I recently found a great new lunch spot: good food, cheap, plenty of options...and a wonderful experience to boot.
It's an Italian lunch spot right in the middle of the Financial District. Being on a corner, it's got plenty of windows. Plus high ceilings, this makes it expansive and airy, not too noisy. (A good thing, given it's packed during lunchtime.)
The fare? Everything from huge slices of pizza and calazones to deli sandwiches to a huge salad bar and, my favorite, the freshly-made pastas. Yummm! Those of you who know my addiction to carbs can imagine how great it is to find the perfect source of lunchtime pasta! But wait, there's more....
For $6-7, you can order from over 30-40 different pasta dishes (I've tried the shrimp primavera and chicken and gorgonzola), and stand by the long window to watch the dance happen. The pasta is made on a long range of 16 burners, and it's so mesmerizing to watch the chefs work. They juggle up to 8 dishes at once, adding veggies, sauces and glorious meats, dousing their handiwork in wine, ladling in sauces, tossing in the pasta....
With two or three of them working at once, it's a miracle they don't constantly burn each other. Hot pans weave over and under arms, finished plates arrive 4-5 at a time...it's all a wonderful, captivating dance. This is not the chaotic, loud, angry, yelling kitchen that chefs warn about on TV. Like a sports team that's been together for years, they intuitively know where each other are, and when and how to give help.
I've always been intruiged by restaurants. For someone who loves food and loves sharing it with others, what better obsession?
Funny the places that calm and recharge us...
