Rubirosa Visited 1/28/2012 4 Forks

Rubirosa 235 Mulberry St., (between Spring St & Prince St), New York, NY 10012

 So Lav and I ended up at Rubirosa totally by accident.  We originally had wanted to go to Parm and somehow I thought getting there at 7pm on a Saturday would be fine.  Big mistake, they told us it was a 2 hour wait!  Now I don't mind waiting, but 2 hours is just not something I am ok with.  So we started to look for other places nearby.  We came across Rubirosa and I remembered that Aarti and Deanna went last year and loved it, plus is was literally right across the street from Parm.  We walked in and there were 2 seats right at the bar, which was perfect.  As I've said before in my blog, I actually like eating at the bar, it's a bit more fun than sitting at a regular table. 


The menu looked great and we kind of went overboard with the ordering.  We got the roasted wild mushroom appetizer ($9), the stuff artichoke ($12), the beet salad ($11) and shared a small vodka sauce with fresh mozzarella pizza ($16).  Originally our waiter told us we should consider the large pizza because it was really thin crusted...um, is he crazy?! After eating our meal, I can't image how we would have finished a large (we didn't even finish a small).  All the appetizers came out first and I was a big fan of the mushroom app.  There were tons of different kinds of mushrooms, button, cremini, enoki, and a bunch of others roasted in olive oil.  The beet salad came with arugula, goat cheese and dressed with a light vinaigrette dressing...I actually have rarely seen white beets, but this salad had white and red beets and they were delicious.  I was a huge fan of the salad and it was big enough to almost be a meal on its own.  Now as for the stuffed artichoke, Lav and I were kind of confused on how to eat it.  It was half an artichoke with breading and stuffing but we weren't sure how to incorporate the leaves with the stuffing (I've never been great with artichokes), so we both just ended up eating the stuffing on its own.  Then the pizza came out and a small had 6 pieces to it!  Granted I will say the crust was super super thin, so I can see how if you don't order anything else, that a large would be the right size.  I'm typically not a huge fan of thin crust pizza but this one was really great.  I can't quite figure out the crust, it almost had a cornmeal type of texture to it but it was super thin but strong enough to hold the sauce and cheese without sagging.  The vodka sauce was a delicious change from your typical tomato base.  Despite having so much food, we both still left room for dessert and we got the tiramisu ($8) - it was tasty and soft and just the right way to end the night. Total bill pp with tip and tax $47. 


Photo Credit: Yelp