Sunday, November 05, 2006

RISOTTERIA!

After reading much of the famed gluten free restaurant Risotteria - I made a trip to NYC to visit friends, and head to the Village to check this place out!

I was very excited, and we got there to find there was an hour wait, which was OK by me - I wasn't eating anywhere else, and we knew they didn't take reservations. We were finally seated at 10:30 (yikes!) and enjoyed some of the GF bread sticks in front of us. I was thinking about getting a bottle of GF beer - but we got a bottle of wine instead. I was with two friends who do not have a gluten intolerance, but agreed to eat GF so that I could try everything (so nice!)...

I have extremely mediocre pictures of the food we ate - I was embarrassed to use the flash to take pictures, so they were dark and I tried to lighten them up a bit - you'll get the idea.

To start: the White Bean & Calamari salad... YUM, this was delish, very light and a great start to the meal.

Then, for our main courses we got the Pesto Pizza with shrimp, arugula and cheese: I love thin crust pizza - so this was excellent - Actually, I think this was my favorite thing we ate there.
Then we got Risotto of course, we got that nights special which had sausage in it & was flavored with saffron- YUM:
Finally, we got a panini with chicken, mozzarella, olive tapende and something else, which I can't recall:

The panini was good, not great. I was more excited about the fact that I was actually eating a sandwich - something I haven't done since I was diagnosed, and I used to eat at least one sandwich a week. My friends thought the panini tasted the most "gluten free" - since the gf focaccia was a little dense, typical of any gf bread. I still enjoyed it - and we ate everything on that table!

We were STUFFED, but I had to get dessert - so we got the carrot cake, which was excellent - the frosting was the best part! Check it out: It was a HUGE piece.

My sister wanted me to get the dessert called "The Fudgie" which is two cake-like chocolate chip cookies with whipped fudge in the middle, it looked really good, but too rich for our full bellies. I took some of the breadstick dough mix with me to make at home - still haven't done that yet.

All in all - a great place! I will certainly be going again. The only problem is the location - it's way down in Greenwich Village and everyone I know lives in the Upper East side - so a bit of a hike, but still great. Too bad it's not bigger - and it's really too bad they don't ship!!! I inquired about it to the grumpy manager, but he just gave me an irritated look and said that they did not ship and never would and that everyone asks them that. Well Mr. Grumpy-pants - maybe you should, your business may take off!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am an gluten eating individual and I absolutely loved my GF meal! (almost as much as I love Allie)

Julia said...

As a fellow gluten free person (and new yorker) I love getting pizza and gluten free beer at the risotteria. i'm an avid cook, so i make pizza quite a bit at home, but being able to go OUT and have a slice is a whole different ballgame. Unfortunately, i heard rumors that the Rissoteria may close (which is a good reason why they're not interested in starting a mail-order business). But who knows!

Deena said...

I've been gluten free for about 7 years. I currently live in Boston but grew up in New York. My parents still live in New York and mom has celiac as well. Whenever I get the chance to come home we go to the risotteria. I feel like a completely normal person when I go...Gluten free beer, pizza...amazing!

Allie said...

Oh my gosh! I HOPE they don't close.. Thanks for the info Julia... And Deena, I just love the fact that I can drink beer and order pizza & sandwiches there! It's so great.

I was just thinking yesterday, we really need some gluten free pizza delivery here in Boston...