I was pleased at Apizz

Last night I had the good fortune of dining with 3 lovely ladies at a gem of a restaurant on the Lower East Side. Apizz, pronounced A-Beets, is a wonderful little Italian spot nestled in a cozy space on Eldridge. I have been here maybe 4 times before and everytime I leave happier than when I arrived! The main dining room feels like you are in the Keebler Elves treehouse. It is that awesome. The main star of the room is the open fire pit that cooks everything from pizza to meatballs. Luckily for me, my dinner dates are all people who like to share so I actually got to taste much of the menu.

Our waiter started us off with an usual bread basket: Sullivan Street bread served with ricotta and a little bowl of fresh tomato sauce. Delicious! Each bite was perfect or at least I made it that way! We then ordered 3 starters, two to come very soon and one as a mid-course. The flatbread pizza with chiorzo was out of this world. Just enough cheese and the right amount of Chiorzo. Not one ingredient overpowered the other. The 2nd starter was the Gambero, a dish full of lemon shrimp and chiorzo in a breadcrumb based EVOO sauce. So flavorful and enough sauce to warrant another helping of bread to soak up the herd infused EVOO. We paused for a bit and enjoyed our wine. I had an Italian wine called Orvieto that was so mellow and refreshing. Our mid-course, Meatballs, is what makes Apizz famous. The polpette e pomodori are veal-beef-pork meatballs cooked in the open fire pit. They are made to order so they take 20 minutes. This is really nothing in the grand scheme of it as these meatballs are perhaps the best I have ever tasted. I can't say I have ever had really good meatballs though. A few years ago I tasted Rocco DiSpirito's meatballs at The Restaurant, which has since closed. I thought they were good but I really had no base of comparison. Now I do and Apizz is the winner!

Our entrees were all shareable. We had the gnocchi with the honey braised prime beef, the handkerchief pasta with fresh crab and tomato sauce, an open face ravioli with a mascarpone ricotta cheese and caramelized butternut squash, and the oven baked skate fish. Let's deconstruct the mains, shall we?

Gnocchi: delicious but if you don't have a big appetite skip. The gnocchi are dense and the meat is abundant. Full of flavor and one of the best pasta dishes on the menu.

Handkerchief: everytime my sniffer smelled something divine I knew it was the chef cooking the garlic for this dish. The crab is so delicate yet really stands up to the tomato sauce. It is a great pairing. The flat pasta is merely the conduit to getting this lovely crab/tomato sauce in your mouth!

Ravioli: the cheese paired with the butternut squash is so heavenly it makes my mouth water just thinking about it. So yummy but a few bites is all you need.

Skate: lovely lemon/caper sauce that adorned the fish. Perfect slices of potato infused with rosemary served as a side. Nice, but the pasta is a better bet!

Dessert: no room at all but the choices were great!

If you put me in a corner and asked me to pick my entree, I would say the handkerchief crab pasta. Loverlee!

The only ding I have to make about Apizz is our waiter. He was weird. He forgot to bring stuff and we had to ask multiple times for a few things. Also, he told us that Apizz's sister restaurant The Orchard was nowhere near the deliciousness of Apizz. Weird, right?

Bottom line: Great date spot men!! Order any pasta but the penne (I had on a previous occasion and didn't like) and make sure you get the meatballs. Opentable takes resi's for them so you can even earn your 100 points! The prices are in the middle, not as cheap as I would like, but not super duper outrageous. I am sure you will also be pleased at Apizz:)

www.apizz.com

Next Up: Yankee Stadium dining!