Italian Spot "a Voce": Not Great..

a Voce - 10 Columbus Circle

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!  I decided to celebrate the new year with the woman who got me into the food game, Jean Hsu (clap for 'em!).  A warm and bubby lyricist (formerly a part of the rap group "Trillionaire Troupe"), Jean's got a gastrointestinal system similar to that of German engineering. I'm not on her level yet but I'm trying to get there. We decided to do a simultaneous blog on the same place tonight.  You can check out her post at www.jeanjhsu.com.
I walked into a Voce amazed.  Situated in the Time Warmer Building overlooking Columbus Circle, the brown-marble ceiling and dimly-lit restaurant intimidated me.  As I stared eye to eye with Christopher Columbus, I thought, "Have I reached the top of New York's star restaurants???"
No..
A Voce was like a Claude Monet - it looks great from afar but is, in actuality, just a bunch of brush strokes when you get close.  #Impressionism 

Insalata di scarola - Glorified Egg Salad

I should have know I was in trouble when it took me 10 minutes to figure out what I was going to order.  As a result, I just picked something.  And what came out?  Egg salad.  I mean, not yo' grandmammy's egg salad but some lettuce with an egg on top.  #PLAYED.   But real talk, it was good.  The insalata was made with escarole, warm pancetta vinaigrette, a soft boiled farm egg, and pecorino romano (sidenote: pecorino is quickly becoming my new favorite cheese  I was exposed to it at Barbuto).  In spite of the goodness I couldn't help but feel a little played.
But at least this pic I took was illy:

Shout out to the Cannon S95.

Jean got the funghi al forno (mushrooms and hazelnuts)..

She thought it was str8, at best...

Moving on.  I ordered the tagliatelle.  Tagliatelle (from the Italian tagliare, meaning "to cut") is a traditional type of pasta from Emilia-Romagna and Marches, regions of Italy. Individual pieces of tagliatelle are long, flat ribbons that are similar in shape to fettuccine and are typically about 0.65 cm to 1 cm (0.25 to 0.375 inches) wide.  This dish comprised of braised chicken ragu (I pretty much like braised anything), chicken liver (I grew loving liver as a four year-old, true story), and truffle.

  

The Good: This ain't your Ronzoni (shout out to Luther Vandross!). This pasta was fresh. Because it was not overcooked, the pasta had tons of texture. The chicken liver was a welcomed surprise and took me back to those 4-year old days when I used to love the stuff.  I should announce that Jean and I had two other guests with. One of our friends, Char, loved the dish.
The Bad: The dish was salty.  Long ago, my friend and newly-minted iron man athlete Brian Shields ( did you know that African Americans make up .5% of all triathletes?  See his short film HERE) told me that proper amounts of salt actually unlock flavor in ingredients.  The salt sucks up liquid, thus pulling flavors from their subterranean layers to the surface to greet your taste buds.  This time, however, the food was just too damn salty and hypertentious (I know that's not a real word) thoughts danced around in my head..(gotta watch my salt intake).

Orecchiette Nere:
hand crafted squid ink pasta, lobster, chickpeas, chilies. Jean absolutely HATED her dish...

Jean hated her dish.  The visceral reaction resulting from ingestion of the Orecchiette was cause for concern because I've never seen Jean loathe a dish in all my outings with her.  I was heated because the restaurant just pissed my friend off.  Silence ensued.   Good thing I was in an Italian restaurant and that ol' good affogato came to the rescue.

Son..

If you've read enough of my posts, then you know that when my captions get "urban" it's a sign that I'm blown away (See the "boom" picture in the post entitled Looking For a Date Spot? Beauty and Essex!).  The affogato was the highlight of the night.  Rather than dousing the vanilla gelato in a shot of espresso, a Voce douse that joint with coffee-infused soda!  In the words of that AT&T commercial, when the four people are riding in that car while waiting for the joke to download, "that was sooo dumb!"  I loved it.  The dish popped (pun intended)!  Yes, that's straw in the picture, and, yes, it was used! It was like a root beer float but with no root beer.  The cookies were lame and difficult to eat, but I went IN on the affogato.
Service: just okay...not worth the price of admission.. Additionally, the bartender tried to play me because I was ordering a glass of rose in the winter.  #C'monSON!  Best believe he got that zero tip (or maybe he didn't. I'm not that cruel, am I? #ArteCafe :-). Furthermore, upon wrapping up dinner, the waiter tried to play me like I couldn't do math after I itemized the bill... SMH.
Scene: Pretentious. The reason I say so is because the food isn't good given the grandiose decor. The large spacious and beautiful dining area seems like people just come here to be seen. My affinity for the interior design slowly degenerated over the course of the evening.
The best part about the night was that I got a chance to hang out with old friends and meet a new friend who knew a ton about media.  We talked about Nigerian blogging, network spot advertising, the Pittsburgh Steelers (goin' for that Black and Yellow on Sunday!), Wiz Khalifa & Amber Rose(?), Biggie Smalls, the NBC-Comcast merger and debated the merits of  GE's past ownership of NBC's.  In short, my peeps rock because we have sloppy conversations. We're literally all over the place.
Be sure to check Jean's a Voce wrap-up @ Essential Luxuries.  I reckon that we're on the same page.

Jean is to my right.

Recommendation on a Voce:  PASS
And I'm out!
- Food Mave