9.07.2007

From Spain To Italy

Last night I went with The Lady to a wine & cheese class at Murray's cheese shop. The topic was A Rough Guide To Spain and featured 7 wines (2 whites, 1 rose, 2 reds, a muscatel and a sherry). I have to say I was very impressed from start to finish. Both of the instructors - Kerin Auth (wine) & Nora Singley (cheese) were very knowledgeable and enthusiastic and their parings overall were very well thought out. The classroom space was cozy and intimate and crowd was a good group of diversepeople. Definitely worth $65 and I will be returning to try another one.

After dinner we headed over to one of the latest dining hotspots, Centro Vinoteca. This was when our night took a turn for the worst. I really can't say too much good about this place. Upon walking in, the maitre d' wasn't really making anyone feel welcome (I think he just cared more about floating around looking good and he wasn't even that attractive). We were promptly shown to our table (I'll give them that) which was seated directly under a speaking BLARING the most FRANTIC music. We asked to move upstairs but because they were sold out the manager told us he would turn the music down. Sadly, that didn't help much - the place is SUPER loud regardless. Next up - our waiter. Terrible again. He had no real knowledge of the wine or food which made ordering laughable. We ended up starting with 2 picolini (small plates) - zucchini & parmigiano fritters with a spicy tomato sauce ($5) and white bean puree with prosciutto ($4) - both very unremarkable. Next we split an appetizer - the grilled sea scallops with watermelon, watermelon rind pickles, dandelion greens & watermelon radishes ($15). To me this dish was one of those disaster dishes that show up on Top Chef (the scallop/watermelon/onion combination did not work for us AT ALL). Finally we made it to the pasta course. I went for the bucatini all’amatriciana ($12) - too salty and with no kick at all. The Lady had the pici pasta with sweet & spicy sausage ragu ($14). This dish was even worse than mine - the sausage had little flavor and the pasta tasted almost rubbery. All I can say was this place is BARELY a step up from Morandi. In terms of the chef, I guess being Mario Batali's right hand on Iron Chef America does not really hold as much weight as I thought it did.

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