Sol in January

The unheard of beautiful weather in January brings out the beast in everyone. It brings us back to the summer when you frolic outside, party the hardest, act careless, and put responsibilities aside...or wait, is that just me? Well I know for one that's def my friend wild ginger. While her behavior doesn't differ that much the rest of the year--the summer is her time to shine. So when the temperature hit 70 this weekend, it was 'go time.' I must add that Ginger's incessant pleading to basking in the glorious weather comes after a very long night out. Both she and I stumbled into our respective apartments at close to 6 am Saturday morning still in shock about the events of the night...but that's just a totally different story. In any case, when she woke at 3 o clock that afternoon and took a look out her window she called me and said lets go eat outside. So obviously I was down.

Cut to 8pm: After a long cab ride to the west village, Amanda and I approached Ginger who was in a splendid mood (I say that very sarcastically) and starving (maybe that’s why!). We were supposed to go to Extra Virgin, but I guess the nice weather brought everyone out and the wait was an hour and a half. So we settled on the place across the street, Osteria Del Sol(appropriatly named considering the weather). West 4th Street houses some of the cutest restaurants. A few months earlier we had a great experience at Foccacia on West 4th and Bank and we were hoping for the same experience at Osteria del Sol. The Sardinian menu looked promising and the wait staff was very friendly.

Upon sitting down, we immediately ordered a bottle of Montepuciano and Amanda got a glass of pinot grigio. The wine was good and the breadbasket came with an interesting tomato, garlic, and olive oil based dipping sauce. Off to a good start. Ging ordered the veal meatballs for app, which were good- there was very nice flavors that could be tasted in each bite. I ordered a napoleon of grilled vegetables and buffalo mozzarella in a tomato sauce, which was excellent. Amanda got a standard salad, which she said was very enjoyable. We were all excited to see what was next but were sadly disappointed. Ging and I both ordered the red snapper which came with mussels, clams, and shrimp in a white wine sauce and Amanda ordered a linguini in white clam sauce. When I first tasted the fish I thought it was a bit dry and the sauce was missing flavors. I initially thought I was being critical but when I saw Ging reach for the salt she reaffirmed my thoughts. I could only describe the dish as okay. It was nothing to write home about and merely served its purpose. Amanda liked her linguini but didn't love it either. Her sauce was more flavorful than the snapper sauce, but that could only be said because you could taste the butter in it.

At the end of the dinner, a waiter accidentally almost knocked our table over as he was closing the sliding door. Within a matter of minutes, he brought over lemoncello, which was completely the redeeming thing to do. While our main entrees all lacked in one way or another, it was still a very enjoyable dinner--maybe it was the company, the staff, or the weather...but something in the air walked us right to the liquor store to pick up another bottle of wine and start pre gaming for the night. Why must it get cold in January? Lets prey the winds of winter never come..