Otto

1 5th Ave.  New York, NY
www.ottopizzeria.com

Price: $$
Favorite dish: Cacio E Pepe

Reunited (again) and it feels sOoOoOo good. This past weekend, my parents flew into New York to visit and spend some time with me while I am still in here. How sweet!!!!! On Friday night, Nicole and her parents came to meet my parents and me in the city for dinner for some family bonding time of course! We decided to take Arleigh along for the ride because why not? The Jablon's decided on celebrity chef Mario Batalli's restaurant Otto Pizzeria. The restaurant had a vivacious atmosphere, and it was completely packed, and therefore was very noisy. Despite making a reservation, we still had to wait almost 25 minutes for a table. The restaurant was modeled to resemble an Italian train station, so when your assigned "train" goes up on the board, you know your table is ready. We were actually seated at a corner table completely smushed together. Good thing we like each other, right?


Here is what we ordered:

Nicole and her parents got the chopped salad with salami and chickpeas. 

My dad and Arleigh both got the baby spinach salad with ricotta salata and truffle honey.  This salad was really good…basically anything with truffle is good to me!

My mom got the watermelon salad, served with cucumbers and feta cheese. I am not the biggest fan of watermelon or cucumber, but I actually loved this salad. It was sweet and delicious…I almost couldn't tell there was watermelon in there. Loved it.

For the main course, we ordered some different pizzas and pastas so we could all try each others' meals.

The first pizza we got was the fennel & bottarga, with tomato, pecorino, and mozzarella.

My dad got the Cacio E Pepe pizza, which had mozzarella, cacio (an Italian cheese), pecorino, parmigiano, and black pepper. This was my favorite of the pizzas, and probably my favorite dish of the whole meal. There was so much flavor packed into this one pizza. All of the cheeses combined together were just too good on a great thin crust. YUUUM.

Nicole got the classic margherita pizza, with tomato sauce, mozzarella, and basil. 

Ong more pizza for the table: the vongole, with garlic, mozzarella, and clams.

We got the Pasta Alla Norma, which was penne pasta with tomato, roasted eggplant, basil, and ricotta. I thought the pasta was good and I really liked the roasted eggplant. The pasta was a little bit undercooked but the tomato sauce was really fresh and yummy.

Do you think we ordered enough food?!?!?

I really enjoyed my time at Otto with my friends and family. The food was pretty good and everything was extremely reasonably priced in contrast to the prices I typically see throughout the city. There were a few issues, being that the wait staff was a bit slow, and we were served bread, but with no butter or olive oil or anything. But….. overall the food was good, the mood was fun, and we had a great time together.

To finish off the evening, we walked toward Greenwich Village and got cupcakes at Molly's Cupcakes. How perfect! (to view my recent post on Molly's cupcakes, click here).

An awful and blurry pic of Nicole, Arleigh, and me at Otto. But still….FRIENDS! <3 <3

 XOXO,
Danielle