La Spina

[cintyber.livejournal.com]

Yummy

We found a new place to dine in Davis Square hidden behind Rosebud.

La Spina is now on my recommended list

The staff is charming. The place is clean, well lit and has a nice charm to it. Rita the chef was born in Naples and raised in Sicily. There is an interesting blend of both regions in the way she twists flavors. The menu prices are very reasonable as are the portions. This is not a place where they serve you a bowl of pasta that will feed you and a family of four for a week. The plate will instead fill you and provide enough flavor so you can taste the nuances of the dish without being overwhelmed with finishing it

Our meal began with a lively conversation about a pink sauce with mascarpone. Nice rustic bread was brought to the table served with a small dish of high quality olive oil and a couple of olives.

I had the Mezzo E Mezzo which is a small portion of Eggplant & Chicken Parmigianina served over pasta with a light sauce. This dish was beautifully done and conquered my usual distaste for all things eggplant. The chicken was delicate in texture and balanced in flavor. You can truly taste the freshness of the ingredients with every bite. . If I could have changed one thing it would have been for the sauce to be a bit spicier but that is a personal taste thing.


jasra had the Chicken Picata with fresh veggies on the side instead of pasta. You will have to ask her for her review though.

We split a Cannoli for dessert. Let me tell you this is how a Cannoli is supposed to be. The mixture of Ricotta and Mascarpone cheese whipped to just the point of airy but holding to the density these two chesses should have. A hand made horn to hold this filling was a treat in texture and flavor.

I will try and post a scan of their take away menu later.
Phone 617-440-6284

Comments

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the review! Do you know their hours? For a while, there, everytime I went by they weren't open, despite having announced that they were officially open for business.

Is it not related to the Rosebud, at all? That was another thing that scared me, at least. I'm not a Rosebud fan and their close proximity made a lot of people think that they might be under the same ownership.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Wow, I was expecting that place to suck, to be one of those places that drowns everything in mediocre red sauce. Nice to know it's good.

Actually, it's not that great.

[shana-lyons.livejournal.com]

My fiancee Dave and I ate at La Spina a while ago and it really wasn't all that great. I'm glad someone had a really positive experience, but ours wasn't. It wasn't horrible, but it was mediocre and expensive, which is a bad combo. We're not planning on going back. You're far better off at Antonia's or Amelia's Kitchen in Teele.

First off, the place has a kind of weird vibe to it when you walk in the door. It doesn't smell garlicky, like an Italian restaurant should. It smells like it used to be a Chinese Restaurant or someplace where a deep fryer was used liberally.

I had the Chicken Piccata and Dave had Shrimp Scampi. We also shared a caprese salad as an appetizer and a bottle of Nero d'Avola.

The service was unusual to say the least. The Nero d'Avola was a bottle of wine that was on their menu as being sold by the bottle or the glass. The waitress who approached our table indicated that they were featuring it as a special wine that day with a by-the-glass deal. We decided to try a bottle of it. I think it was about a $25 bottle of wine. We ordered the bottle when she came back and she tried to talk us out of the bottle. She kept repeating that it was their wine special by the glass that day and asking us if we wanted glasses instead. We asked if there was some problem getting a bottle of it and she said she would have to go check to see if they had a bottle. Honestly, I found that a bit confusing because you'd think that if they were featuring it they'd have a bottle of it somewhere. Maybe they were featuring it to finish off a bottle where a glass had been poured the previous night? Who knows?

She finally did find a bottle and then proceeded to break off the cork halfway in and halfway out of the bottle while opening it. After decimating the second part of the cork, she poured the wine and then proceeded to awkwardly fish out a chunk of cork from one of our glasses. The wine was excellent once we got into it, but it was kind of a production to get there.

When we placed our order, the waitress had to return to the kitchen several times to check if things we asked for were ok. She told me that I couldn't put the pasta that came with my Chicken Picatta under the chicken. It apparently has to come on the side with red sauce.

The some of the food was ok, some was mediocre. The bread they brought before the meal was focaccia and kind of stale. The caprese salad was nice and had a really tasty balsamic vinegar with it. I do recommend that. We had a very long wait between our appetizer and our entrees.

I was kind of eh on the Picatta and the Scampi. Antonia's has better Picatta. Our meals did not come out at the same time. This didn't seem uncommon. While we were waiting, we saw a couple a few tables away that had that first date kind of look to them. The guy's meal came out at least 20 minutes before the girl's. They actually complained about it several times. Their waiter (who was different than ours) kept assuring them it was coming. She encouraged him to start eating and he was actually done with his entree long before hers showed up.

We opted out of dessert.

Long story short: It wasn't horrible, but it definitely wasn't worth almost $100. You can get a lot more for that amount of money elsewhere.

Re: Actually, it's not that great.

[cintyber.livejournal.com]

I am wondering when you went, they just opened in December of 2006.

Most of the issues you reported seem to be that of an undertrained waitress and while that does stink, it can happen even in the best of places.

The prices were very nice most of the dishes were below $20.

What you are describing sounds more like what I went through at Orleans.

Re: Actually, it's not that great.

[davelew.livejournal.com]

I'm the Dave who was there with Shana. We were there in late December, IIRC.

Zagat's guides rate restaurants on food, service and decor. Although the service at La Spina's was bad, and the decor was blah, I don't personally value those things too much. For me, it's all about the food, and the food at La Spina's was just not that good. I can get mediocre Italian food at Mike's for a quarter the price.

Oh yeah, and the sign out front advertises "Neopolitan" cuisine. Before eating there, I wasn't sure if they had misspelled Neapolitan, or if they were making a subtle pun about avant-garde Italian fare. After eating there, I'm pretty sure they weren't making a pun.

OK, as I re-read this note, I think it's overly harsh. I don't mean to disparage the restaurant too much. The waitstaff and the chef were clearly trying very hard, and we ate there shortly after it opened. I've never worked in a restaurant, but I can imagine some growing pains with training the waitstaff, dealing with vendors and tweaking the recipes in the first month or two. I'm interested in hearing more opinions about La Spina, and if it has gotten any better.