south slope (part 2.5)

spent the weekend upstate in tivoli, ny. after a longish drive back to the city, we decided to check out the new italian restaurant that opened on 7th avenue at 10th street.



scalino took the place of a noodle house-- that had taken the place of a sushi place, which incidentally, was where i ate my first meal in brooklyn. there was a fairly good crowd as we walked in, made up of mostly families and even though it was warm outside, it was warmer inside (and did i mention that the place was full of kids.) we decided to site outside, which promptly filled up as well. the waiter gave us a bit of a jokingly hard sell on a pasta special with a cream sauce and then took off to tend to another table, leaving us to ponder the menu. the thing that i immediately liked about the place was that the menu was short-- five or six appetizers, three salads, a handful of pastas and a couple of mains. we decided upon a bufala mozzarella salad with arugula, grilled baby artichokes, an endive salad with golden beets and a bresaola platter with arugula. they were out of the bufala, and after some further prompting he admitted that he was also out of the artichokes. if there is one this that i dislike about eating out, it's a lack of full disclosure about menu availability. we ended up with the bresaola and beets as starters and splitting a spinach and ricotta ravioli (which to their credit, they split in the kitchen.) the salads were fine, not revelatory but not bad, and at roughly $7 a piece - a decent size. the ravioli portion was large and finished with an olive oil and sage sauce - which was pretty flavorless and imho, would have been greatly improved upon had they gone the brown butter route instead.

all in all, scalino is not bad and with a byob policy, quite affordable. i would give it another try in a couple of months and see how the food changes with seasonal availability.

bikes lanes and another visit to quarter after the expansion.




walking back, i noticed that the 9th street bike lanes have been painted.



lastly, stopped by quarter again on the way home. robin had a rather delicious drink called a "plantation" which was muddled basil with gin and lime, i had a six points ipa, which was also delicious.

we sat in the back yard, which had undergone some nice landscaping since the last visit. additionally, it seems that they now serve snacks as well, as a couple sitting next to us had ordered a (rather large) cheese plate.