‘Inoteca – Plate 48

I’m guessing the apostrophe is substitute for the V in what would be Vinoteca. I had to look it up to find out if vinoteca was actually a word (It’s either Italian or a proper noun) to be sure of my guess, and then I went to the website, and they confrimed my suspicions (kinda). I dug around and found out it’s a play on Paninoteca and Vinoteca, so they just decided to go mysterious and include both the bread and the wine. Either way, they do both of those things well here.

Krista Garcia of Goodies First (link) joined me for dinner and we were treated to some interesting stuff. We started with the Brussel Sprout Insalata and completely licked that plate clean. Pomegranate, walnuts, and a fiore sardo cheese with a super light olive oil dressing that we both adored. This is a must order. The next was the truffled Egg Toast with Caviar (pic) which our waitress told us had to be eaten right away. She was probably right, because after us food bloggers got all of our pictures out of the way, it was a bit chewy. I would be willing to try this again without taking all the pictures of it.

The main courses were Polpi and Fingerling Potatoes (left) and Hen of the Woods Mushrooms Over Polenta (pic).

The octopus was the best I’ve ever had.

Cooked perfectly (that’s the third time I’ve used this adverb for 93 plates), it was a joy to eat, I wish I had the video of Krista and I eating this because we were both pretty excited about it. It’s a fairly large tentacle with a varying thickness, and I cut all different sections of it to see if the consistency was off in any one section. Nope. If you like or love octopus, this is a great one to try. If you have never tried octopus, it’s going to be damn near impossible not to like or love it after trying this dish.

The mushroom and polenta was excellent, especially with the over-easy egg. Everything worked really well together, but if you only get one thing while you’re here, it’s gotta be the ‘pus.

I am a sucker for the cheese course, so our waitress suggested a goat, a sheep, and a blend for us. I didn’t take notes very well on this one, but I remember liking the goat and the pecorino, not so much the blend. Maybe the wine pairing had something to do it with. Our waitress was exceptional with her picks.

Like Café Habana (link), this place was fun. It was busy as hell, everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun, there was a group of about 10 people at the table next to us and they looked like they hadn’t seen each other in 15 years. It really was a great atmosphere. I feel like it’s a great place to start the night. Order two glasses of wine, get a brussel sprout salad and an order of the octopus and see what develops.

‘Inoteca on video:

Guest Writer: Krista Garcia … Here’s her post

The IRL Arts Foundation and The Wandering Foodie thank ‘Inoteca for providing this meal.

‘Inoteca
98 Rivington Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 614-0473