I'm guessing that the majority of Grano's clientele comes from people who were not willing to wait the crazy wait at Rosemary's because that it what happened to us. Rosemary quoted us a 2 hour wait on a Friday night and while I've totally waited that long before for a table, Aarti, Bharat and I were starving, so we immediately looked to see what our other options were on the block. Grano is kitty corner to Rosemary and when we popped in to ask what the wait was, they told us 10 minutes. Perfect. Then all of a sudden it became 45 minutes, but we were able to sit at the bar and order drinks and snacks. While Rosemary's also has a bar in the back, it's super super crowded and very loud. We saddled up to the bar and got a baked eggplant ($9.50) appetizer and the pizza grano ($16.50) to nibble on while we waited for our table. The eggplant was essentially a small portion of an eggplant parm. It was small but tasty and covered in a nice tomato base and cheese. We all agreed that we could have eaten the entire thing ourselves vs. splitting it 3 ways. The Grano pizza consisted of bufala mozzarella, fresh tomato, and topped with arugula. While I love all of these individual ingredients on their own and combined, this pizza didn't have enough cheese and had too much of the arugula. As Aarti mentioned, it kind of felt like we were eating a pizza salad - heavy emphasis on the salad. The crust had a nice chewy texture to it but it didn't really overcome the fact that there wasn't any sauce, not enough cheese and covered in a leafy green for my personal pizza taste.
You'd think after eating that pizza and eggplant parm that we wouldn't have room for an actual meal, but you would be wrong. Once we sat down we opted for the roasted artichoke ($12) appetizer and I got the special pasta of the day which came with pork belly ragu - but I learned that they were out of the actual pasta this dish was made with and instead the waitress recommended I go with the casarecci style pasta on it instead. The artichoke dish originally had bacon in it, so we asked if they could make it vegetarian and they said they could substitute with brussels sprouts instead. Perfect. Except when the dish came out it was literally a plate of shredded brussels sprouts. You could barely tell there were any artichokes in there. We mentioned this to the waitress and she as like "oh, it's in there. It's just really small." umm, ok, I kind of didn't believe her, but she was so nice overall and the dish tasted fine, we didn't put up a stink. Next came my pasta. I had never heard of a casarecci pasta and honestly now when I look it up, I think I got a different kind of pasta - one that looks more like a celetani pasta in that it's kind of squiggly looking. While the ragu sauce was good, it wasn't midblowing. I couldn't actually tell that it was pork belly based (tasted like any other salty meat product) and it was a very rich and heavy pasta, so I had to take half of it home (which is something I rarely do). The dish was satisfying and I had an enjoyable time with the company I was with, but the food here seemed more like your basic standard Italian vs. anything really special. It was nice to not have to wait (about an hour and a half into our meal Rosemary's finally calls to say our table was ready) and I really appreciated how kind and warm the staff was. They were seriously some of the nicest waitstaff I've encountered in a while.
If you're dead set on having Italian in that 'hood, I'd still recommend Rosemary's (just be prepared to wait) and if you're not dead set on it, there are also other nice options such as Kingswood and Whitehall. I wouldn't eliminate Grano Trattoria as an option but just know that it's not the only table on the block. Total bill $56/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
No comments:
Post a Comment