to enjoy Otto is definitely like this. Go at an off hour, sit at the bar and just while away a lazy afternoon with the one you love." -> much agreed! My favourite time to visit Otto are weekday afternoons, and lazy weekends when it's calmer and less touristy. Give the pumpkin copetta try in your next time visit - it's my favourite gelato copetta on the menu as of this week, lol :)