December 8: Il Corvo

I've intended to go to Il Corvo for weeks now, but the daunting prospect of standing in a long, long line has kept me away. Today, however, at 11 AM, a co-worker suggests it, and we go early. It's just on the back side of Smith Tower, and the line is just to the door, not up the block as it would be an hour later. The people arriving after us have to stand outside.

They sell three entrées a day, and they don't say what they are until nearly lunch time, when they post it on their blog. Today we were given a choice of ditali, with cranberry beans, sofritto and rosemary; the spicy bucatini all’amatriciana; or pappardelle alla bolognese. I chose the bucatini; my co-worker ordered the pappardelle. We also each ordered sides of focaccia, and a bowl of olives to share.

The bread was surprisingly light for focaccia, and despite being the size of a small brick, I gobbled it down. The olives, unpitted, were of three varieties. I tried to take the first one with a fork, but it was too solid. Good thing, too: Miss Manners and Emily Post say that food removed from your mouth should exit in the same method it went in. It would have been tough to use a fork to spit out the pits. As the stack of expectorated pits pile up, the pasta arrived.

My co-worker said the pappardelle was very good -- so good, in fact, that 24 hours later, he went to Il Corvo's studio (two blocks behind our office) and bought some fresh pappardelle to cook at home. My bucatini was some of the best pasta I've had in ages. Perfectly al dente, the hollow noodles held the spicy amatriciana sauce like a 1980s liquid-center gum. The sauce was thick, with the ground pork taking an appropriate back seat to the outspoken tomato and subtly nutty cheese.

Worth waiting in a line halfway up James Street? There's so many other good choices around, I'd say maybe not. But if I'm craving pasta, or if they come up with something that sounds absolutely amazing in their daily rotation, or if I remember to get there at 11:15 instead of 12:15, then it's definitely worth a few minutes of standing in the cold.

Il Corvo
217 James St
Bucatini all'amatriciana, focaccia, olives, San Pellegrino, $18.36

December 6: Mangia Me

(It's December, so repeats are happening, like yesterday's visit to Pizza Professionals. Repeat visits get comments to the original post. Today's is a new location, so gets its own post.)

Quick bite, no photos: Stopped at the Mangia Me food truck on a busy day, with no time to hit Salumi's gnocchi day with my co-workers. Had the rigatoni Gorgonzola, but its bad outweighed its good.

The chicken was a little tough, and the Gorgonzola sauce was quite soupy. The rigatoni was fine, and the sauce had the slightly earthy, pungent, yet pleasant Gorgonzola flavor, but there was one bite with a bit of grit, like a clam chowder. Bone fragment? Peppercorn shard? I'll choose not to think about it.

Served with a slice of bread, which I expected to be tough and crusty, but was pleasantly soft.

Skip it.

Mangia Me
Truck on Occidental Square
Rigaoni gorgonzola, bread, Coke, $13