#45 – SAUSAGE POLENTA at OSTERIA MORINI

For the third year in a row, I’m going to attempt to eat every single item on Time Out New York’s annual 100 Best Dishes list. In no particular order, here’s my take on their Top 100. Let the gluttony continue…

I’ve been putting a lot of blame on Time Out this year for not allowing me to complete this mission fully. But this most recent failure is all my fault. We had been putting off coming to Osteria Morini for a while now. We had been before and had a wonderful pasta meal, but it’s one of those neighborhood standbys tha you just know is not going away. So we didn’t rush out to try the Sausage Polenta.

But finally, the chance presented itself and we shuffled in to Morini early on Friday afternoon. But when we looked at the menu, gray skies reared their ugly heads. There was no polenta listed. How could that be? This is one of their signature dishes. Perhaps it’s an off-the menu speciality?

We inquired and it turns out it had been taken off the menu since the seasons have officially changed. No doubt polenta is a rib-sticking winter dish. Perhaps it will return when the weather gets cold again (which will hopefully be well past the date I hoped to complete this list).

I understand wanting to serve less heavy dishes in warm weather, but surely polenta (made of corn) never actually goes out of season. And if the rest of the delicious gut bomb pastas are any indication, Michael White and his crew are not afraid to serve heavy all year long.

Look at me blaming everybody else again. We should have come here months ago to conquer this list item, but now another one got away. And it’s all my fault.

We didn’t stay to find out how the rest of the new seasonal menu fared. Instead we hit a new restaurant next door called Jack’s Wife Freda which was a wonderful new addition to the neighborhood. And they served a delicious Matzo Ball Soup, which I would consider a fantastic winter dish.

Would Osteria Morini’s Sausage Polenta make my Top 100 of the year? He who hesitates is lost and I lost out on tasting this dish. I’m going to try again later in the year, but for now, I just don’t know.