Osteria Morini

I’ve reviewed Osteria Morini before here.  And I’ve been back several times thereafter for the amazing pastas but I try not to do duplicate blogs on the same restaurant over and over again unless I eat something different or worth blogging about.  I pretty much get the same thing every time I go to Osteria Morini anyways: the meatballs made with mortadella and proscuitto, the chicken liver and I just can’t seem to stray from the macaroni with peas, sausage and cream.  This time the table shared the delightful meatballs and I started with the macaroni pasta for appetizer. For main course, Cookie Monster and I split the porchetta.  This is what the blog is about…the porchetta. Behold:

Porchetta is savory, fatty, boneless pork that is seasoned and carefully rolled together then cooked slowly.  You usually get a piece of crispy crunchy pig skin along with that moist meat. This was a sizable portion. It was about 2 inches thick and served with some bitter greens and roasted cherry tomatoes.  The best part was the crispy porchetta skin. It was soooo addictively crunchy with that amazing coating of collagen and fat that coats your tongue and lips. The meat was very tender, very moist but also very salty. Even too salty for me.  I wanted a piece of bread of or something but alas, this porchetta is served all by its lonesome.  It’s quite salty and it ruined it for me.  Also, it’s misleading because the hunk of porchetta served looks huge but it’s about 1/3 all fat.  Looks are deceiving.

We got a side of roasted cauliflower:

The cauliflower was cooked till tender and then au gratin (with cream and cheese)…but again, too salty! We ordered the side to eat with the porchetta but each bite of either plate was overly salty. Sigh.

So the verdict- skip the expensive porchetta and stick to the pastas.

Osteria Morini, 218 Lafayette Street, New York, NY