[Sneakeater]

Quinto Quarto is a Roman restaurant opening this week on Bedford St. in the Village (in the space that used to house AOC Bedford).

Here's a link to the first of a series of posts in another thread that discuss it:

http://mouthfulsfood.com/forums//index.php...t&p=1011983

[Sneakeater]

Continuing from this post in that other thread:

Wow. They're serving pajata? Maybe they can sell it if they don't say what it is on the menu.

Although it'll still look plenty suspicious when they put it in front of you. (Well, not you. Or me. But, you know, other people.)

ETA: Looking at the menu, they DON'T say. This can be fun.

ETA: They serve it as a secondo. I've only had it as a pasta topping.

I know - I can't imagine a steaming plateful of the stuff.

I dunno. I've managed to polish off platefuls of sweet-and-sour fried goose intestines.

[joethefoodie]

Continuing from this post:

Wow. They're serving pajata? Maybe they can sell it if they don't say what it is on the menu.

Although it'll still look plenty suspicious when they put it in front of you. (Well, not you. Or me. But, you know, other people.)

ETA: Looking at the menu, they DON'T say. This can be fun.

ETA: They serve it as a secondo. I've only had it as a pasta topping.

I know - I can't imagine a steaming plateful of the stuff.

I dunno. I've managed to polish off platefuls of sweet-and-sour fried goose intestines.

Yes, but they were FRIED.

[Sneakeater]

Well, as the folks up the street from me at Mitchell's can tell you, I've also managed to knock back steaming plates of chitterlings on many many occassions.

[Sneakeater]

Maybe instead of "Quinto Quarto", this thread should be called "Intestinal Fortitude".

[Wilfrid1]

I ate a frightful amount of tripe in France last week. Just embarrassing. My first two sit-down meals when I arrived were andouillette and tripoux.

[nuxvomica]

Continuing from this post in that other thread:

Wow. They're serving pajata? Maybe they can sell it if they don't say what it is on the menu.

Although it'll still look plenty suspicious when they put it in front of you. (Well, not you. Or me. But, you know, other people.)

ETA: Looking at the menu, they DON'T say. This can be fun.

ETA: They serve it as a secondo. I've only had it as a pasta topping.

I know - I can't imagine a steaming plateful of the stuff.

I dunno. I've managed to polish off platefuls of sweet-and-sour fried goose intestines.

i was very excited to see pajata on their menu (on their website) but spoke very recently with another restaurateur who said he had been told (by a butcher) it was not legal to serve here. would be interesting to find out whether true (or perhaps an issue with sourcing)

[Sneakeater]

I should add that they also have oxtail on their menu, which is part of the "fifth quarter" even if we no longer consider it offal here in the States.

[Sneakeater]

Imagine my surprise to realize that I was going to a play last night right up the street from Quinto Quarto.

The interior looks like AOC Bedford with a lot of Italian signs hung on the wall. The staff is all Italian -- but with better English than the guys at Sora Lella. They do one of the better renditions of the over-familiar Italian waiter that I've ever experienced in New York. Charming, so it doesn't seem intrusive. Well, at least on first visit.

The crowd (except for me) was exceedingly attractive. Even the older people (except for me). It was really noticeable. I wonder who all those people are.

The menu is not the one on their website. (Well, not the one on their website yesterday -- I just checked and they changed it to reflect what's on offer now.) No pajata. No coda alla vaccinara. Not even any tripe. When I pouted about the pajata, the waiter told me they were rolling things out slowly, starting with the more conventional dishes. He also told me they were having problems sourcing veal intestine. He promised pajata within a few weeks.

I liked everything I had. I started with a blood orange, olive, and fennel salad -- a recent fave from the Franny's menu. It was excellent here, too. Then Bombololotti alla Gricia (with pecorino, guanciale, and chili), which I think I last had at Vini e Olii in Brooklyn. This rendition was much better. Finally, the saltimbocca, not the best of all time but perfectly acceptable, if a bit unpleasantly pasty (the accompanying fried potatoes actually good).

Throughout, they kept sending additional dishes to the room for everyone to try. None appears on the menu. One was a really satisfying soup, perhaps a bread soup (but not a ribollita), rich but not overwhelming. Another was a pasta with a sort of green nut pesto, very good.

And, they sent out a dessert platter. One dessert -- a chocolate/apple tart in an olive oil crust -- was out of this world. The orange tart was also very good. The white wine dough rings were, to me, a more typical Italian dessert, dry and uninteresting.

The wine list is limited. But we were able to drink a bottle of Zenato Valpolicella at a not-horrible price.

We'll have to watch this place to see if they really do roll out the more exotic Roman dishes they promise. For now, I'm solidly in their corner. Not anything approaching great, but another (much) better-than-run-of-the-mill, reasonably priced Italian place, which is always welcome.

[awbrig]

That sounds delicious Sneak. Thanks for the write-up.

[fentona]

It's disappointing to see a place with that name but with no offal on the menu. But if they ever do add coratella with artichokes, I'll make a trip to NYC just to eat it.

[Sneakeater]

I should add, in case it's as important to anyone else as it is to me, that there's no bar here or any other special accomodation for solo dining. I'm sure they'd give you a table if there was one, but nothing along the lines we habitual solo diners are used to.

(Luckily, I was with someone last night.)

[joethefoodie]

I'm looking forward to see how they settle in.

[Sneakeater]

This place is really very winning.

The staff has the friendly-but-hip-young-Italians-who-nevertheless-don't-take-over-your-dinner-like-the-maniacs-at-some-places-in-Brooklyn thing down.

The room is just jolly. It's funny how different the feel is from AOC Bedford in the same space. That place was a little bit sedate. This is like the Feste Romane.

Although they have still failed to add pajata to their menu (they must be finding out it's illegal here), the food remains above-average.

Last night:

An onion soup. This was nothing like French onion soup. It was a semi-solid glop of onions, bread, and cheese. If that sounds good to you (as it does to me), you'd like it.

Thick stringy pasta called something like Lombrichetta in a spicy tomato sauce. Very good.

Braised beef in a tomato sauce. Aha: here's where we see how to place this spot. Compare this dish to the somewhat similar braised (hmmm . . . maybe they're baked) beef ribs at Andrew Carmellini's new venture, Locanda Verde. In terms of quality of ingredients, quality of execution, and depth of flavor, Carmellini's beef dish wipes this one out. The current Locanda Verde backlash notwithstanding, this shows why Loncanda Verde is a (modestly scaled) destination restaurant, whereas Quinto Quarto remains a very good neighborhood option.

To further place Quinto Quarto, I'd say it's not nearly as good as Al Di La in Brooklyn. But, unlike Al Di La, Quinto Quarto is in a neighborhood that people other than H. du Bois, Lex, Seth, Steve R., and me might actually find themselves in. For neighborhood-type spots -- even very good ones -- the placement of the neighborhood is really kinda crucial.

So next time you're around Qunito Quarto, don't hesitate to go there. You'll have a good time.

[Daisy]

Thanks, this is useful. I spend a good deal of time in that area and it's nice to have an alternative to Blue Ribbon wine bar and 'ino, especailly since they are so teeny and fill up so quickly.