And we thought Brian Freedman comparing Urban Enoteca to a dead fish was bad. Adam Erace pulls out a dog food comparison for his review of Midtown Village’s Spiga.

Unfortunately, unbelievably, the pasta was not the worst thing I ate at Spiga. That dubious honor belongs to the coasters of cotechino arrayed over green lentils. Crowned with a fried egg, the composition echoed Modo Mio, while the texture of the sausage slices echoed Modo Alpo. Wilson poaches and chills the cotechino before slicing and searing, but that last step (which would provide some critical textural contrast) appeared to have been forgotten on my plate; the thick forcemeat rounds glowed virgin pink, no sign of caramelization anywhere. Remember the Play-Doh barbershop, how the “hair” would sprout from the holes in the character’s head? That’s what happened when I pressed my fork into the coarse-ground mush of the cotechino. It was like warm raw meat in the mouth, pasty and slick and rather revolting, but hey, at least the lentils underneath were really good.

On Its Ear [City Paper]
Spiga [Official Site]

Photo by Neal Santos