Perbacco

234 E 4th St, between A and B

I can't understand the rave reviews received by Perbacco, a newcomer to the East Village. After perusing their tapas menu on-line, I thought it looked like a great place to graze on a few different small plates. But, I was disappointed. I'm going to try a different style today because I want you to see very clearly how poor my experience was:

1. We waited on the street for 30 minutes before getting a table. At a new restaurant I expect this, but the hostess kept saying "You're up next" so we just stood there instead of going across the street for a drink.

2. Once inside, we realized how loud the restaurant is. You have to scream to hear each other across the table.

3. A waiter came by to tell us specials and his accent was so thick we couldn't understand him. And then he left without offering us something to drink while we looked over the menu.

4. The manager came by and we had him repeat the specials for us, twice! Apparantly, it wasn't just the waiter's thick accent that made him hard to understand. The items themselves were described in the most convoluted manner - they detailed the accompanying items first and only told us the main ingredient at the end.

5. The wine list is unique but way overpriced: $10 to $16 for a glass!

6. To start, I tried grazing on the grilled zucchini stuffed with ricotta and pine nuts. An innovative and pretty vegetarian dish, but where were the pine nuts? On the side was some strange, watery basil thing. As weird as it was, I needed it to add flavor to the relatively dull zucchini rolls.

7. My brother grazed on one of the special appetizers: dried beef wrapped around burata cheese. This was maybe the best dish on the table, because the beef was well seasoned. Also the cracker that came on top was great - a hint of rosemary.

8. Next, I had the steamed sea bass with rucola and radicchio salad. When it came out I was happy: a big mound of lettuces. But it actually wasn't any good. There were 5 tiny bites of fishy-tasting sea bass. The lettuce itself was underdressed - there were 5 dots of dressing on the plate - but I didn't ask for extra because it was terribly thick and sweet against the fresh bitterness of the arugala. So I just ate the lettuce dry.

9. My brother ordered the "little meatballs cooked in tomato sauce and basil" and that's exactly what they were. They were okay. Good flavor but small and not at all innovative. I mean can't anyone cook ground beef in tomato sauce and plop it in a bowl?

10. Finally, I tried the special soup of the day: yellow pumpkin with something on top I couldn't understand. The manager told me it really was too small to be an "entree", but you know I like to graze, so I ordered it anyway. Well, I should have listened to him. It was the smallest soup I ever ordered (served in the biggest bowl). There were like 4 tablespoons of soup total. I think it was good but there was hardly enough to even taste it!

11. Perhaps the worst dish of all was the special pasta my brother tried: a pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg agnolotti in brown butter sauce. The dish came out deconstructed - sauce spread on one side, the pasta in the middle, and some strange sausage thing on the other side. Now why on earth was the dish deconstructed like that? I hate when chefs try to look modern with that move when it makes absolutely no sense. I think it made the dish worse: my brother had to mix the ingredients together on his own! Moreover, the pasta was too hard and dry, the sauce too sweet and the sausage (or whatever it was) too salty.

12. Worst of all was our bill. The wine alone was way expensive. To top it off, the specials, which the manager encouraged us to try, were much more expensive then the items actually on the menu: $16.95 for the special agnolotti (compared to $13 or $14 for the pastas on the menu), $12.95 for the special beef appetizer (compared to $9.95 for most apps on the menu), and most shocking of all $9.95 for the special (and tiny) pumpkin soup! I was actually angry when I paid.

13. Also, this dinner for two took 2 hours from start to finish! We waited in between courses for about 30 minutes at a time. A huge waste of time on food that really, isn't very good.

Perhaps we ordered the wrong things. But shouldn't everything at a restaurant - particularly the specials - be good? The people next to us said they liked the place? The decor was pretty and rustic and there were still people waiting to get in when we left at 11pm. So maybe it was just an off night. All I know is I'll never go back. For many reasons, I was unimpressed.






- The Grazer