Cuisine: Italian
Tainted. A very apropos adjective to start off a review that stems from a work event. There’s no way to remain impartial or cognizant of one’s surroundings in any kind of meaningful way. That is, especially when one is bamboozled into sitting down at a very long table to drink sparingly and share hors d’oeuvres with equally stunned co-workers when you thought you were going to an informal gathering at a bar where you could group off in pairs of threes and badmouth the one guy who ends up sitting next to you at said table — not that I’d ever do that. So I observed very little other than the fact I would have rather been in a bar than this brightly lit, medium-priced Midtown nouveau-Italian snoozefest. Again, I could have been a victim of circumstance, but the place had all the charm of a fifth grade cafeteria, and was about as Italian as Bowser from Sha Na Na. The only thing I ate was a couple handfuls of fried calamari, which was actually very good. I was starving, I must admit, so they could have fried the tongue of the sous-chef’s puffy Reebok and I would have gobbled it like Al Roker on weed. And then I beat a hasty retreat — backing awkwardly away from the table, retracing my steps from the door — actually stepping into my original footprints and spilling out into the street like a palsy victim. I immediately went to a bar and washed the stench of corporate team-building from my person with about nine cold beers. [MF]
135 W 50th St.
212/957-5050
