restaurant week, part III

not really a part of restaurant week - just a place i ate during the week(end).

the restaurant: locanda.

the space: small dining room straight out of new york city. there's a small bar in the back. good luck getting a seat though since they serve their full menu at the bar, and reservations are hard to come by (probably since they let you linger for as long as you want. seriously a number of the parties who were already eating when we got there at 8:30 were still mingling when we finally left at 10:30).

the food: it's a very simple menu, but everything sounded so delicious it took us a while to decide on what we were going to order. we ended up getting the crostini to start - think bruschetta but instead of tomatoes it was a hearty, smoky spread with fresh manchego cheese on top. for the main course we all went for their homemade pasta. we got their version of mac & cheese (brought out to the table in the skillet it was baked in), the gnocchi (in a heavenly sauce) and a pasta (like a fettucini on steroids) with veggies in a garlicky, slightly spicy sauce. after soaking up all of the sauce with the endless baskets of bread brought to our table we just couldn't bring ourselves to order any dessert.

the service: it was great to start off with, but the mishap in the end kind of ruined it for us. since we were told to expect major delays on the metro, we left on the early side just to be safe. and because we left so early we obviously didn't encounter any delays at all so we arrived a little early for our reservation. not a problem - we just headed back to the bar and got some champagne to start off the evening. we just continued our thrilling game of botticelli and sipped on our champagne and before we knew it we were seated at our table. our waiter was very attentive and offered his (excellent) personal suggestions for our wine and food. our food came out and we gobbled it up, but that's when things went downhill. he asked us if we wanted dessert and we declined (being full and having to get down the street for a friend's party). you would think the fact that we declined dessert and that there was nothing else to eat or drink on our table would signal to the waiter that we wanted our check. instead he disappeared forever and no one else in the restaurant would even acknowledge us sitting there. and at this point we had finished our second botticelli of the night (sara tancredi, yes!) and we were so ready to go. then finally our server came out of hiding and we snatched him and asked for our check and he went about getting it like we hadn't just been sitting there for thirty minutes waiting for it. ugh.

the bathroom: simple, one person bathrooms. which, honestly is just about all that would fit in the back of this place.

despite the horrendous service we had at the end of the meal i do plan on going back to try even more of their delicious pasta! or maybe even branch out to some of the meat dishes they had on their menu...