Good Italian Pickins at Po

For the past month, since it's been so cold outside, I've been on a home cooking kick. I obtained a free cookbook titled "Rocco's Real-Life Recipes", authored by celebu-chef Rocco DiSpirito of "The Restaurant" fame, tried a few of his recipes and found them to be really simple and tasty! I especially loved his salmon with miso marmalade recipe, who knew that pairing two unlikely ingredients would create something magical??

But I missed eating out in those cute, snug little restaurants in the Village, so I finally decided to brave the cold and try out Po, an Italian restaurant on Cornelia St., right across the street from another fav of mine Pearl Oyster House. I arrived there at 10:30 p.m., and in most cases, it's not that difficult to get a table at 10:30, but no, not at Po. We were told we'd have to wait at least 30 minutes for a table. This is one of the most frustrating and depressing things about living in the city, how competitive it is to get a seat at a somewhat decent place. Even going near midnight doesn't guarantee anything, isn't there something wrong with that?? There were, however, two seats at the bar that were free, so we decided to just take what we could get. (By the way, if you ever want to have a great bar meal experience, go to Sakagura on 43rd and 2nd/3rd Ave., and try their pork belly!!)

While seated, the server brought out two slices of bread topped with a white bean bruschetta. This reminded me of the chickpea bruschetta served at Babbo, so I wondered if there was some sort of connection here, whether this was a Batali restaurant of some sort. Sure enough, he used to be one of the original partners of the restaurant, so I wasn't totally off the mark.

We ordered the linguine vongole (pasta with clams, pancetta, chili and white wine, absolutely delicious) and orecchiette (sweet sausage ragu and broccoli rabe, the sweet sausage ragu tastes like really good Bacos but with the consistency of a salami), both were very solid and I'd order them again. That's definitely a similarity between Po and Babbo--the pasta dishes are great.

We also ordered the polpetta di carne (basically fancy meatballs in cheese and tomato based sauce) as an appetizer, but they were only slightly better than Subway meatballs. Let me tell you, if you want amazing meatballs, try the duck meatballs at A Voce, everything else pales in comparison. I think even Rocco's mother's meatballs were better (which I've had the pleasure of trying at a Safe Horizon benefit). For dessert, we ordered the apple tart, which I believe was the special of the day. It was decent but not memorable.

I liked the atmosphere at Po--again, like Babbo, it was very homey, like you were in someone's nice dining room, but the noise level was a little loud and they played random music like Fergie and Gwen Stefani, which was weird. I definitely liked the pasta and would come back to try some other dishes. I wouldn't say it's the best mind-blowing Italian restaurant I've been to (there are so many great places in NY that serve up similar style dishes), it reminds me of a lot of other good places and definitely meets expectations--you would be guaranteed a solid meal here if you went here.

(Picture courtesy of porestaurant.com)

Po

31 Cornelia St.
212-645-2189 (Bleecker)
Rating (out of 5 stars):***
Style: Italian
Prices: $10-$18 for pasta dishes, $18+ for meat dishes
Summary: Comforting, familiar Italian dishes in a small, homey but loud atmosphere.