"Rice is great if you're really hungry and want 2000 of something," observed the dearly, all-too-prematurely departed Mitch Hedberg, which is kind of how I feel about Restaurant Week: It's great if you're cash-strapped & want 3 specific things, including dessert, among severely limited options. As for me—being, as has been especially obvious of late, a true bug-eyed creature of ressentiment, I'm constitutionally incapable of acquiescing to less when I know there's more, no matter how cash-strapped (hell, cash-stripped) I am. Meaning I almost always end up ordering off the regular menu after all, just because it's there—although, since I rarely eat dessert, there's a slight chance I'll actually save money by skipping the prix fixe in favor of à la carte anyway. Then again, since the odds of getting front-row seats to a whole shitshow of rote cooking & erratic service increase fivefold during RW, why not really save money by just staying home, where I can sulk over amateur cooking and worse service for free, until it's all over?
In fact, considering I could still taste the bitterness Root Down had smeared all over my mouth 48 hours earlier, I'd have cancelled our reservations at Locanda del Borgo altogether if they hadn't been for a foursome. But the Director & I had people to meet, promises to keep, & so off we slunk, setting our hopes for the meal only slightly higher than we might have for a club sandwich & a slice of pie at the Village Inn (which, as the Post's Tucker Shaw noted in his much-nicer-than-not review a year ago, is basically what the name translates as).
For our lowered expectations we were rewarded with a meal surpassing anything the Skillet Experts might crap out. That's not even a backhanded compliment; the ratio of hits to misses was surprisingly high. Granted, to get to the shining shores of the former we had to wade through the latter, namely
lukewarm, lukedense focaccia
& a 50 cent Caesar, skimpy & anchoviless, with an 8 buck pricetag.
But the wading was only ankle-deep; the getting got good before we got soaked. In all their velvety cushiness, my ricotta gnocchi with arugula & speck in parmesan cream
oddly but pleasantly enough took me back not to bowls of well-made gnocchi past so much as to my first experience with Korean ddeokbokki. That said, exhibiting the chef's restraint with rich ingredients (in a phrase, ham & cheese) as it did, the dish nonetheless oozed the essence of Italian cookery, which has everything to do with simplicity & nothing to do with combining every fattening thing you can think of into 1 big Alfredo(grot)esque mess.
The Director's pappardelle with short rib was also relatively light & elegant;
& although I think I ultimately preferred the simultaneously rawer & richer, fusiony version I recently had at South Broadway Grill, personal taste needn't cloud objective opinion regarding a thoughtfully executed dish. Likewise, being all about bold contrast rather than subtle harmony & thus thinking I'd be bored by our pals' ricotta & spinach ravioli in sage cream, I didn't bother snapping a pic—but the bite I took was a lesson in tastebud bias; it was lovely, smooth yet soulful.
The same goes, too, for the slender wedge of chocolate-hazelnut tart we wound up with after said pals decided to split one of the two they'd ordered.
Thickset, smashed with filberts & darkly semisweet, it evoked a streamlined (as opposed to whipped cream-lined) French silk pie.
Though the dining room was busy enough, the staff's pace was as steady as the low noise level; & though we were the last people to leave at 10:30, our server never rushed us. Sheesh, it may not be your waddling, addled old granny's Village Inn, but it might be your waddling, addled old Denveater's.
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