Lunch at ASTI
New review today: ASTI Trattoria, the upscale restaurant in Hyde Park that always is impressive. Also worth highlighting was the vegan cookie from Quack's, across 43rd Street from ASTI, and where we wrote our review. The cookie was chewy and tasty, but it had a sticker on it that read either "MON" or "NOW", depending on the orientation, so I'm not sure exactly how fresh it was.
I also heard from the Alamo Drafthouse staff; they confirmed that there will be vegetarian items at all of the AFS Indian film screenings, and that they've been really popular with the patrons.
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I haven't looked at your site in ages but I'm thrilled to see that you're using MT now. The site looks great.
Asti is my favorite Italian restaurant in town. Vespaio is also good but serves a very different style cuisine in my experience. I especially like Asti's risotto - it varies seasonally but is always vegetarian in my experience. The White Pizza with Truffle Oil Mozzarella, Fontina and Provolone Cheese with Fried Sage Leaves is very rich but delicious. One word of warning: Asti's salads are tasty but rarely substantial enough to substitute for an entree.
Eating at Asti maybe a bit more challenging for vegans as many of the meatless dishes rely on cheese , butter, or cream as main ingredients. Nevertheless, the chefs are very accomodating so you should have no problem coming up with a good meal.
Cheers!
We started off with what looked like a promising evening. Two of us in the group ordered the mushroom rissotto, after being assured that it could be made without meat. Halfway through the meal, we found out that they had served us the dish with meat. This is deeply disturbing- considering that I have been a vegetarian all my life - until last night. Yes, the wait staff and the owner apologized for the error. Sure, they sounded sincere. Yes, they did not charge us for the 2 dishes out of 10 that were questionable. Disturbing, none the less.