MAIALINO.

Maialino, the Roman trattoria housed in the Gramercy Park Hotel, has been receiving a lot of positive press over the past few months so I decided to check it out last Tuesday evening. If you attempt to make dinner reservations here, be prepared to dine anywhere between 9:30pm-11pm because every "normal" reservation from now until next month is completely booked. Coincidentally our reservation happened to be on the night when a huge snowstorm was predicted to devastate the city and its surrounding boroughs - and our 9pm reservation thankfully turned into an 8pm due to cancellations. A little snow certainly wasn't going to stop us piglets from getting our grub on.


Despite the fact that Maialino features its own bread bar, our bread basket was filled with slices of some uninspired loaf and thin bread sticks. The only slight saving grace may have been this softer flat bread that would have tasted better had it been salty and/or garlicky.


The pasta at Maialinio is fantastic. Don't expect to find a lot of red sauces and meat ragus at this establishment - the Romans don't treat their pasta that way. The Tonnarelli Cacio e Pepe makes me wonder why Italians thought tomatoes belonged on pasta in the first place. The tonnarelli, which can best be described as a square-ish spaghetti, is lovingly and perfectly coated in a light sauce of Pecorino cheese and black pepper by Chef Nick Anderer. The simple components in this dish remind me of that Breyer's commercial where children read off the ingredients found in a container of Breyer's ice cream - "Just milk, cream, and sugar." I am amazed at the power of a few ingredients.


I ordered the Raviolo Al Uovo - which is a ravioli filled with egg, spinach, and ricotta!!


As soon as you cut into the ravioli, the egg yolk comes pouring out and mixes with the slightly sweet sauce (of brown butter and nutmeg). I made sure to cover each bite of wrapper, ricotta, and spinach in a healthy amount of sweet-yolky-sauce. It is an absolutely delicious and decadent mixture. My mind was also completely BOGGLED by the engineering of the ravioli. How did they manage to get (what I thought was) a poached egg wrapped into a ball of cheese and spinach...and then covered by a ravioli wrapper!??!!? The mystery consumed me until I came upon...


...THIS IMAGE from the gallery of Lupa, another Roman restaurant in West Village. OMG it makes SOOO much more sense now - it is not a POACHED EGG (silly me). It is simply an egg yolk dumped into a mound of cheese/spinach that is already sitting atop a ravioli wrapper. The wrapper is not folded over like that of an Asian dumpling. Rather, the Italians CHEAT and simply place another wrapper on top of this mixture and seal the edges. I am kind of disappointed now that the magic is gone...but that's not going to stop me from eating another one of these amazing egg raviolis in the future.


My secondi was a Olive-oil Poached Halibut Filet on top of Swiss Chard and Farro Stew. I don't know why I always order fish at Italian restaurants when time and time again, I am disappointed!! I need to grow over my fear of carbs and just order TWO primis next time. The halibut meat did not absorb any flavors from the sauce. And I didn't like the rough texture of the farro in the stew - it reminded me of soup from a Progresso can (ouch, burn).


For dessert my friend ordered an olive oil cake which basically tasted like pound cake that had been soaked in olive oil for a few hours. As you can imagine, I did not enjoy it.


My dessert choice, however, was a little more enjoyable. I ordered the chocolate and hazelnut bread pudding, which turned out far better than your typical bread pudding.


The cake shell was nice and warm and had a slightly gummy texture which I enjoyed. Once you broke into the middle, you found lovely bites of chocolate and hazelnut nestled in between the cake's gummy fibers. Delicious!

And for my closing statement - I would visit Maialino again but make the conscious decision to get my calorie-fill from a comforting bowl or two of carbs, rather than from their larger entrees or desserts.