Re-revisiting Etna

Two visits over the span of a week, I must have been voodoo-ed by something at Etna. This time round, it was really a series of hits and misses.

Here we have a grilled Asiago cheese wrapped in Parma ham on oregano toasts with porcini mushrooms. The flavors were pretty much how I expected, mostly earthy pungent with a rush of salt and laced with the tart of the vinegar that made them altogether pretty tasty.

The antipasto di mare was unfortunately a bore. I didn't quite take to the artificially crunchy texture of the prawns with semi translucent flesh. These didn't taste like the prawns that were used for their delicious risotto and were certainly also not the ones in the frittura mista as well.

There was a fettucini with black summer truffles. This was an oil based pasta (though I am unable to determine what oil that was) that was really perfumed by the fungus. None of the truffle oil infusion to boost the concentration of flavors. I thought this was pretty good on its own, but I couldn't help but compare it to the reminder of a buttery sauced rendition I had once at Bonta. 

Off their specials menu, was a filo pastry wrapped tenderloin. It was quite the bummer that the steak was cooked beyond the specified doneness. It had arrived pretty much medium well rather than the medium rare request. To their credit, it still turned out very acceptable in my opinion. Of that matter, steak aficionados would probably cry blasphemy; still I did like that the meat had been seared (char aroma!) before they had wrapped it up in the pastry and sent it into the oven. The Gorgonzola sauce helped the fact that the meat was a little dryer than I would have liked.

Didn't think much of the cannoli at all. The ricotta wasn't as rich and creamy as I was expecting and the shells were extra thick and hard. Here cues the happier memories of the much better ones from Gattopardo and Garibaldi.

Fortunately, their pistachio tiramisu was as good as we remembered it. Out of the variants of pick me ups as I can recall, this has got to be one of the more outstanding takes. The chocolate drizzles made up for the lack of cocoa, but it was the flavors from the bits of pistachio and mascarpone that I really liked.

In spite of some of the things that I didn't quite like here, their fairly extensive selection on menu combined with what I did enjoy will probably send me walking back again.