Babbo (First 6 Years)

[Jinmyo]

Saint Mario of Babbo.

[Lreda]

My girlfriend is taking me to see Frankie & Johnny in Dec for my B-Day. What is the best time to call to make reservations? Is it that difficult to get in. Am I looking at FL problems?

Help a brother out!!

Tommy, where are you? Shit, I gotta eat here, I'm jonesin"

Hmmmmm....beefcheeks.........

[macrosan]

Wow

[bean]

My girlfriend is taking me to see Frankie & Johnny in Dec for my B-Day. What is the best time to call to make reservations? Is it that difficult to get in.

like many of these places, they open reservations up one month before the date.

[guru]

I strongly suggest that you make your reservation that month in advance. I had to call several times in order to have a place.I would have never tought that they would be full on a sunday night a ten so imagine in december.Good luck!

[Lreda]

S**t, I gotta ask her when the date of the show is. Toohooo, it's tough being a grown up male. I'll crawl my way out of this but why do I feel this could be an episode of "Raymond in the Middle".

Lou

[SobaAddict70]

Next time, if you can get it, try their mint love letters with spicy sausage. Its another of Mario's signature pasta dishes on the menu.

SA

[vivin]

Bean,

nice report. I can't have too much of Babbo. I go there at least once a month. The specials keep changing and are almost always very very good. This place is hard to beat. I rate it above most other restaurants in NYC, including the usual suspects on all lists out there.

vivin

[bean]

Next time, if you can get it, try their mint love letters with spicy sausage.  Its another of Mario's signature pasta dishes on the menu.

SA

yes, it is - but for me, it's not one of my favorites because the time i had it it seemed excessively hot...(spicey) and it didn't balance with anything else we were having. too much.

[yvonne johnson]

Last night walked into Babbo (110 Waverly Pl, 777-0303)on the off-chance around 6PM. A waitress greeted us warmly and offered us a table in the bar area. The restaurant was busy and all stools along the mid-sized bar were taken. This was our first visit, and there's a lovely cozy feel to the place. We had a couple of people take care of us (two waiters, sommelier, junior staff (who also say "good-evening"--I liked that as in so many places they are told to be silent), and the service was as I like it--non-sugary, but friendly. (As we were leaving, though, I asked the M'd at the lectern about the possibility of booking a table for the near future. He spoke as though he was one of the most important people on the planet, emphasizing again and again how busy the restaurant was, that I needed to phone one month in advance, "this is a very busy restaurant you know". I just listened to his lecture, not wanting his demeanor to spoil an otherwise excellent meal Among all the staff, he was the aberration.)

The thing that stood out about my starter was the visual fun of it. Marinated sardines ($11), three strips skin side up touching at center and radiating outwards and little dots of yellow and orange sauce (of peppers I think) around the rest of the plate. They were deliciously mouthpuckering, like the roll-mops from childhood. G. went for the pigs foot and this was a large portion that tasted like crackling, and therefore good.

We shared a pasta dish: Mint love letters [i wonder whether the double entendre exists in the US?] with spicy lamb sausage ($18). The ravioli (filled with mint and cheese) were covered with rich minced lamb sauce that had a nice fat content.

Next, several joints of very tender no-nonsense rabbit with autumnal vegetables ($28) and g had beef shortrib which was immensely flavorful (though I don't think I could have finished a whole dish as it was so rich).

Nice bottle of Musella 97 Amarone, though not up to the Amarone we had in Italy.

We had room for desert: a very good stodgy-ish apple and walnut cake with maple cream. A walnut digestif took my eye (name I can't recall, but it's first on list of digestifs, and made for Babbo), a little hint of Fernet-Branca flavor to it. G. ordered the grappa tasting ($21)--three: one clear, one hint of yellow and a third, home made cherry. None were as pungent as the grappas I'd had before, and I especially liked the last one.

A very hearty, enjoyable meal.

[Wilfrid]

I like roll-mops

On a Sunday evening, I found the bar area in Babbo to be so jammed with people waiting to be seated in the restaurant, that anyone eating at the bar tables or at the bar itself, were getting crushed by the crowd. It put me right off.

Do I take it you had no such problems?

[Suzanne F]

Nice report, Yvonne.

The current Australian Vogue Entertaining + Travel has an article on Mario, with 6 recipes from Holiday Food. Unfortunately, that piece is not on their website.

edit: my guess is that the "love letters" refer to some sort of, um, protection. Just a guess though.

[tommy]

babbo is so brilliant. it's bizarre that their one and only major flaw is a HUGE HUGE problem: the M'd is a grade A nasty prick. why the management can't see that and toss that guy is beyond me.

when i first started reading, yvonne, i thought you were going to say that you had to eat next to people's asses and elbows, as you were sat in the bar area. looking forward to your reply to wilfrid.

mint love letters. nope, not getting it. please to clue me in.

edit: i just realized that i actually literally dread seeing that guy when i go there. i so look foward to the evening every single time, and it always delivers, but i just dread having to have any kind of interaction with him. ugh.

[Charles Smith]

Tommy, you're just not tipping him enough

He is a class A jerk- He used to be at Coco Pazzo and was a jerk there as well.

Yvonne-

I'm thinking of having dinner at the bar their tonight-

thanks for the great report.

Cheers,

Charles

[tommy]

i'm probably not dressed right either.

[Liza]

I thought Babbo was one of them clothing optional places.

[macrosan]

mint love letters.  nope, not getting it.  please to clue me in.

Love letter = condom (Olde English c. 1960)

I've never met this md' prick. Last two times I was at Babbo, there was a very nice, friendly young lady with long hair at the desk.

I will be eating at the bar at Babbo on my vists to NYC. It has quickly become a mustn't-miss New York experience.

[yvonne johnson]

Wilfrid and tommy, We didn't feel too crushed. We were at the first table on the right as you go in. I can imagine that being seated on left, with the walkway through to main restaurant and bar infront of you maybe wouldn't be pleasant. On being seated though, Simon's "piss waltz" did come to mind. The tables were close together like Blue Hill's , but not joining one another like Les Halles'. Where we were the space was more cramped for the staff than us.

Love letters, especially of the French variety, are condoms. (It's been years since I've heard this, and now I'm doubting myself.)

Back to the M'd, towards the end of his lecture, some diners rushed in and greeted him with his first name. This took his attention away (no-one happier than me) and he smiled (in a wooden kind of way) to them. I won't write what went through my mind.

[tommy]

Back to the M'd, towards the end of his lecture,  some diners rushed in and greeted him with his first name.  This took his attention away (no-one happier than me) and he smiled (in a wooden kind of way) to them.  I won't write what went through my mind.

what's his name, "john" or some sh*t?

ediot: eh, just kinda thinking out loud here.

[yvonne johnson]

Yes, it's something like that.

[Jinmyo]

Yvonne, a nice report. If you are comfortable in doing so and have the time perhaps you would care to elucidate further upon the rabbit. Although my subjective preference would be for taking in the short ribs, this is indeed the time to think of rabbit and various preparations have come to my mind.

[jpk8216]

Hey everybody...my name is Patrick and this is my first time writing...I was reading what you all wrote last night before my fiance and I went to Babbo for our 11pm reservation and I thought it was hilarious!!! You were absolutely right about the MD, he seemed like a real prick and the girl with the long blond hair was much nicer...Thanks for the warning, she gave us a table at 10:40 which was nice because we had not eatin since lunch.

Everything I have ever heard about the food was true but I think the decor of Babbo is breathtaking. It might not have the Disney land feel of Vong but it is gorgeous inside. We sat on the upper level of the restaurant near the center table where the wine service was done...which by the way, if anybody understands what was going on there, an explanation would be greatly appreciated because I never saw anything like that before.

Although I was tempted to take someone's advice and go for the marinated sardines, I tried the goat cheese truffles with the pepper caponata which was very rich and my fiance had the grilled octopus with the limoncello citronette. Both were fantastic, my only gripe was that there was not enough bread on the plate to fully enjoy the goat cheese. I had to bother the bus boy for bread which was the freshest and most rustic bread I have ever eaten. Out of the two, I would definitely go for the octopus because it was incredibly tender and dressed to perfection.

When the pasta course came, my fiance enjoyed the pumpkin lune with the sweet amaretto and sage butter sauce. This pasta was so sweet, so delicate that I could have eaten it for desert. The texture of the pasta and the filling were exquisite. I tried the mint love letters (thank you for the old english translation) with the spicy lamb sausage which was exploding with spice and the fragrant flavor of mint. I enjoyed it because I never tasted anything like it before but the mint was a bit overpowering for my taste.

The main courses at Babbo are breathtaking. Once you dabbled with the appetizers and the pasta, the wait for the main course is exciting because you expect it to blow your mind and it does. I tried the braised short rib which was cooked to perfection. I could have eaten it with a spoon because it was absolutely falling apart in the creamy polenta which it was served on top of. The fresh horseradish and parsley gremolata was so interesting to an aspiring foodie like me that has never tasted fresh horseradish before. Yet my fiance out ordered me again when she got the grilled skirt steak with pickled onions and salsa verde. WOW!! I loved it and the grilled endive that it was served with was so unusual that I am going to spend $3.99 on a small piece of endive when I get home to try and replicate it...like that would ever happen.

Once our dinner plates were cleared, it was about 12:30 in the morning and we chose to pass desert and opt for cigarettes in the car because there is nothing like a smoke after such an amazing meal.

THANK YOU for all of your insights and humor. I look forward to actually having enough money to dine at a restaurant like Babbo in the future so I can share it with you. Later.

[Jinmyo]

jpk8216, welcome. And I'm sure that you have to much to share already.

[Suzanne F]

A very big Welcome to you, Patrick! Quite an auspicious debut -- I hung on your every mouthful.

[tommy]

jpk8216, i assume you're referring to the priming of the wine glasses, which is meant to remove any off odors/flavors from the glass. there has been some discussion on it here, so searching on "priming" would probably results in good results.

welcome, and, i'm glad you enjoyed babbo. i don't go there nearly enough considering it's one of my top 5. i suggest to everyone that they try the pasta tasting at least once.