Monday, January 10, 2005
Delicious super-cheap dining experience of the weekend
I've got this new idea. It's some sort of bizarre, most likely short-lived attempt to share my undying love of cheap NYC restaurants with the world (or just keep some sort of record of where to eat for my fiscally-challenged self). Eh. Regardless. First on the agenda-- E. 4th st. Italian match-up:
Cucina di Pesce
87 E 4TH St
vs.
Frutti di Mare
84 E 4TH St
Both of these places have incredibly tasty food. At FdM I had the to-die-for pumpkin ravioli with pine nuts in some sort of delicious creamy sauce. And it was so cheap! SO cheap! The pastas are like $7, entrees about $10. OK and even better? The wine list. And I'm not talking about quality. This is pure quantity, and as my friends know, dinner is not dinner without 2 or 3 bottles per 2 or 3 people. This alcoholic overindulgence was happily supported by FdM's wine list where just about everything is under $20.
So when do we get to the comparison with FdM's neighbor, Cucina di Pesce? I ate at Frutti di Mare on Friday night and Cucina on Saturday thinking that they were different restaurants. It turns out that Frutti di Mare is just a little bit less, shall we say...romantic...and all of the menu items are a dollar or 2 cheaper. But the couple of $1 bills is completely worth the change in atmosphere. It literally pays for the candlelight. And where FdM serves slightly crappy Italian bread with foil-wrapped butter packets, CdP hands out baskets of garlic bread that may even have been prepared in-house. But back to the sameness of the two places--well, the menu is a good place to start. Because aside from the prices, they're identical. I'm talking, even the font, the list of items, and the weird description of salad as "exotic lettuce" (which is actually what tipped me off). Ah well. the food is good. It's really really good. And the wine, well, it's cheap. And I don't ask for a lot more in a dining establishment.
I will go back to both places again, most definitely, but note to self: next time save room for amazing-looking tiramisu served in GIANT GOBLET. Who doesn't need a goblet of tiramisu?
- posted by liz @ 1/10/2005 09:55:00 AM
