<< previous review   next review >>

reviews

“Mia Dona”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Italian	Midtown	Moderate	Great

not elegant. It’s a stick to your ribs pasta built for a hearty appetite on a cold winter night. The only pasta that gets a bit fancy is his gnudi, which remain ethereal, fashioned from sheep’s milk ricotta and sauced in a coronary’s worth of truffle butter sauce showered with crispy speck and mushrooms ($10/$16).

Eggs, a traditional mark of peasant food, play an important role at Mia Dona. This makes me very happy, as I tend to put eggs on everything—steaks, chicken, pasta, burgers, salads, sandwiches, favorite books. In my mind, there is no food, save perhaps chocolate layer cake, that cannot be improved by a nice fried or poached egg. Psilakis and I see eye-to-eye on this point. He serves a juicy roasted pork chop ($19) with a salad of frisee, lardons, and gorgonzola, and tops off the chop with a fried egg, sunny side up, so that yolk runs down and sauces the whole plate. Fantastic.

The Florentine Meatloaf, photographed by Kathy

A seven-minute soft-boiled egg is the literal centerpiece of a brilliant dish called Polpettone ($18)—a Florentine “meatloaf” made from a classic meatball recipe trio—veal, pork, and beef. This is another dish I was hoping to stash away for lunch but before I knew it, it was gone.

While some dishes stick to the traditional route, Psilakis takes others and treats them to a dose of his particular brand of modern stroke. Burrata, an appetizer for two, is, as expected, so creamy and rich it’s pretty much the cheese equivalent of pudding. But rather than the usual olive oil and sea salt preparation, Psilakis brings in a burst of acidity and balance to the richness of the cheese with the addition of blood orange, fennel, red onion and just a touch of balsamic ($18). It’s some fine-tuning that’s unexpected, but that really makes this dish sharp. Grilled octopus, its puckered tentacles chewy and smoky and perfectly cooked, gets some Greek love with the addition of crushed new potatoes, capers, feta and a beautifully bracing anchovy vinaigrette. An arugula salad ($8) is also given a bit of a makeover with the addition of chicory, caramelized onions, aged provolone, pepperoncini, and oven-dried tomatoes. Cod is poached in olive oil and arrives the color of milk, with its silky flesh secreted under a cap of crispy skin dressed with sun-dried tomato pesto and rings o ... [more, click below]

Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  

 Make a reservation

<< previous review   next review >>

Posted: March 23, 2008

Other restaurants in Midtown :
+ Lever House   + Aquavit   + RM   + Joseph's (formerly Citarella The Restaurant)   + Town   + Artisanal   + The Oyster Bar   + Geisha   + David Burke and Donatella Restaurant   + Riingo   + Amma   + Cafe Sabarsky   + The Stone Rose Lounge   + BLT Steak   + V, The Steakhouse-- Closed   + Bar Masa   + Cafe Gray   + The Bar Room at The Modern   + The Cafe at Aquavit   + The Cafe at Aquavit   + Bistro du Vent-- Closed   + Shaburi   + Xing   + The Modern   + Bar Americain   + Alto   + Park Blue   + Mainland-- Closed   + Nobu 57   + Quality Meats   + Dona-- CLOSED   + Daisy May's   + 7Square-- CLOSED   + Amalia   + Fireside   + Anthos   + Patroon   + BLT Market   + Toloache   + Mia Dona   + Park Avenue Summer   + Convivio   + The Oak Room by guest reviewer Julie Besonen   + At Vermilion by guest reviewer Elaine Weiner   + Lunching at Inakaya, by guest reviewer Kathleen Squires   + Marea, by Guest Reviewer Susan Kane Walkush   + Le Bernardin   + New York Central -- A Reason To Eat at the Grand Hyatt Again   + Pampano Botaneria by Dara Pollak   

Share ! Post a comment