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2013-10-05
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It was a night to celebrate: my wife and I had just paid off every last cent of debt that we had and now for the first time had positive net worth. My wife likes dinners with lots of small dishes to share, like tapas, so I had my eye on Nico's Spuntino Bar, as spuntini had been described to me as "Italian tapas."When we arrived, I'll admit that I was a little disappointed. I had hoped that there would be lots of distinctively Italian little dishes that were new to me. It was actually mostly bar
When we arrived, I'll admit that I was a little disappointed. I had hoped that there would be lots of distinctively Italian little dishes that were new to me. It was actually mostly bar food (sliders, fried calamari), cured meats, cheeses, and olives. Nothing I don't like, just nothing particularly exciting.
We wanted to order a platter for two, but we were uncertain as to how many other spuntini we should get to round out a meal, so we asked. The conversation went something like this:
Us: If we got this platter, how many other spuntini should we get? How big are they?
Server: Small.
Us: So like how big is this one?
Server: [makes a shape with her hands]
Us: So we should get like 3 or 4 of these to share?
Server: No.
Us: How many should we get to share?
Server: If you get that you need to order two.
Us: We can't share?
Server: No.
Us: Um... let us think about the menu some more.
I'm assuming that there was a communication problem and the server did not actually mean that we couldn't share. Anyway, our new plan was: pick whatever we thought was the right amount, order it, and then just order more if it wasn't enough.
The first thing to arrive was the meat and cheese platter for two. This we ordered off the spuntino menu (there's a similar thing on the a la carte menu) You could get the platter for (I think) two, or three, or four people. It's nice of them to scale things like that.First, a complaint. When this arrived I of course did not have the menu any more. But I am about 95% certain that this was described as coming with more than just meat and cheese. The particular platter we ordered does not appear on the online menus Staunton's Group posted for Nico's, but on the online a la carte menu the antipasti platter is described as coming with "olives and pickles" and all the platters on the spuntino menu are described as coming with "condiments." We didn't get olives, pickles, or condiments. Yes, I could've complained to the servers but (a) I didn't know exactly what it was that I wasn't getting and (b) I was already somewhat exasperated with the servers.
I don't know what the meats and cheeses were exactly, as no one made an attempt to explain that to us (admittedly, I didn't ask). I'm not an Italian cured meats expert, but the meat at the top of the picture might be capocollo and the closer one looks like some kind of salami? I'm even worse at cheeses, but the top right cheese was something hard, dry, and brittle like parmesan or pecorino, but less intense and less salty. The other cheese... no clue.
Mostly I thought the meats and cheeses were unremarkable. Absolutely nothing wrong with them, but nothing special about them either. We asked for bread with them (and I'm really surprised we had to ask) and as HK standards dictate, the bread was not particularly good. If I came back, I don't think I'd order this again. C-... slightly worse than average.
We ordered one thing off the a la carte menu, the spicy salami salad ("from Campania"), described thusly: "seared spicy salami, foccaccia croutons, cherry tomatoes, avocado, mixed field greens, balsamic dressing." I was quite a fan of the salad. They were judiciously light on the dressing. The searing helped the salami, but though I fear I'm beginning to sound like a broken record in my openrice reviews, I must say: the thing described as spicy was not spicy. There was a good mix of avocados and tomatoes in the salad. A-... excellent.
Croquettes were not our first choice. We had ordered something that sounded exciting, but was also inexplicable (it was described as a "whole roasted pig" with mushrooms or something, but at $60 or whatever it was not that). Anyway, after the meat and cheese platter and the salad arrived, we were told that they were out of the mysterious thing so we ordered the croquettes instead. I notice that on their online menu, the croquettes have cheese in them. These one's didn't, but as I said the menu was different at the restaurant. Tartar sauce seems like, and was, a strange accompaniment for croquettes. I thought they were on the bland side, but that's kind of natural for this dish. They were nice and crispy, and not greasy. They were distinctly cumin-y. C+... better than average.
We also got calamari rings. Like the croquettes, they were cumin-y and came with tartar sauce. I would have guessed marinara, but according to cookitaly.com, "Dipping sauces are not at all Italian, as they defeat the point of the crispness and tend to overpower the delicate taste of the squid - which is what this dish is all about." So I guess the tartar sauce is for us uncouth expats. Anyway, the squid was reasonably tender and the batter was nice and light. B+, good.I will mention that the cocktails were good but small. I had a Rosso Sour-- a bourbon sour with a red wine float-- and I really liked it. My wife had an Americano (which the menu helpfully informed us was not American in origin, it's just named that because American tourists in Italy like to drink it). I found the Americano too bitter, but my wife who likes bitter things enjoyed it.
I'm starting to form an opinion of Staunton's group restaurants in general. The food's not particularly good, but not bad or terrible either. The servers aren't particularly competent, but certainly not wholly incompetent. They make middle-of-the-road, average restaurants for expats who don't like to walk more than a few feet from the escalators. Nico's gets a solid C from me: Average.
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