Yesterday my boyfriend and I went down to SoHo to walk around and get lunch... We checked at Balthazar just for the heck of it, to see how long the wait with no reservations would be - - 1 hour! Okay, so we kept walking West on Spring St and ended up at an old favorite: Mezzogiorno (Spring St. between Thompson and Sullivan). They had outside tables and just above those, tables inside that were open to the outdoors. We sat at one of those inside tables, it's perfect - just as good as being outside and elevated for a good view of the street and outside area (good for people watching)
We had the most fabulous lunch! To start we shared the CARCIOFI SALTATI IN PADELLA CON PISTACCHI E PARMIGIANO, which is baby artichokes sauteed with bits of pistachio nuts and served with parmigiano reggiano and lemon. Oh my goodness, this was fabulous. They were cooked perfectly and utterly delicious. Then we had the TAGLIOLINI ALLO ZAFFERANO CON SUGO PICCANTE DI GRANCHIO, homemade pasta with crab meat in a spicy light tomato sauce. Again, amazing!!! The pasta was the perfect level of al dente and the sauce had just the right amount of spice not to overpower the taste of the crab.
We also discovered a new wine from their wines by glass selection: MarcheRosso Fontezoppa 2007, a sangiovese/cab/merlot blend.
It was medium to full bodied with a nice round mouthfeel. Very tasty, we wrote the name down so we could look it up. It's not a very popular wine in wine stores apparently, only 2 results came up in Wine-Searcher. The best one being Shop Rite wines in Mercerville, NJ at a very reasonable price of $12.99/bottle. A good find for sure!
I'm looking forward to going back to Mezzogiorno soon. I would definitely order both dishes again!
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