New York is filled with tons of great Italian restaurants but most people generally avoid the Little Italy area as it's mostly geared towards tourists. But Forlini's is tucked away closer to Chinatown, so maybe that's what makes it an exception. Will and Aarti were going through a list of NYC's top old school red sauce joints in the city and came across this place and I decided to crash their party. Usually when I think of traditional old school Italian places I think of Brooklyn, but this place was exactly the same kind of place you would find right in my neighborhood.
First, it's dark with no real windows and gives you the feeling that it could be run by the mob (I'm not saying that in a bad way at all). It's clearly run by passionate Italians and when we went there on a random Saturday for lunch the place was practically empty but the waiter was still incredibly engaging, warm, and inviting. Like all other red sauce Italian places, the menu is huge and expansive and you have no idea where to start. Our waiter was a great guide through the menu and we landed on the caprese salad, veal shank, linguini with broccoli rabe, rigatoni vodka sauce (because we're obsessed with the at Carbone), 2 meatballs, and a small mushroom saute. As we were starting on the caprese salad, the owner (?) came out and asked us how we were doing and what we ordered - we told him all excitedly because we thought we made some excellent choices and he said "no, you need to get the panserolli piacelina instead - that is our best dish!" so then we switched out the vodka sauce dish and got that instead. It turned out to be a great swap although I'm sure the other dish would have been delicious too. The panserolli dish was mancotti stuffed with ricotta and spinach in a delicious red sauce. it wasn't anything fancy (nothing here was) but it was comforting, homey and hit the spot. That's how I felt about everything here - none of it was luxurious or over the top but it was all served with what you would expect from a traditional Italian family joint - huge family style portions and no muss no fuss food. The linguini with broccoli rabe was cooked perfectly al dente and with the right amount of garlic and olive oil. But what really stole the show was the veal shank. Holy shit. It was a enormous shank served with the bone marrow and the meat fell completely off the bone and was amazing. I always feel a bit guilty eating veal but when you do eat it, it's so god damn delicious that it's hard not to love every bite of it.
Everything else there was inviting and tasty from the homemade meatballs to the mushrooms to even the house red wine. We were totally stuffed but somehow got suckered into a spumoni ice cream dessert - this was a my least favorite part of the meal but I was so full at that point that even if we got a really amazing dessert, I probably wouldn't have appreciated it either.
What made the difference here was the kind waitstaff and the relaxed feel to this place. We sat there for quite a while and even though there wasn't a crowd, it was just nice to be able to sit there with no pressure of being forced to leave. I've always loved Italian food but hated paying these crazy NYC prices of $30 for pasta (even though some times its totally warranted). Of course there are more than your fair share of authentic, traditional places in NYC, I just never thought I'd actually find one outside of BK or the Bronx. What's even better is that we got all this amazing food for an incredibly affordable price - that would never happen at a L'Artusi or I Sodi (both of which I enjoyed, so don't get me wrong). I don't know which list Will and Aarti used to find this place but now I'm incredibly intrigued and want to try everything else on that list! Total bill: $60/pp with tax, tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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