The little owl - Desserts - Dessert - Pork Chop - Mashed potatoes - The Little Owl

What an awesome meal... After hearing such great things about the little owl from the likes of Bruni, the Amateur Gourmet and restaurantgirl , I'd been dying to try it out. Reservations were always hard to come by but on Wednesday night, I took a chance and popped in at 6PM sharp to try to snag a seat. Not only were they gracious enough to seat my party of 2 immediately, we got a great seat in the corner of the cozy and bustling dining room. Our waitress was incredibly friendly and enthusiastic about the food and all her recommendations were stars.

We started with:

Cavatelli with veal cheeks, broiled tomatoes and escarole

I thought this dish was amazing - the cavatelli had a great chewy texture and the veal cheek just literally melted in my mouth. The broiled tomatoes gave the entire dish a very homey, rich taste and the ecarole gave it just the right amount of bitterness to round out the dish.

After this dish, we had the highly recommended Gravy Meatball Sliders:

These were made from a combination of beef-pork-veal, fennel and pecorino and were intensely flavorful. I liked these a lot but had to really squish the meatball down to eat it without making a total mess of the table.

And then we got down to business...

THE Pork Chop served with parmesan butter beans and wild dandelion

I love, love, love pork chops. It's one of my many weaknesses and I exploit this weakness often. This was definitely one of the best (if not the best) pork chop I've ever had and I've had plenty over my lifetime. Our waitress was kind enough to split everything into 2 portions for us and each portion was gigantic. The meat was perfectly cooked and tender and just fatty enough to make my taste buds and salivary glands go on overdrive. The parmesan butter beans were a perfect complement and tasted like creamy mashed potatoes. Perfectly seasoned and beautiful to look at too - this totally made my night.

At this point, we were stuffed to the point of bursting but we decided that we had to try at least one of the desserts.

The Dessert menu

So we chose the Baked Strawberry Custard:

This came with a little dollop of cream and lots and lots of sweet strawberries and a very dense custard. This was a lot firmer than I had expected - I was expecting something more akin to a flan or egg custard but was really different and not overly sweet as most desserts are. I don't think this was like anything I'd ever had before so I'd definitely chalk this up as a success though I'm not sure if I'd order it again.

Overall, awesome flavors, fresh ingredients, great service and a great location. Definitely highly recommended.

the little owl
90 Bedford St- At Grove St
New York, NY 10014
212 741-4695