Carbo Loading at Piccolo Angolo

621 Hudson Street
New York, New York

On the corner of Jane and Hudson Streets, this unassuming eatery in the heart of the West Village has recently struck me with cupid’s arrow.

After scanning their humble Web site, I was confident that this little Italian restaurant must often be overlooked. “No,” says a friend of mine. “If you come here on the weekends, there’s always a line out the door.”

Why have I never noticed this place?

I found myself very fortunate on this Thursday evening at Piccolo Angolo. I was with my running group, four vegetarians in a group of six, starving for a carbo-satisfying supper. It’s on a very rare occasion that vegetarians outnumber the omnivore. These numbers just don’t happen.

To start, the vegetarians ordered grilled portobello mushrooms, while omnivores began with homemade meatballs. I was a little envious of the meatballs. Yes, I make great mock meatballs, but the aroma of these fist-sized balls smothered in marinara sauce forced a bit of resentment of my meat-free ways. According to my carnivorous running partner, These meatballs are melting in my mouth like clouds.”

Then our portobellos sautéed in garlic and olive oil arrived. The strong smoky and beefy flavor hit like a thunderclap. “This is the mushroomiest mushroom I’ve ever had!” I blurted. Providing a nice (and more expensive) surprise, I not only found portobello, but pieces of grilled porcini as well. My meatball envy vanished.

The restaurant's décor is mediocre at best, not that anyone was looking up from their plate. Then I realized that I had failed to see the garlic bread. Made properly: pan-roasted garlic in olive oil, slathered on chewy, not cottony, Italian bread, sprinkled with fresh parsley and broiled to perfection. I looked up searching for an Italian grandma mastermind. What I saw were three Mexican guys in a kitchen the size of my bathroom. To my left I saw a waitress spying our table to make sure we had enough bread, red wine, and water in our glasses.

Acquiescing to the vegetarian majority, our two omnivores agreed to sharing 4 large vegetarian pasta dishes: asparagus ravioli with butter, rosemary and sage, pumpkin ravioli with a creamy nut sauce, fettuccini with sun dried porcini mushrooms in tomato sauce and homemade gnocchi with marinara sauce. I was impressed to see that the waitress showed no signs of being irked when the gnocci was ordered with its sauce on the side. Each pasta dish presented a unique character from Northern Italian cooking – creaminess, freshness and a wonderful array noodle shapes. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to carbo-load.

Sorry to my vegan friends. Aside from my portobello appetizer and garlic bread, I’m not sure what other vegan options they have. I won’t insult you by saying you can have ziti with marinara sauce. Vegans will have to do a little finessing with the entrees to make them vegan. You guys are usually good at that anyway. But like I said before, the wait staff will not be irked by your edits. This is the right audience to substitute olive oil for butter, believe me. I wholly recommend it after a good long run with a bunch of your vegetarian running buddies.