Girasole In City Paper

David Snyder tries out the new incarnation of Girasole and finds excellent pasta but some price inconsistency.

Restaurants love to trumpet their hand-crafted pasta, but all too often housemade gnocchi are dense and leaden. Girasole’s gnocchi, on the other hand, is the best I’ve eaten in a long time — resting in a thoughtfully humble sauce of crushed plum tomatoes and stracchino cheese, each petite morsel had just enough heft to prove its worth before the bite melted away with the warmth of my palate.

Another pasta that caught my eye was the elusive passatelli. Traditionally, this thick, flourless pasta/dumpling hybrid — seen only in soups, and almost never in restaurants — is made with eggs, Parmigiano-Reggiano and bread crumbs, which give it a uniquely grainy texture. Angela Iovino adds a touch of flour to her version for consistency and serves it in a light sauce with sausage and porcini mushrooms for a wonderfully rare treat.

Mostly Sunny [City Paper]
Girasole [Official Site]