porsena: carry me home

i don’t have an italian grandmother (which always sounded really fun to me, beacuse then i would get to eat some of the ravioli, pasta and lasagna grandkids of the always-cherished italian grandmothers rave about), but if i did, i imagine her food would be something like the food i ate at porsena. opened not too long ago by chef sara jenkins of porchetta, this intimate (but very sparsely decorated) italian restaurant features amazing traditional italian dishes with personal touches on each one. meals like this make you want to finish your plate (which we did), even though you’re probably incredibly stuffed and ready to be carried home.

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we began our meal with the mussels ($9) and the green bean salad ($9). the mussels slept in a delicate broth of saffron, white wine and butter, which we sopped up greedily with the garlic toasts served alongside them. the excellent green bean salad was creatively integrated with fennel, celery, toasted almonds and pickled red onions. this dish (the lightest dish we ate all night) was a surprising star. the dressing

cannolichie con una marea di formaggi ($17), which means pasta with many cheeses. i really loved the type of pasta used in this dish. it was not too thick, round and curly, but different and more hearty then the fusilli i’m used to. the sauce was slightly thin for my taste, and although i loved the flavor of the sauce initially, it become a little overwhelmed by the blue cheese toward the end.

the lasanga al forno ($18) was absolutely, no questions asked, fantastic. extremely thin layers of pasta were rolled out and placed between layers of meat ragu and bechamel sauce, topped with cheese, and baked in a terra cotta dish in the oven. crispy, bubbly, saucy, creamy – this dish had it all.

we ended the night with a walk home. even though it was freezing cold, i needed to walk off some of that pasta. but by lunchtime the next day, i would be lying if i said i wasn’t craving it again.

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porsena: 21 E 7th St, new york 10003 (between 2nd and 3rd ave), phone: (212) 228-4923