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“Northern Spy”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	East Village	Moderate	Great

brined, they might stand in on a burger instead of the cucumber variety. Order these with a cold pint while waiting for your table. You could also snack on a potato flatbread with rosemary ($4), a bowl of olives ($4), or a Farmstead cheese board ($10).

When you sit down, do make sure to pay attention to the specials because there will be at least two different preparations of Fleisher’s pastured pork and you will want to try at least one. The porchetta is a must have according to the food press, but Jamie and I went instead for the homemade pork meatballs ($11) in a sweet and pulpy marinara sauce. I don’t know how familiar any of you are with Matzoh balls but there are two schools of thought on how to cook them and I think the theory is equally applicable to meatballs. Some people like the sinkers (dense) and others like the floaters (light and fluffy). These meatballs are of the floater variety, so light and fluffy and yet richly porky, that I think the cooks may be inflating them with air in the back before serving them (the matzoh ball trick is seltzer water after all). Whatever they are doing, please take my word for it: keep doing it. These are the best meatballs in the city.

We also had the special pasta and this was a revelation as well: sheets of fresh pasta served with stinging nettles (tasted like spinach to me) with ricotta cheese, in a sauce of lemony butter sauce cooked down with garlic and chives and then hit with a dose of blood orange. I know there was a lot of butter in this dish, I saw it swimming in the bottom of the bowl, but with the lemon and the blood orange, you don’t taste it. It’s remarkably light for a dish that probably contains my caloric allowance for the day. But all you taste are the flavors of the cheese, the greens, and that lovely fresh pasta. So you keep eating. Yum.

The menu is particularly suited to vegans and vegetarians, with quite a number of meatless options to choose from including a mushroom sandwich with clothbound cheddar, confited potatoes and greens ($10), a farmer’s salad (this recipe should be shared with anyone who is a member of a CSA) composed of kohlrabi, turnips, sweet potatoes, celery root, arugula and a yogurt vinaigrette ($9), and a Freekeh (a Middle Eastern green wheat) risotto with butternut squash and mascarpone ($11), polenta with braised greens, roasted mushrooms and crème fraiche with ($14) or without baked eggs ($11), ... [more, click below]

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Posted: March 14, 2010

Other restaurants in East Village :
+ Yujin-- Closed   + Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar   + Mermaid Inn   + Five Points   + Lavagna   + Five Points   + Bond Street   + Jewel Bako   + Alphabet Kitchen   + In Vino   + Bao 111   + Chikalicious   + Il Buco   + Hearth   + Lima's Taste   + Mercadito   + Hedeh   + Momofuku   + Una Pizza Napoletana   + Winebar   + Uovo-- CLOSED   + Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction   + Gotham Bar & Grill   + Colors   + Chinatown Brasserie   + Knife and Fork   + European Union-- NEW CHEF; SEE APRIL 2007 Review   + Aroma Kitchen and Winebar   + Stand   + European Union   + Mercat   + Gemma   + Back Forty   + The Smith   + Seymour Burton   + Belcourt   + Graffiti   + The Redhead   + Double Crown    + Apiary   + Joe Doe   + Apiary by guest reviewer Kiri Tannenbaum   + DBGB   + Northern Spy   + Goat Town   + Saxon + Parole   + Il Buco Alimentari & Vineria   + Acme   + Calliope   + Nicoletta   + JEPPNEY by Claire Jaffe   + Feast   

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