All'Onda: Modern Venetian Cuisine

All'onda (22 East 13th St)

Last week, I enjoyed a "mother-daughter" lunch date n the city. My mom and I have often spoke about doing something like this, but we hadn't quite gotten around to doing it. My dad's practice has several offices all over Northern NJ, one of which is located in Hoboken. My mom accompanied my father to Hoboken and then grabbed the PATH train to Manhattan. So easy!

Although it is restaurant week, my mother and I decided to try a place that wasn't participating. The restaurant is called All'onda and it was highly rated in the NY Times. This restaurant serves modern Venetian food and it's quite posh. It's very close to my apartment and whenever I walk by, it's always super crowded. We decided to give it a try.

Cool and modern interior

The menu wasn't very extensive, but the selection was interesting. It struck me as a very minimalist menu. I was also a bit surprised by the prices. I don't always mean to harp on prices, I get it --- food isn't cheap, especially when living in a big city. Still, there is reasonably expensive and pretentious expensive. I thought everything looked reasonable until I learned that the bucatini cost over $40 because of the uni! I have never paid $40 for uni and I don't intend to start now...

Whilst we perused the menu, mom and I both ordered a shandy. According to Wikipedia, "shandy is a beer mixed with a soft drink, carbonated lemonade, ginger beer, ginger ale, or apple juice. The proportions of the two ingredients are adjusted to taste, usually half-and-hald…Shandies are more popular in western Europe that other parts of the world."  I'm not a beer fan, but I enjoy shandies.

Grapefruit Shandy

For starters, mom and I split an order of arancini. Technically, this is from the bar menu, but we decided to try it anyway. So so so delicious! The arancini were perfectly fried --- crunchy on the outside and tender and delicious on the inside. The arancini supposedly had black truffle, which I could see, but couldn't really taste. The best part, in my opinion, was the creamy parmesan sauce.  

Arancini with black truffles

For lunch, mom ordered the "Garganelli with peekytoe crab, citrus, and tarragon,"whilst I tried the "Lumache with aged duck ragu, treviso, and chocolate." Both pastas were delicious, but mom's was definitely the winner. Her bright and beautiful saffron pasta was beautifully complimented by the crunchy texture of the breadcrumbs and the flavor of the crabs. Yum! My pasta was wonderfully seasoned and the flavor of the duck was intense, but the dish was a bit heavy. We also tried a side order of the grilled treviso. It was interested. It had an intense bitter smokey flavor and was chewy. Not my favorite thing I've ever eaten… but I'm glad I tried it, since until this lunch, I'd never heard of treviso. 

Garganelli with peekytoe crab, citrus, and tarragon 

Lumache with aged duck ragu, treviso, and chocolate 

Grilled treviso with saba, fontina, and bosc pear 

No meal is complete without dessert --- especially at a new restaurant. I am always intrigued by the unique, so when our waiter told us they have "olive oil" ice cream, my interest was piqued. It was not very olive oily at all. In fact, it tasted like vanilla ice cream with olive oil drizzled into it. Very yummy!

Olive oil ice cream

Overall, I enjoyed my experience wat All'onda, but I thought the food was overpriced. Don't get me wrong, the food was tasty, but it wasn't the best Italian food I've ever had. It seems like the dinner menu is more extensive than the lunch menu, so I'd like to go back and try the dinner menu. See how I feel.