Cipollina

1213 West Lynn

Austin, Tx 78703

http://www.cipollina-austin.com/

Before I start this review, let me apologize for not posting in the past week. Laura's living the high life in Mexico and I've had 2 midterms. Life sucks sometimes, but we all have to remember what is important - food...

Laura and I went to the Tasting Tuesday at Specs last week. I know I went last time and just raved about it, but I wasn’t all that impressed this time. The food was the same, the wine was still cheap, and the people that frequent it are entirely too old and suburban for my tastes. Wait. Maybe I’m becoming old and suburban. Shit. Laura and I still managed to have a fairly good time despite the “housewives gone wild” vibe the place had. We even met up with two of my new friends Linda and Nate. Well they’re really my brother’s friends (or more specifically Nate is my brother’s boss), but I like them and they’re fun to hang out with. Anyway, none of the wines were really worth writing home about, always noteworthy is the incredible goat feta served by CKC Farms out of Blanco. Their marinated feta is to DIE for. After we were finished drinking (well after Laura and I had sampled everything and Nate and Linda had wussed out and thrown in the towel) we decided to go to Cipollina to grab a quick bite to eat. Laura and I were going to hit up some free pre-SXSW parties so we decided to try something central and I wanted pasta.

We all drove (in 3 cars, we’re so American) to Cipollina on W. Lynne. Its in a really nice Central Austin neighborhood. Its surrounded by other local favorites, Galaxy Café, Zocalo, and Jeffry’s nestled in the cute Clarksville bungalows. Its in a strip mall next to a grocery store, but in Clarksville somehow that normally bland description transforms into a quaint and inviting actuality. There’s not a lot of parking so if you come during peak hours be prepared to park in the street. The actual restaurant itself is not very large - maybe only 20 tables – with a large granite topped bar that opens to the kitchen. The atmosphere is warm and inviting with large mirrors hung from the ceiling to provide a more open feeling.

You order at the front register, get a number and sit down. After eating at the likes of Primizie and Mandola’s, the menu offerings at Cipollina seemed a little small. There were half a dozen each of salads, pizzas, pastas, etc. Each one sounded tasty, but not the gourmet fare I had been used to. I went with the ravioli, Laura got the rosemary and truffle pizza, Linda got the duck confit salad, and I currently forget what Nate ordered. The food arrived promptly and looked very appetizing. The ravioli were fat stuffed squares covered in a light broth. The pizza was thin and covered with wall to wall white cheese. And the pulled duck was mounded high and inviting on the confit salad. Unfortunately the reality of the food didn’t live up to the appetizing vision before us. It was fresh but wasn’t really to my taste. The ravioli just wasn’t what I was looking for. I thought is would be cheese ravioli in a meat/broth sauce, but instead it was meat stuffed with nary a pocket of cheese to be found. It was very filling too. I could only finish 2 or 3 or the half dozen raviolis offered. Laura’s pizza was tasty, but without all that rosemary! They literally put clumps of the stuff all over the pizza and it was way too overpowering. I had a couple pieces of her pie and took to picking it off. With just a hint of the rosemary flavor it was quite a good pizza. They should really think of chopping it up or switching to rosemary oil to get the proper flavor balance. Linda’s Duck Confit salad was pretty tasty with shredded duck pieces heaped on top of a bed of fresh greens. We opted not to get dessert as Laura and I were heading downtown to meet up with Eric to hit some of the pre-SXSW shows.

Laura's note: I get what they were trying to achieve through simplicity, but I could have gone out to the garden and retrieved a handful of rosemary to sprinkle about the top myself. The failure to integrate the rosemary into the dish was a huge disappointment, but as Mariah pointed out, the pizza sans rosemary was tasty. I'd actually been to Cipollina once before and had an amazing salad. In fact one of the best salads I have ever had. They could do with expanding their menu... and keeping their staff off the Redbull. I thought the guy behind the counter the last time I was there was going to have to run some laps around the block before taking our order. Overall I find the food good, but the restaurant a little pretentious. Maybe a great place to take your in-laws or that college student you are dating and trying to impress with your casual sauve-ness. But back to what Mariah was saying...

We parked on 7th thinking we were going to the Beauty Bar to see the Mercers but apparently we missed that show and Eric had moved on to Mrs. Bea’s. When we called him he said Mrs. Bea’s was like half a block from Emo’s so we decided to head over. We walked a block east of Emo’s, then another and before long we were bumping up against I-35 and there was no Mrs. Bea’s. We called Eric again and he assured us it was just on the other side of I-35. But as some of you may know, parts east of 35 are known for being a little rough. So we assumed our best “I’ll kick you in the nuts if you fuck with us” faces and ventured into lands unknown. We walked and walked and walked and FINALLY came to a run down Mexican cinder block bar. We asked the guy cooking sausages out front where Mrs. Bea’s is and he said this was it. Well it didn’t look like much but we went in anyway. The party in the back was like something out of movie. 19 year old tragically hip college students (and I say tragically because I know they were going for totally hip, but come on, who really wears red jump suits and sports plaid sports jackets??) dancing around to a half way decent band. We found Eric and his friend Matt and boy were we in for a surprise. Eric was TOTALLY soused. We had a great time dancing to the first band, then making fun of the second band – an all girl trio who thought music was mumbling into a microphone while a repetitive electronic beat thumped in the background. It was awful. Laura took off at some point and had a life evaluating conversation with a 19 year old college student on her walk back to her apartment. I of course decided to stay and partake of the festivities. The bands got worse – the third band was a hip-hop/rap group that made us get low, so low that when they dropped to the ground and started shaking and convulsing to their music. At that point we decided it was time to split. Eric accosted the poor sausage merchant in his frenzied attempt to get a sausage (note to Eric, don’t drink on an empty stomach dude), ran into oncoming traffic on the I-35 frontage road while walking back, then peed on a car for a $1 in the parking garage. It was awesome. A fruitful night.

Bottom Line: Average Italian or Below Average Gourmet Italian – you pick

Mariah - 7

Primizie, Mariah's Review

1000 East 11th Street, Ste. 150
Austin, TX 78702
512.236.0088
http://www.primizieaustin.com/


So I have a new favorite restaurant in town, Primizie. It’s only been a week since I found out about it, but I’ve already been twice and I’ve loved it both times. I have to admit, I don’t go to east Austin much. I’ve lived in Austin too long and have way too much prejudice about that side of town. When I first moved to Austin as a young single woman, you just didn’t venture too far east of I-35 for fear of being eaten by dragons or attacked by marauding pirates. So now that I’ve moved back, its been a little hard for me to fully embrace the east Austin revitalization. But Laura and I were looking at the map of where we’ve eaten (see the interactive yahoo map below and be amazed), and we realized that our map was decidedly skewed to the west part of town. So, we’ve recently been taking steps to give the east side of town a little more attention. Out first stop was Primizie. Laura e-mailed me the menu at work last week and asked if I wanted to try it. I said ‘sure, looks decent enough’ so we picked up Elena and headed to 11th street. And how cute is 11th street now?? It’s like a little city street for a block and a half. Good parking, well lit, lots of life on the street. The neighborhood has a nice feel to it. We weren’t paying much attention when we parked and walked into the first restaurant on the street, what we thought was Primizie. When we were finally seated, we realized our error, we had actually walked into Mrs B’s, an upscale Cajun restaurant. We quickly perused the menu and determined there wasn’t one single thing that Laura, our resident veggie, could eat. So while the waiter wasn’t looking, we snuck out the door and continued onto Primizie.

And boy am I glad we did. Primizie is wonderful. Not only is the food good, but its really cute. Its kind of Ikea-esque – it’s got white walls and tables, cute murals on the walls, a nice tall bar, and an open kitchen. There are a couple of tables outside, but not really any outdoor seating (which would be nice). When I went with Laura and Elena, we sat at one of the white plastic tables. Our server was very nice, as is all the wait-staff at Primizie. Elena tried ordering a bottle of wine, but apparently the one she wanted was out of stock, so we went with the server recommendation of one of the Montepulcianos. It was a nice fruity red, not a bad bottle of wine to drink with dinner. I was frickin starving so Laura and I split a salad caprese and Elena ordered their bruschette. They arrived quickly and we dug in. The salad caprese was incredible. Rehydrated (house dried!) sun dried tomatoes, creamy buffalo mozzarella, fresh green basil all drizzled in a delectable balsamic vinegar. Holy crap, it was excellent. If you only go there for the salad caprese you will be a very very happy person. Elena’s bruschette looked equally fresh, but instead of being covered in tomatoes, it was covered in chopped beets. Now if you like beets, then it looked amazing. The beets looked really fresh. But I don’t care for beets so I don’t feel qualified to properly judge her bruschette. The salad caprese went nicely with the montepulciano btw.

But if I was impressed by the appetizer I was blow away by the entrees. Laura’s Ravioli di Caprino con Curro di Oliva weren’t very ravioli-ish in the traditional Chef Boy’ardi sense. They were instead large dough pockets filled with goat cheese and scallions (I think the menu even describes them that way). There were served in a wonderful browned butter sauce. The menu said the sauce had black olive butter, but I couldn’t taste the olives. Elena’s boar gnocchi was incredible. The boar was tender and not at all gamey and came in the most delicious dark espresso sauce (that might have even had chocolate in it). The sauce and boar alone would have been enough to make an excellent stew, but the addition of the tender doughty gnocchi hit the home run out of the park. It was really pricey compared to the other entrees on the menu, but it was well worth whatever they charge for it. But, I have to say my Gnocchi di Patata don Finferlo e Mais was excellent. What was delivered was not at all what I was expecting, but it turned out being wonderful. I had thought the gnocchi would have been served like in most Italian restaurants, with a thick sauce, but was serve was essentially sauceless. The gnocchi was served with hearty chanterelle mushrooms and sweet golden corn which all together had an interesting texture: chewy gnocchi, firm, meaty mushrooms, and little zaps of crunch from the corn. The sage/thyme butter sauce was amazing and heightened the homey feel of the dish. I had flashbacks to cooking dinner at my Italian grandma’s house on a cool crisp fall day – and I don’t have an Italian grandma. That’s how good this dish was.

The dessert was equally as good as the food. There is a glass case by the register filled with sweets, cookies, tarts, etc, but we decided to order off the main dessert menu. We ordered tiramisu and a Torta di Cioccolato d Mandorle, essentially a chocolate almond torte. Now don’t let Laura’s bad review of the tiramisu stop you. I really liked it. Now, true, its not authentic tiramisu. Its about as Americanized as you can get, but its really tasty. The bottom is essentially a coffee soaked cake, but it is a nice plaint cake with a good coffee flavor. With some tiramisu the espresso is so strong it overpowers the rest of the ingredients. But not here, it was flavored perfectly to match the mild creamyness of the mascarpone/cream topping. I didn’t care as much for the chocolate torte, but Laura and Elena couldn’t get enough of it. It was really savory for a dessert. Maybe it was because I was glutting myself on the tiramisu, but when I tasted the torta, it was more salty than savory. The chocolate and almonds were excellent quality and paired nicely together to make a wonderfully moist torta. But it wasn’t very sweet, and when I eat dessert I want some sugar. I also went back a few days later on a date for dessert after a failed dinner at Blue Dahlia Bistro (review of the crappy food will follow). We ordered the Crostata de Mela and (I think) the tiramisu again (sorry, my memory is failing me). But the Crostata de Mela is awesome and is worth noting. It’s a crisp buttery dough (that tastes an awful lot like a sugar cookie) formed into a wreath with a warm apple filling. Top it with ice cream and it’s a winner. Its probably my favorite dessert there.
P.S. Don't order the Sangria. Yuck!

Bottom Line – Good fresh Americanized Italian food with a gourmet twist

Mariah – 9 (it was 9.5 until I saw a cook remove a too big stuffed artichoke from a too small oven then pick the bits of nasty oven residue off the artichoke)

Primizie, Laura's Review

1000 East 11th Street, Ste. 150
Austin, TX 78702

512.236.0088

http://www.primizieaustin.com/

Mariah and I hadn’t seen our beautiful Italian friend Elena for about a month. Elena had been M.I.A. for a few weeks playing catch up from spending two weeks in the Caribbean with her boyfriend. Yeah, we were jealous too. We picked her up from her glamorous job as a PhD student and headed towards East 11th Street for some dinner at Primizie. Taking an Italian to have Italian food in Austin is kinda like the time my friends in Baltimore took me for Tex-Mex, but being as good-natured as she is, she pretended not to mind.

We parked somewhere along the block and mused over the East Austin gentrification project. During the course of our musing, we wandered straight into the nicely done restaurant on the corner and were shown our seat at a candlelit table. We opened our menus and looked over the crawfish etouffe and sausage gumbo- and finally realized we were in the wrong restaurant.

Exit restaurant mildly embarrassed and proceed down the street.

This time we checked the sign before we entered.

Primizie is casually decorated with a trendy modern Italian feel. There are pastries and such at a counter, but this is definitely a sit down establishment with waitstaff. The menu looked amazing – except for the $4 split plate charge. I consulted my dining crew to get a consensus on this and Elena pointed out that this restaurant was not owned by Italians and doubted that the owners even knew any Italians as the menu contained many grammatical and spelling errors… Oops.

The server graciously came by and offered us drinks. I ordered Pellegrino and the others started to look at the wine list. I convinced them in my usual way to go for a bottle. They were out of the first two bottles we chose, but third time was the charm and I remember liking it. My apologies for not remembering what it was.

Mariah and I split an Insalata Caprese – house-dried tomato, local mozzarella, basil, pepper, balsamic and olive oil. It was amazing. The mozzarella was incredible and the tomatoes were that in-between of dryness. It was just enough to give it a mild sweet flavor. The basil was incredible and the presentation was well executed. Elena asked for Bruschetta topped with roasted red and golden beets marinated with arugula, mint and chevre. It was enjoyable, but the caprese was definitely the right choice. We were also served flatbread that I promptly began gluttoning myself with.

For our main courses, Elena ordered the special, Wild Boar gnocchi in espresso sauce. The sauce sounded awesome, but for me, not so much on the Wild Boar. Later Elena explained to me that she always goes for the gnocchi at American Italian restaurants because it’s harder to f up than pasta, even though she actually prefers pasta to gnocchi.

I wanted to order the potato gnocchi with chanterelle mushrooms, roasted sweet corn and sage brown butter, but Mariah arm wrestled me for it and I was left with ravioli- local goat cheese scallion filled pasta pockets with black olive butter and pecorino romano. I suppose we both could have ordered the same thing, but that would be boring. I turned out to be pretty lucky because my ravioli was awesome! It was a bit salty, as black olive butter would tend to insinuate, but at times I can be a salt feen, so this totally worked for me. Plus, it was a complex saltiness from various ingredients, not just a Morton’s Iodized Salt dump on my plate. Mariah let me have a few bites of her gnocchi and it was good as well. We received more flatbread, but at this point I had reached the point of flatbread saturation.

For dessert we had tiramisu and a chocolate almond torte. I thought the tiramisu was awful. Mariah liked it, but Elena and I sensibly rejected its custardy cake non-tiramisu nature and offensive lack of Italian-ness. The chocolate almond torte, on the other hand was awesome! It was warm on the inside and deliciously fudge-like. The almonds were just slightly salty, providing a contrast to the sweetness of the torte. It went very well with a cup of coffee.

Overall: Tasty and well executed non authentic Italian food in a trendy/casual environment.

Laura - 8.5

Mandola's Italian Market

(512) 419-9700

4700 Guadalupe St

Austin, TX

http://www.mandolasmarket.com/

I’ve been meaning to post a review of Mandola’s for a couple of weeks now and haven’t gotten around to it, so here it goes. I went there for a family dinner a few weeks ago. Its nice and centrally located making it a great location of you want to meet up with people who are dispersed all over town. My dad works waaaaay north, I live and work waaaaay south, my mom and brother work pretty centrally, so we decided to meet up at Mandola’s and give it a try. Its in that new (well new to me) Triangle complex around 45th and Lamar/Guadalupe. There are all sorts of new places going in there. A Flying Saucer (yeaaaaahhh, who wants to do the beers of the world tour with me??), a Mama Fu’s (review to follow when I get to it), a Flipnotics coffee space (or whatever the hell that place is called), and a couple of other places that I can’t remember now. First let me say the parking situation sucks. My girlfriend Elena lives there and it’s always a bitch and a half to go to find parking at her place. But I’ll let you in on a secret - park at the Office Depot (Office Max, Staples, whatever), then you can casually stroll down to Mandola’s while everyone else is cursing and fighting for a space. Second, I’ve only been there once, but I have it on good authority that the place is always packed. So be prepared to wait, but the wait turns out to be a rather reasonable – around 20 minutes.

When you get to Mandola’s the first thing you’ll notice is that it’s not a normal sit down restaurant - its part restaurant and part Italian market. You stand in a long line to place your order, but the 10 or so minutes you wait in line you can look at the market wares that happen to be within arms length. Elena, who is from Italy, says they have a good selection of Italian products (even some ones that are hard to find it Italy). They literally have 50 different kinds of olive oil. So if you’re an olive oil snob and you’ve worked your way through the selection at Central Market this is your place. There is a deliciously stocked pastry and dessert counter also, so make sure to save room.

When you finally do get to the front of the queue, you place your order at the register, and find a seat. If you come with a large group, as we did, strategize, and have half your group place the orders while the other stake their claim on a table. There is a separate (and shorter) line if you just want dessert and coffee. The selection is pretty good as far as Italian “fast food” goes. They have a nice selection of bruschette, paninis, pizze (pizza if you’re not too smart), pasta and insalate (salads).

Since there were 4 of us and I was hungry we opted for the Bruschette al Finocchiona as an appetizer. It was delicious! Crisp fresh bread topped with a really tasty salami, creamy goat cheese, arugula and nice big shavings of parmigiano. The ingredients were all fresh, crisp, and the pairings of all were a hearty way to kick off the Italian dinner. I highly recommend it. My parents both opted for the ravioli of the day. I believe it was a butternut squash ravioli in a butter sauce. It was excellent. Not the usual pre-made ravioli nightmare you find at most restaurants. You could tell these were made recently and the dough was fresh (having labored to make ravioli by hand before, I consider myself a minor ravioli expert and in the future will leave ravioli making to Mandolas). I went with my current Italian favorite, the Gnocchi al Sugo. I measure Italian restaurants by the quality of their gnocchi. Is it hand-made, is it fresh, is it tender and not too tough (or worse yet chewy). And Mandola’s lived up to my expectations. The gnocchi were prepared and cooked to perfection and came smothered in a light tomato cream sauce. I can’t speak highly enough of their gnocchi. It is really good. My brother went with Spaghetti Carbonara and I have to say it was my least favorite dish. It was fresh but far too rich for my palate. The cream egg sauce was just way too overwhelming. One bite and I was done with. I was more than happy to go back to my gnocchi. The table next to us had ordered a pizza and it was a work of art. Large and oblong (in the Sicilian style I am told) it was covered in fresh looking cheese and surprisingly salami. I’d like to give it a whirl sometime. I’ve never had salami on my pizza before..

We didn’t stay for dessert, but I wish we would have. Their dessert and coffee counter had some truly delectable looking treats. Oh well. It gives me an excuse to go back.

Bottom Line: Great Italian food if you can find parking and don’t mind standing in line

Mariah - 9

La Traviata

314 Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 479-8131

http://www.latraviata.net/


Since Miss Jane (our outgoing wine instructor from Cork and Co.) was also a trained chef, I sought her professional opinion on top places to eat around town. I was looking for some guidance on where to get a risotto to dampen the next day’s impending hangover, as well as a few suggestions for the blog. She gave a few suggestions around town. One suggestion was La Traviata, just two doors down from Cork and Co.

Sold.

Mariah and I wandered down to La Traviata. The dining room was stone-walled and the bar was painted a lively red. The place was small, not accommodating for many, so on Fridays or Saturdays you would expect to wait or make reservations. The menu choices were plentiful. Although, we were a little put off by the $4 split plate charge.

I chose the butternut squash risotto, and Mariah picked the fennel soup. We munched on bread and olive oil/balsamic vinegar as we waited for our food. The olive oil/balsamic vinegar was a little heavy on the pungent vinegar, leaving the experience a little overwhelming.

Our food arrived and we began the tasting. Unfortunately, my butternut squash risotto left much to be desired. Mariah described it as your aunt’s typical Thanksgiving cheese and rice casserole. I likened it more to soupy, cheesy, butternut squash rice. The peas scattered across it added to the Thanksgiving Day casserole-esque quality rather than providing any sort of enhancement. Sadly, the knot of chives and lump of cream/butter on top did not save it either. As much as I tried to like it, I just couldn’t.

Mariah’s fennel soup did not impress either. Bland, thin and boring, with a bit of oil on top. The salt she added improved it slightly.

We decided it wasn’t worth the calories and left our food half uneaten.

The waitress was nice. Like at Vin Bistro, we think she knew the food was quite crap too.

The whole experience was just plain disappointing. Perhaps a larger selection of menu items needs to be sampled at La Traviata, but it will take a lot of convincing to get me to return.

Laura - 4

Gino's Italian Restaurant

1701 S Mays St Ste B
Round Rock, TX 78664
Phone: (512) 218-9922

Hi, Laura here.

This being my first post, I feel the need to begin with a little background information. I work in Round Rock. Not quite known for the culinary center of Texas, but I spend a lot of time in the RR, so consequently I eat a lot of meals here. Some places my coworkers drag me to, some places I venture to on my own. Hopefully during the course of this blog, I can detail the good, the bad and the ugly for you.

Let's begin with a little Italian restaurant called Gino's.

First of all, Gino's is in a really fugly strip mall. I've learned not to judge a restaurant by it's location. Afterall, one of my favorite restaurants (Wink) is in a strip, so the outside appearance can be overcome.

Upon arrival, we were seated immediately. The interior is average suburban American/Italian restaurant. Nothing special, but they dress it up with candles and such to make it pleasant enough. The table was greeted with bread and garlic dipping oil. The bread was so-so, but the garlic dipping oil was great. Sadly, this oil was the highlight of my meal.

I ordered the eggplant parmigiana. It was $7.50. Not a bad price, if it had turned out alright. First I received a salad. It was ok, nothing special. Just some lettuce and onion and tomato. It seemed more of a token effort than anything.

Unfortunately, after a long wait, they brought me chicken parmigiana instead of eggplant. Easy mistake to make, and the mistake was corrected quickly enough. However, the eggplant I received was extremely limp and to be honest, kind of disgusting. It did not seem like there was any kind of thought put into it's preparation. Instead, it seemed as thought they slopped some overcooked eggplant onto a plate, added some cheese, and added a HUGE heaping of marinara over it. The spaghetti was overcooked as well. And they made up for it's inadequacy with marinara too.

Not the worst dining experience I've ever had, but I honestly believe if this restaurant was not in extremely close proximity to Dell it would be long gone. If I can possibly steer my coworkers away, I won't be returning.

Laura - 3