Osteria del Sole

First I would like to take this opportunity to wish my dear friend LittleMissSunshine a very happy birthday. And in her honor, I am finally writing about our dinner at Osteria del Sole. Happy birthday, LittleMissSunshine, and welcome to the family of friends who star in Mona's Apple.

When people find out I have a food blog, the conversation usually goes like this:

"Oh wow, that's so cool. Have you heard of Soba?"

"No, but--"

"Have you eaten at Corner Bistro?"

"Yes, but --"

"What are your favorite restaurants in New York?"

"Balth-"

"Ok, but have you tried Artisanal?"

"Yes, I love--"

"This place just opened on Spring, have you heard of it?"

I'm often unprepared for the whirlwind of questions that ensue and I always feel that I fail the "are-you-cool-enough-for-me-to-read-your-blog" interview. More often than not, I haven't heard of the hippest, hottest spot; no, I haven't eaten on the fourth floor of the Time Warner Center; no, I certainly do not cook; but I do know I love me some Freemans filet.

Maybe I'm not as well read in to Manhattan's dining news as I should be. All I have to do is scroll through Eater once a day, like I do Perez Hilton and the Drudge Report for work. But the "DEATHWATCH!" and "Plywood Reports" can be overwhelming and if keeping up with the pace of restaurants coming and going in New York City is not your full-time gig, than it's almost impossible to be 100% in the know.

My favorite source of new restaurants and bars is Urban Daddy. Yes, that's right, the "exclusive" UD. It's better than Daily Candy (I could care less about spas and sample sales-- show me the food, but then again I have always been more of a Tomboy in that regard), better than Eater, better than New York Magazine, better than the Times. I subscribe to my daily dose of UD and I love it. I have a list of places I want to go from it, and if I lose it, I head straight to the Site.

One frigid November night I was meeting my girls Fashionista, LittleMissSunshine and FoxyLady for dinner before heading to Phebe's for some groovin'. I had done my research on UD and decided on a new place for us to eat, The Kingswood (121 W 10th St between 6th and Greenwich Ave.). I was wooed by "indoor garden in Greenwich Village" and sadly Fashionista and LittleMissSunshine were booed out the door. Not really. They fell in love with it, as I expected to, but the wait was atrocious and we don't do waits on Saturday nights in winter. So they cruised around and settled on Osteria del Sole.

I finally un-lost myself and found the little restaurant on the corner with sunshines smiling and welcoming me from the window panes. I walked in and found Fashionista and LittleMissSunshine sipping on wine at the bar. There was even a seat for me which is a nice, unexpected treat in this town, and will usually send the stock of any restaurant way up. Before I started to de-coat, I noticed a cute, smiley redhead a chair away from my friends.

"Katie M-!?!?!?!?!"

"Mona!?!??"

Katie and I grew up together in Conn. and I hadn't seen her since we graduated from high school in 1997. It's been a little over ten years and she didn't look a day different, except the soft red curls I always envied were neatly straightened. The funniest/scariest part was our ten year high school reunion was only a couple of weeks away, but I would be stuck in the newsroom barring breaking news the night after Thanksgiving.

We talked in rapidfire 10-years-in-two-minutes fashion. She is working at Rockefeller Center, she is living in Brooklyn, she had been married a couple of years, I met her husband and struggled to remember her new last name, her family was good, I sent them my best and we exchanged phone numbers before her couple's dinner party was seated.

I knew we would never actually call each other, though the number exchange was sincere on both of our ends. Katie was always one of my favorite people growing up, and unlike some of the girls we knew, I respected her immensely for not succumbing to the snobby and caddy bulls--- that ran my high school. I would love to hang out with her sometime, but she's married. I've learned that married folk like to hang amongst themselves. When in Rome, I guess. That and we live in a vacuum and most New Yorkers, though some will deny it, are at capacity with friends and time.

I turned to LMS and Fashionista and we started to map out a plan for our evening that included glasses of wine, martinis, vodka and sodas, and hopefully cute men. We'd like a tall skinny, artsy one for Fashionista, a meaty bad one for LMS and an athletic prepster for myself, thank you.

After a few minutes, the hostess came and whisked us away to our table. The dining room was tightly packed with tables and people. We sat at a four-top and I felt like we were kissing elbows with the surrounding patrons. Every time I saw our server with our food or drinks I would try to predict what route she would take next in the Osteria labyrinth. She wasn't all there. She was either high or foreign, I couldn't decipher which. After ordering, I wondered if we'd see anything we'd asked for appear on our table, but she somehow figured it out.

We started with the grilled portobello mushroom tower. Doesn't look much like a tower, does it?


I tried the sardinian pasta in a sweet sausage ragu.


Fashionista went with the hanger steak. Beef, it's what's her dinner.

Last but not least, today's birthday girl, LMS, tried the homemade ribbon pasta with braised duck and cremini mushrooms.


And as for FoxyLady, well, she had the best plan-- show up after we'd ordered, get drinks and taste all our plates.

Despite what its name suggests, the dining room itself didn't feel very warm. It didn't feel much of anything as far as atmosphere. But the reasonably priced homemade pastas make up for it.

I could have passed on the portobello tower. Portobello mushrooms sound so much better on paper than they taste. When will I ever learn? The tower was soggy and all the vegetables were mush and I think we left half of it on the plate for the kitchen crew.

My pasta was the best dish on the table, though Fashionista seemed to be quite pleased with her steak. I feel like I'm cheating on cavatelli, but sardinian pasta may be my new favorite. It has a thick consistency to it and an al dente crunch that I love. And the sausage was delicious. Had we not been headed out on a manhunt that night I would have asked for a doggy bag, but I figured my chances of finding Mr. Right while sporting Mr. Doggy would have decreased exponentially.

LMS' ribbon pasta was overcooked, but the duck tasted sweet and tender. The combination of the two was overwhelming, however. The chunks of duck were cut way too large for the pasta. I wished we could have asked for a side dish to remove the duck, save it for another meal, and just eat the pasta plain with the mushrooms.

I'm not saying Osteria del Sole is my favorite new Italian restaurant, but I will say it's worth a visit for the sardinian pasta. When ordering at Osteria, best keep it simple: a salad, a pasta or a meat. The stock fell considerably when they tried the complicated fancy stuff. Like I said, we don't do waits in winter, and Osteria came to our rescue with solid food and a table with no reservations on a Saturday night. We left Osteria feeling like a 100 bucks and with four hot girls on a cold winter's night-- who could ask for anything more?

267 W. 4th St., at Perry St.
212-620-6840