not impressed.................................woe is italy if this is their best young chef...........................................

OH ! thanks for reminding me ! i completely forgot what with the guests from out of town and all the excitement of keith-mcnally being in love with me all of a sudden [ ha aha hahaa ahaaa].

yah so anyhoo
i totally hear you.

but whatever. this is the exact same thing that happened with aVoce. everybody was all rah rah forever and when i finally made it, i was all: -- this shit is pretty wack.

i mean-- i'm not saying LocandaVerde is as ugly and stupid as aVoce, but i certainly was not that impressed either.

first of all, the "cooking tonight: ..." thing at the bottom of the menu is a bit of a prevarication. cuz although andrew-carmellini was PRESENT, he was actually OUTSIDE the line expediting, NOT cooking. and he wasn't even doing a very good job evidently either--

see, i ordered the green pasta thingie with the white bolognese cuz i saw the photo of it on grubstreet and it looked pretty yummy to me. but when it arrived, right away i remarked: "oh boo. what happened to all the shaved parmesan?" my dish didn't have ANY and i distinctly recall the photo had the pasta covered in it. so then i thought they'd decided to nix the parmesan altogether, which i thought was strange.

then a little whiles later, i spot the same exact dish being run to a table behind me, and THAT dish was covered in shaved parmesan! ha ha ahaa duh they had sent my dish out to me INCOMPLETE.
nice expediting, carmellini.


another thing was: i thought the piccolini was just bleeah. i had the mushrooms (are those things CANNED ? -the fuck ?) and also some crostini type thing that was so not memorable i don't even remember it.
like-- come on now. at that price point, if you're going to ahhahaa steal an idea from another restaurant (with the same price point) at least do it as well as (or better yet, BETTER than) the other joint for fuck's sake.

and YAH that reminds me--

is idiohack frank-bruni going to make LocandaVerde his last rah rah review ? probably right ? cuz ya know--
the only reason i even knew about the aVoce review in the first place is cuz a prominent restaurateur had asked me if i'd seen it, he was all: "when i was reading it, all i could think is how frank bruni must be totally in love with this boy!"

SO
what IS frank "i'm so sick of small plates" bruni going to make of LV's piccolini ? i'm pretty sure he is going to change his mind and declare "piccolini is the most brillllliant thing everrrrrr invented!"






anyways. whatever

but you watch. mark my words. this is my prediction:

http://pxthis.invisionzone.com/index.php?s...post&p=8012

[ i put it in the private forum cuz i don't want anybody intentionally altering their actions to disprove my prediction. ]

OH-- and the only other thing:

they serve "alla famiglia"



uhhh yah--

for a pretty SMALL fucking family.


hhahahahhaa that's just that 66 thang alls over again. "alla famiglia" really means: "too lazy to worry about timing dishes correctly"

KKRKKLLSSHHZZHSHSSHSSKK CALLING A.A. GILL COME IN A.A. GILL

OH OH
one more other other thing:

the "fried artichokes" with the decidedly FRENCH preparation:

i mean if you are going to smother a vegetable with all sorts of funky sauces, WHY bother frying it in the first place. cuz it's not even crisp and crunchy anymore.

and WHY an expensive veggie like artichoke ? just use some other shit like cauliflower or whatever-- who the hells will even know the difference.




okay i'm done now. really

It actually would be nice if the next Times reviewer had industry knowledge.

LOL.

As if.

I was just saying the same thing - http://pxthis.invisionzone.com/index.php?s...post&p=8023

then why does chef need 2 expedite?

why he no just cook?

a friend of mine went this wknd and his said it was just ok. he said he didn't like it that much because it was all filled with tourists. then again he also said that about minetta so who knows? but he used to hang out at places like cipriani, waverly and la esquina.

what john and abbe said - it's ok, nothing exciting, far from impressive.

I keep hearing the same thing, that it's fine but not that great, and everyone says that they prob wouldn't go back all the way to Tribeca. There's so much hype in the press, and they keep raving about it and don't say anything negative, and it's only because they are biased and get comped, or get paid for writing good press. I would never want to be the kind of person that posts bad reviews on Yelp, but this is getting ridiculous, and it's not fair. Some really great places don't get that much hype, and it's not fair that the smaller amount of diners in this economy get led to a place that isn't as good and doesn't deserve the business as much. However, if I hear anymore people I know say that they don't like it, I'm going to find out if they are on Yelp and tell them to post their honest opinion. At least that will balance out all the fake hype.

So supposedly Bruni was disappointed with Locanda, but he still gave it 2 stars. What a f'ing hack.

ETA Then again, 2 stars from the Times doesn't mean jack these days anyway, thanks to Bruni.