East Village Re-visits... Take 2 (Chapter 1 of 2)!
RESTAURANT: Frank Restaurant
DATE: July 8th, 2014LOCATION: 88 2nd Ave (b/w 5th & 6th Street)
It's
been a long break for this foodie, not from eating good food but just blogging
about it. Since I find it a disservice
to just skip over the months that I'm overdue, I will dig down memory lane and
give my 'brief' take on a few places.
There are some good restaurants I've eaten at before we started this
blog, so it's hard now to recall and dissect each long-digested bite. However, there have been a few that I managed
to revisit this year. These places were
so good, it deserved a second round of noshing!
Right
now it's been cold, rainy and just a little snowy in NYC, so it's kind of hard to think back to
this past summer and what July was like.
Thankfully we have photo evidence to jog the old noggin. July was the
month that our group of friends decided to revisit one of our favorite
restaurants that we've been to since we founded our little dinner club. After taking an elaborately rated poll of our
top 3 favorites, the winner was... Frank
Restaurant!! This win however was
not by a landslide, only slightly edging out a few others, and I think because
we've been to so many good places, we were surprised that Frank beat out some
of our other favorites (just to name a few, Parm, Dinosaur BBQ...) But win it did and it took our revisit to
remember just why we enjoyed this place so much.
Frank
is where our foodie group first fell in love with burrata. This is no ordinary
mozzarella, it is like the sophisticated, cooler older brother to this soft, creamy
cheese. It's tastefully paired with ripe
tomatoes, basil and a discerning but sufficient drizzle of olive oil. We ordered some salads but these aren't even
worth mentioning when placed next to the burrata. The first time we ate at Frank, we also ordered
the brushetta of tomatoes. I wasn't too excited at the idea but since
the majority of the group wanted to order this, why not. And I am SO glad they suggested getting this
dish. I was expecting an overly toasted
bread with a sprinkle of boring, dry, minced tomatoes. Boy, was I so wrong! There was plenty of chunky, juicy ripe
tomatoes soaked in olive oil on top of a thick fluffy slice of bread. I'm pretty sure we all greedily kept diving
our hands back to this plate that we had to order a second dish of it. But if you don't believe me, just let this
photo speak for itself...
I
have to confess I was one of the people that voted for Frank in my top 3 and
was happy that we were going to re-eat at this restaurant, especially because
the Mr. wasn't able to join us the first time.
Located in the East Village, I love that this Italian restaurant is so
warm and modest. It has a cozy,
welcoming vibe with its decorative vintage ceiling, chandelier and exposed
brick walls. It's not an overly spacious place, but still managed to seat our
group of 6 or 7. Especially with a
reservation, we were able to get the large table in the main room. The restaurant has 2 narrow rooms and has a
front outdoor dining area as well. The
food is all-around savory. Others
enjoyed eating the rigatoni al ragu,
but the dish I just had to get again was the Black
Linguini w/Frutti di Mare. I find black
linguini a dish that's hard to find, and even if you do, it can sometimes be a
bit bland. Frank Restaurant does not
disappoint though. It has the basic
elements this noodle nosher always loves... a slurp-able noodle with ample
amount of spicy red sauce and tomatoes.
The ratio of calamari is perfect, enough to get your money worth but
doesn't overpower the linguine.
Bottom Line: Get the black linguini with calamari... but if squid ink pasta, spicy red sauce and calamari just isn't your thing, try anything else that sounds appealing, this menu will not disappoint. Definitely recommend the brushetta, and if you can splurge for the burrata, go for it!
Happy Noshing, Jeanne
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