Dinner at Otto Enoteca in NYC

My birthday celebrating continued when Elena took me to dinner at Otto Enoteca.  It's one of Mario Batali's restaurants and definitely reminded me of Eataly.  The front bar area had the standing tables plus obvisouly a real bar. The restaurant itself is pretty large but the front area is too.  Even though we had a reservation we had to wait about 15 minutes.  Fortunately we were totally simpatico and agreed on ordered a white pizza + marinara based pasta.  Both were delicious and went well together, though not the best pizza or pasta I've eaten in my life.  I actually really loved the different pastas I tried at Eataly.  I enjoyed this one but it wasn't that hot when it came out, and the portion was small, though I guess it was only $12 so can't complain too much.  I love mushrooms and white pizza but I wished there had been some truffle oil.  We shared three kinds of gelato, including olive oil which people raved about on Yelp.  We both had the same reaction to the olive oil gelato - weird and diferent but didn't hate it.  Not exactly glowing but it was just so weird.  Def got the olive oil taste plus big flakes of salt.   The other flavors were tasty because they were sweet and rather normal.  Overall a good meal.  I'm not sure if I would come back given how many awesome pizza places I have yet to try.  But a solid choice.

Funghi & Tallegio pizza

Taccozzette con Stracotto - braised pork shoulder, tomato, basil.  This was a great pasta dish but the temp wasn't hot enough.  The noodles were very soft and like little mini lasagna.  The pork was well cooked, very tender.  And the sauce had nice flavor.  I think if it came to us right when it was cooked I would have raved about it.

Olive oil in the front, hazelnut stracciatella (w/chocolate bits) on right, and milk and honey on the left.  The milk and honey was a little too sweet for me, but the one or two bites I had were great.  The hazelnut tasted a lot like java chip.  It was all good though until they kind of melted together and was a really confusing mix of flavors.