UDress founder, Michelle Lapidos is in full swing playing The NYC Game.  In her first week playing, John DeLucie, chef and partner at the Waverly Inn, challenged Michelle to live an incredible week according to his rules. 

"Go to Emilio's Ballato in Little Italy," he told her.  "Bring flowers to the chef, Emilio, and ask him to make the pacari."  Michelle not only succeeded in this task, but in all of the week's challenges.  After winning her prize (dinner for two at the Waverly), Michelle set up a contest to win dinner at Emilio's Ballato!  The challenge?  Compliment Michelle in Italian.

As an amateur foodie and Italian enthusiast, I had to enter.  No Google translator, just me.  "Michelle, tu sei bella, intelligente, e favolosa.  I tuoi tweets mi portano gioia ogni giorno."  These simple Italian words sent via Twitter were enough to win Michelle over and get me a pacari dinner & wine at Emilio's Ballato. 

I brought flowers to Emilio, introduced myself and sat at a table in the back corner with my boyfriend.  Emilio was warm and generous - informing his servers that both of our pacari dinners and our bottle of red wine (Gran Sasso Montepulciano Abruzzo, to be exact) were on the house.

We ordered prosciutto and melon as an appetizer and it was phenomenal.  The fresh from-the-oven focaccia was phenomenal and when the pacari came out you could sense our server's excitement because we had never tried it before. 

The pacari - wide ziti-like pasta, perfectly al dente - was cooked in the most delicious sauce I've ever eaten.  Even though I struggled to finish the last bites of my pacari, I still found a way to order dessert.  The tiramisu was fabulous - light, yet decadent, and totally worth the overly-full feeling!  

You see variations of it all the time-on greeting cards and silly forwarded emails-and trite as it may be, it's true:  good wine, good food and good company really are all you need for a good time.  As for my experience at Emilio's Ballato, all I can say is that you simply have to try it all for yourself!

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment