ARTE

Another night out with the Dynamic Duo of Dr. Feel Good and The General Lee (look at pervious post on Devi to read about these guys). So being that I was going to dinner with these two characters I figured I would take some notes. For some reason when running with these guys there is always a lot of food involved and lots of liquids (of the alcohol nature) to help one put the food down…thus, one needs notes. Who really cares if as the night goes on and the drinks go down that your notes turn into chicken scratch or that they look like you took too many mushrooms and are trying to draw something profound. I tell you, notes are always a good thing.

So to start off the night I arrived late. This is only because The General has gotten into this habit of talking to me on the phone and telling me to hurry over and upon my arrival he’s barley jumping in the damn shower. What the heck is that all about? Thus, before leaving my apartment from all the way uptown I take my time and don’t run out the door. This is one time I should have hurried. By the time I arrived the boys were walking out the door with a nice bottle of wine in their stomachs. In other words, I missed a nice glass of wine.

As I said, I arrived late and some of that had to due with the fact that I had eaten my pasta with red sauce (read previous article) before my arrival. We tried to hit this one restaurant that I can’t remember the name. It was too full and we had to find a new location. We were walking and we found Arte. For some reason I think the Good Doctor had been here before but one can never be sure. He knew they had a patio out back that should be used for Native American rituals like smoking the peace pipe. But I never did see a back patio but I’m sure it did exist given the façade of the building. In NYC one can usually tell if a building has a back patio by the façade in front…this one looked like it did have a patio.

Upon walking in we take a seat and I take note of the ambiance. It was clean and warm, but the bar had way too much of an influence on the space. Not to mention it seemed like a watering hole for the locals. I didn’t mind that fact, but the people at the bar were rather obnoxious to be honest. I know this sounds off and odd, but I really didn’t like their ceiling. It was one of those circa 1970’s white ceilings with little holes punched in it and they tend to put those in the mobile classes in your Jr. High. You know the one where they confine the “Special Kids” to.

In any case, as I have said before, when you go to dinner with these guys you don’t really get to order. They kind of do this whole fly by the seat of your pants ordering routine. It goes something like this:

Waiter: Are you ready to order?
DFG: Pasta with meat.
Waiter: What type of pasta?
TGL: Fettuccine Alfredo.
DFG: Yes, and add to that plate another pasta and split it.

Sure to some people it might make sense if you have been around people like this. I knew what he was talking about. But the waiter seemed a bit thrown off by it. It’s kind of like your own special order that you want the house to make for you. I was just sitting there laughing at this and that was just the starter course. I didn’t taste this portion of the meal due to being super full on pasta already….but it looked appetizing.

Then a beautiful wine was ordered. I hate tasting really good wine because it’s hard to go back to the o.k. stuff. I wanted them to order some Bartles and James or something of the sort but they ordered Amarone 1996. I thought this wine didn’t have the body and full flavor of the wine we had at Devi, but it did have a more complex taste. It went well with the seafood dishes that were ordered for the main course. I think this is a good example of why I don’t buy into the notion: only white wine with fish. Especially in this instance when you have a light complex tasting fruit filled wine with both heavy and light seafood.

Dr. Feel Good had the Sole Fish and the General had Pisce Soup. Both dishes were good but I thought the fish was far more outstanding (I did eat half the Sole and a few bites of the Pisce Soup). The prep for the fish was interesting in that they warmed up the sauce on the fish, on the serving plate under a burner in front of the customer. I guess that got some cool point from me. I didn’t think that the General Lee’s plate was as appetizing. Throwing a lot of seafood together is difficult, especially when you have tough seafood such as scallions and nice fluffy fish. The difficulty of course lays in the cooking. Many people throw it all together instead of adding one after another and slowly. This gives the tougher seafood time to soften up a bit. Just my take.

After we had an offering to the Gods and relaxed and enjoyed life. It was a fun time and although so much more took place in the area of jokes and humor, well it just can’t be spoken here. Thanks for reading this far.