Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Pork is awesome in any language, especially a dead language
Finally got to do brunch at Maialino, which serves Roman style food is located in the Gramercy Park Hotel Maialino are one of the newest restaurants in the Danny Meyer’s stable and certainly one that should not be overlooked. The word Maialino apparently means “Pig” and anything that is named after such a magnificent and tasty animal, I am there.The Romans were known for a lot of things like creating a functional government and giving Russell Crowe a movie career; they had really good food.
One thing that I like about Maialino is that most places stick to the brunch and will pretty much have eggs benny, some kind of pancakes, French toast or waffles and some kind of burger. Maialino of course has the brunch staples but does a good job changing it up and also do fresh pastas as well.
Sure coffee is a great way to start off your day, but sugar and carbs are even better! The family and I started off with the Bomboloni con Creama (cream filled doughnuts) and the Brioche Caramellato (Fancy sticky bun) to get that oh so important sugar kick.
The Bomboloni was so light that a cross breeze could have blown it off the table. The crème filling was sparse, but to fill it up anymore would kill this light sweet pick me up.
The Brioche was pretty much a sticky bun. But it was an awesome sticky bun made with brioche (pretty much dough made with ass load of butter and eggs) and was served warm which was pure decadence.
Next up was figs and prosciutto, not mind blowing but savory, salty prosciutto and sweet figs = win.
For the mains we got the Trippa which was tripe, a fried egg and arugula. Tripe (which is cow stomach for the non offal fans) is a difficult ingredient to work with because if not cooked well, it is just a chewy mess and is like eating a rubber glove. This tripe was done well and was fork tender. The tripe was dressed in a light tomato sauce and the medley of the poached egg (an egg on anything is always a plus) and bite from the arugula was tasty and delicious.
The Raviolo Al Uovo was a unique dish that consisted of just a ravioli that had ricotta and a whole egg cooked inside it. The ravioli was cooked perfectly and when you cut into that egg it was a perfect site, seeing the egg still intact and the egg yolk lazily oozing out. Dressed with a brown butter sauce was purely sinful.
The Cacio e Pepe is a simple yet intricate pasta dish. It is mainly spaghetti that is tossed with Pecorino Romano, pepper and salt. The beauty of Italian cooking is how the use of few good, simple ingredients can produce an over the top dish. The ingredients truly shined with the spaghetti that had the slightest bite and the mixture of creamy and milky Pecorino and pasta cooking water became a silky smooth sauce.
The signature dish, the Malfatti Al Maialino was a pappardelle tossed in a delicate ragu made with tasty, juicy bits of suckling pig topped with arugula. This was a bread sopping dish. The kind where you are done eating everything and you clean that plate with a piece of bread to soak up all that extra sauce.
Lastly, there was the Torta della Nonna, a pine nut tart with a lemon caramel. The meaty and toasted pine nuts cut the tart and caramel sweetness of the tart making it a great ending to the meal.
The only complaint I have about Maialino is that the portions were a bit small. I was still hungry after the meal. I think maybe I am a gavonne but I could have had a bigger portion maybe. Maialino is a great place to eat and I will be hitting up again in the future and devour more porky goodness.
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