GASTRONORMOUS

Where: Fragole Ristorante
When: Saturday, February 10, 2008
What:
vegetable antipasti
bruschetta con ceci
tilapia cartoccio
ravioli with truffle pink sauce
Fattoria Lavacchio Cedro Chianti Rufina 2003

After being turned away, in the nicest possible way, from Crave on Henry Street for dinner last Saturday night (they were accepting only people with reservations), we decided to hoof it over to Fragole on Smith Street to get some Italian. It had been been quite a while since we had been there, but the food was great the last time. We had tried several times to go since, but there was always too long a wait.

We were happy to learn from the hostess that the wait would tonight be only 20 minutes. And, what luck, two seats opened up at the bar. We ordered a glass of wine to share while we waited. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. I began to worry that the hostess had forgotten about us, when a man sitting at the table next to the bar got up and volunteered to us that those at his table had eaten a basket of bread and consumed an entire bottle of wine and nobody had even come to take their order yet! This did not bode well for the chances of being seated and served in a timely manner. Looking around the bar, I began to realize what amateurs we were–you could tell the regular customers were those who ordered their food at the bar while they were waiting to be seated. That would have been a smart move as our 20 minute wait stretched into an hour before we got a table.

After being seated, before looking at the menu, I knew that I was going to order a special from the chalkboard: wild mushroom ravioli with almonds and truffled pink sauce. Doesn’t that sound divine? We perused the menu briefly and collared the waiter the very next time we saw him–we were starving by this time and didn’t want to take the chance of being subjected to the same treatment as the fellow by the bar. When I placed my order he regretted to inform me that they were out of the wild mushroom ravioli, but could do a cheese ravioli with the same sauce. I was disappointed, but as I have never met a truffle I didn’t like, I decided to go with it anyway.

The antipasti was in fact just grilled vegetables and some fresh mozzarella sprinkled with a bit of olive oil and balsamic. I really like to have a couple marinated vegetables on my antipasti plate, such as those I have had at Bocca Lupo on Henry Street and a wonderfully memorable version I had ages ago at Mario Batali’s Lupa, and this didn’t include any. That said, these were grilled vegetables done right; they were charred without tasting burnt and they were not sopping with oil, which is the reason why I rarely order grilled vegetables in restaurants. If you are Italian, or if your mother happened to grow up in a a small, extremely Italian town, such as is the case with me, then you know that “ceci” are chickpeas, a/k/a garbanzo beans. The bruschetta was topped with whole marinated chickpeas, not the paste I was expecting. It was pretty tasty, but the bread wasn’t quite sturdy enough and they were generally rather unwieldy as the chickpeas had a tendency to roll off the bread and bounce across the table. While that is surely a sign of a healthy chickpea, it is not a sign of a well-constructed appetizer!

The entrees were quite tasty. Though I would have perhaps preferred the mushroom ravioli, the cheese ravioli were delicious–creamy, gooey, and flavorful–and lacking the ricotta-heavy, dry, granular texture that many cheese ravioli have. The sauce was delicious. It was a truffle-scented vodka-like sauce, but the truffle didn’t overwhelm. The tomatoes, cream, and truffles were given equal respect, as it should be (truffles can by cloying if used heavy handedly). My only complaint is that the sauce was a tad too salty (and I have quite a salty tooth, so this says a lot).

The tilapia was served in the paper in which it was cooked, along with shrimp, artichoke hearts, some superfluous snow peas, and seasoned simply but tastily with oregano and lemon. The tilapia was expertly cooked and had a creamy rather than flaky texture that melted in the mouth. The shrimp were few, and it is just as well as I believe they were frozen–they paled in comparison to the tilapia. The fish was served with a side of broccoli rabe simply sauteed with garlic, which was delicious also.

I am not a particular fan of Chianti, but this one was rich and spicy and tasted more like a Primitivo to me, and I quite enjoyed it. Definitely a Chianti I would have again.

After our plates were cleared we were given the dessert menu. We considered getting something, but after waiting a while for the waiter to return, we realized if we didn’t leave now, we might never get out!

Besides the long waits before being seated and after dinner, the service was actually not bad. They seemed to be short on waitstaff, which may be a chronic issue here as they are as well know for their long waits as they are for their good food.

When our bill arrived, we were told that our bar bill was on the house, which was quite kind of them. Unfortunately, it didn’t register that that is what the waiter had said before he disappeared again, so we didn’t get to thank him. Hubs suggested that we were comped the glass of wine because of my assiduous picture- and note-taking. I’d rather like to think that they felt badly for making us wait–but maybe I am just looking for excuses to return despite the service.

Fragole Ristorante
394 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
Between Carroll St and 1st Place
718-522-7133