Still. . . The food was uneven: the risotto a bit too overdone for my palate although the sauce was very tasty. The mock Bolognese was flavorful good but some at the table thought the pappardelle (handmade we were told) was a bit too al dente.
The fish course, salmon supposedly with a pistachio crust was in a delicious butter sauce although none of us could locate any pistachios.
Another course was a crispy Tuscan pork belly which we thought far too large a portion and fairly bland in flavor -- and what was the "Tuscan" thing? That word is abused and overused in today's American restaurant marketing and I'm afraid Sophia's is no exception.
The cheese course was "imported" gorgonzola (there's domestic I suppose) with figs on homemade fig jam. The figs were delicious as was the jam but we thought the gorgonzola was more like a neutral goat cheese than anything else -- it completely lacked any "blue" flavor at all. The dessert was a bland cannoli -- typical old-guard Italo-American cuisine and not in keeping with the chef's marketing of his place as "new twists on Italian favorites."
The service was friendly, to be sure. The noise level, however, was unpleasant, the lighting not terribly attractive and the seating, for me at any rate was quite uncomfortable and they did nothing to resolve that (we were a special group for the evening, with assigned seating).
Lastly, the wines were, by-and-large quite good -- although our table agreed that the Lambrusco was devoid of any character and the Amarone thin and lacking the raisiny body so typical of those incredible wines.
If you want food in an Italian style go to Bacaro's or Al Forno. I'd skip this place.
Oh, and sorry about the photography -- terrible lighting.
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| lemon risotto with scallop |
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| salmon in a butter sauce |
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| mock bolognese with homemade Papardelle |
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