Rating:




Name: Morandi
Location: 7th Ave. and Waverly Pl.
Price: $200 for 2
Server: 1st Chris, then Aldo
Cuisine: Italian
Chef: Jody Williams, self-taught

It should be said that we arrived at this restaurant at that in between time. Our reservations were for 3 pm. However, one of the reasons we selected this location was that they served food all day, and were supposedly a professional and established restaurant.

It was snowing and cold, and we were promptly seated. The interior is very rustic italian, with wood and country print everywhere. It's homey and cozy. The music is instrumental and vaguely gypsy sounding. It all went well together. Our first server, Chris, greeted us promptly and admitted he didn't know much about Italian wines, but happily found the wine captain to answer our questions.

The wine captain needs to consider brushing up on his technique. We told him our budget (under $60) and what we liked (ie: full bodied, low tanins, not too much acidity). The first wine he brought us was fucking swill. Seriously. Not only that, it was highly tannic, very light bodied and heavy in acidity. It couldn't be further from what we'd asked. He could have played it safe and dropped off a Primativo, but no. The second bottle he brought a taste from the bar, which was a better fit, although honestly, not stellar. He then sent Chris, our server over with a bottle. Chris presented the wine, but it was corked. The second bottle was fine. We had the Aglianico 2003 by Ocone.

We put off ordering food for awhile, as we were having a salty business meeting with Stephanie. Chris was patient and followed up periodically.

We wish he would serve at nights, because when the night server came along, everything went down hill in a hurry.

We started to ask about my allergies, but Chris was leaving, and so he introduced us to Aldo the Idiot. He told Aldo at the table about my allergy and our requests. Both disappeared, ostensibly to check on our food, or so we thought.

5 minutes go by. Keep in mind it's nowhere near busy. Finally Aldo the Idiot shows back up and asks "K are you ready to order?" Clearly he has been sniffing glue in the supply closet and not, as requested, checking on allergies. We asked again whether there were any eggs in the dishes we were considering. He paused for all of 2 seconds before replying "uh, nope."
Us: "did you ask the chef?" Aldo the Idiot: "There are no eggs in either of those dishes." Us: "Are you sure, do you mind just checking?"

Aldo the Idiot goes away for another 5 minutes. He goes nowhere near the kitchen, and in fact proceeds to flirt with some of the other girls working there. He then comes back to our table, "Are you ready to order?"

Wow.

We told him we were considering leaving, as we weren't certain of the food. Again he says "There's no egg."

So we order the Raw Beef Carpaccio with the aioli on the side. But it came with no aioli. See the thing is, Myste is not allergic to egg, so she should be able to have the death sauce. Aldo the Idiot appeared before we had tried it and asked "How is it?" Just Wow. Without said death sauce, the dish had fresh arugula, fresh good quality beef and parmesean, but was wildly uninteresting until the busser brought us salt. (We love salt).

After we were already eating the Carpaccio, the busser brought bread and oil and salt. We think this should have been prioritized a little sooner. Just a suggestion.

We asked them to make something not on their In Between Dinner and Lunch Grey Zone menu. To which they accomodated. We ordered clams in a white wine and butter sauce. Aldo the Idiot says this at our table "I'm sure we can do it but it's going to cost more." No shit right? And really, wouldn't it be better to just say "it will cost _____ but we are happy to accomodate your request."

The clams were not truly fresh and several were musky like a hooker in summer season. We were not given spoons to get the broth. But the salt goes a long way, and after adding it to the dish, it was dramatically improved (except the rotten sea-pussy flavor of a few bad clams). The bartender looked over from his perch and realized we were using the clam shells as a spoon, and brought us spoons while Aldo the Idiot tried to harass his fellow female servers (who were setting up the dining room).

Next we ordered an endive, pommegranate, pear and walnut salad. In keeping with the other dishes, it needed salt. Try it out folks, a little will not kill your cholesterol. The endive salad had way too much olive oil and parmesean, and no flavor whatsoever. With ingredients like pear and pommegranate, it's hard to fuck it up so badly, but they managed.

At this point, the dinner menu was available. Red power tie suits were dining all around with new menu's. But we still had the In Between Dinner and Lunch Grey Zone Menu. Aldo the Idiot was visibily irritated when we asked for the dinner menu, as he clearly had designs on us leaving. No such luck.

I ordered a shrimp dish with polenta, tomatoes, and artichokes. Again, all fresh ingredients, well prepared, but in need of salt and pepper. This is cooking 101 people. It's a little obvious the chef is self-taught.

Myste ordered the grilled calamari in lemon and olive oil. It was with calamata olives, lemon, tomato, peppers, onion and was spicey smokey goodness. In this case, not cleaning the grill for a 100 years worked well. The calamari was smokey and perfect, not rubbery. And shock of shocks, it didn't need salt.

Here's where we comment on the aprons. The servers were all wearing these burlap sack aprons that add 10 pounds to the hips. Seriously? Why?

We ordered two cocktails from the bartender. The bartender is a genius. He made the classics classically, and hand delivered them to our table. Don't go for Dinner, but check out the bar, it's homey, cozy and you can get a damn good drink. If you're adventurous, and you don't want an Aldo the Idiot, eat dinner at the bar.

For desert, we asked Aldo the Idiot about eggs in the bitter chocolate and cherries. Me: "is this really just dark chocolate and cherries? Or is there egg in there?" Aldo the Idot: "No egg." Me: "Are you certain, would you mind checking?" Aldo the Idiot: "No eggs." He then ordered the dish for us. What shows up on our table? Pudding with cherries. What is pudding made of? Eggs. We asked the runner "excuse me, what is that?" "Oh, it's pudding with cherries."

Wow.

Aldo the Idiot arrived to 'see how we were doing'. We asked "doesn't this look like pudding to you?" "No, it's the chocolate and cherries." "Well, it looks like pudding to me, would you ask the chef please?"

Remarkably, this time Aldo the Idiot went and asked the chef, then promptly came and took away the dish saying "I"m sorry, there is egg in here, I hope you didn't eat any." Then he asks if we want anything else. From you Aldo? No you've done enough, thanks.

Bottomline: The food needs salt, is reasonably fresh and could be tasty, but they have asshats like Aldo on dinner shifts, and waiters like Chris on days. We think it's dumb. Don't show up during the Grey Zone, bring your own wine, and don't have any special requests or questions, as no one thinks it's important to have a dialog with the chef, or evidently any knowledge of the menu whatsoever.

We would go back for cocktails, but that's about it.