extremely belated march dinner: sfoglia
Jason posted on May 2nd, 2008
Sfoglia has always been our white whale. Nicole, who is much more restaurant-savvy than I am, has been trying to get us reservations there for months and months. It’s one of those "hot" restaurants - it’s tiny, has a modern Italian menu, and is all the way on the Upper East Side, but Nicole, who lives right above the restaurant (literally), has seen Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes walk out, as well as Jerry Seinfeld and his wife, Clive Owen, and other really rich and famous people. It’s currently booked solid through June.I don’t care for such things, personally. Even though Nicole and I have been having monthly dinner dates at various nice restaurants in NYC for almost two years now, I wouldn’t say that I have good taste in food. I wouldn’t say that I have bad taste either, but a more appropriate description of my culinary palate would be junior high. If a junior high student loves it, then I love it. I like butter, I like cream, I like sugar, I like cheese, I like steak (not necessarily in that order). I’ll take a big piece of beef with a side of cheesy potatoes and creamed spinach, a generous pour of whiskey, and a giant piece of pie over almost anything else.
Usually, I like to case out a restaurant and study its menu the day of a dinner. I’m a planner and I like going in with a plan: I know what I want from the appetizer on through the dessert. I feel like this enhances the dining experience, since I can spend all afternoon and the early part of the evening fantasizing about that particular meal. What’s the quote - "the best part of sex is the walk up the stairs"? Looking at the menu, deciding what I’m getting, and thinking about it all day is my walk up the stairs.
But for Sfoglia, I couldn’t pick my meal in advance. This is not because I was without internet or temporarily unable to read, but because of what the hell is on their menu. Here’s a sampling:
affettati misti
olive oil poached fluke, red onion, sesame seed zabaglione
wild mushroom soup, crisp guanciale, vin santo cream
stinging nettle, crab rotolo in tomato
riso venere, steamed cockles, jalepeno, parsley
pasta sciue sciue
broiled orata, lemon marmellata
A couple of things:
1) I consider myself reasonably intelligent and well-read, and I have (at least) a working knowledge of Latin, Greek and Spanish and a little bit of Russian, and yet I can recognize maybe 40% of the words in those descriptions. 40% on a good day.
2) I believe "zabaglione" is not a food, but an Italian slang term for when a girl puts her finger in a man’s heinie while giving him a blowjob. "So she’s down there, right, sucking away, and then all of a sudden - zabaglione!"
3) Likewise, "guanciale" is slang for African-American penis. "She’s hot, and I really like her, but I can’t compete - she loves the guanciale."
4) "Pasta sciue sciue" is gibberish. I’m not even going to argue this. It’s like if I made "cheesesteak balki balki." Complete gibberish, but no one wants to call it out, lest they look unsophisticated.
This is what we were going into when we arrived at Sfoglia. I was not properly in the mood for dinner and might as well have looked at the menu blindfolded from all I was able to ascertain from it. Instead, I looked around the room: the eating area was small, definitely cozy, even rustic and charming. But again, I don’t care about these details - I would eat a pile of spaghetti and meatballs in a peep show booth. Really, whatever.
I started with the mushroom soup, basically because I am familiar with mushroom soup and I like every kind of cream. Nicole had the cheese plate, which I didn’t realize was on the menu, since it was not called cheese plate. Nicole won the battle of the appetizers, as her plate of three cheeses and homemade jam on gingersnap-type crackers was incredible - one smooth cheese, one moldy cheese and one cheese that was so good I can only assume it was made from clouds and the laughter of innocent babies. My mushroom soup was not shabby by any means, but my first remark after trying it was, "I don’t think I’m good enough for this soup." I realize it was complex and probably would be very critically-acclaimed, but I couldn’t appreciate it. I’m too poor, too dumb, too unkempt. Such is life, and we move on.
For the main course, Nicole got something that appeared to be broad flat noodles with a meat sauce that was not tomato-based. I got the "stinging nettle, crab rotolo in tomato" which I can tell you translates to "crab lasagna (more or less)." Again, Nicole bested me. Her pasta and meat sauce made my eyes water a little bit, because it was everything the mushroom soup wasn’t: so profoundly simple that I was moved by its delicious. When I ordered the crab, I envisioned huge chunks of crab meat and…well, I didn’t know what else to expect. Instead, there was no crab meat to be seen - there was crab essence in the ricotta-type cheese found between the noodles. Delicious, to be sure, but not breathtaking.
Finally for dessert, Nicole got the homemade mint chocolate chip gelato and I went with some parfait with coconut meringue and plum. Advantage: Jason. This is what I’m talking about - delicate, creamy, the perfect contrast between the meringue and the plum. Nicole raved about her gelato and made me taste it, and I was thoroughly disgusted. But know this: I hate mint. Hate it with the fire of a thousand suns and a million stars. If I went to my grocer’s freezer and saw only two Ben & Jerry’s options - Mint Chocolate Chip or Ron Jeremy’s Spunk ‘Scream made with Semen-Flavored Ice Cream and sprinkled with Moustache Hairs and Valtrex - I’d probably take the Spunk ‘Scream.
That concluded our night at Sfoglia. A good dinner, maybe even a very good dinner, but one that needs to be taken down a notch. (We get it - your menu speaks Italian. Just tell us what’s in the food, for Chrissake.) Save yourself the wait time on the phone go to one of the countless restaurants in NYC that deliver with they promise. Then cap the night off with some Spunk ‘Scream (if Oatmeal Cookie Chunk is not available).