Hi everyone, I apologize for my delay in posting a new food review, but here we go:
Sandro’s
306 E. 81st Street
New York NY
4.25 out of 5 stars

It was certainly a unique experience to try the delectable Roman cuisine at this small yet comfortable restaurant. A friend of mine has praised this restaurant’s cooking to me more than once, so I decided it was time that I tried it out for myself. I was warmly greeted as I entered Sandro’s, and the wait staff were extremely nice and courteous during my meal. On the table, I found long and narrow breadsticks, Sandro’s makes these in-house, which were crunchy and tasted just a little like rosemary. Sandro himself came out to greet us and he was a very charming and friendly person. For the appetizer, I tried a special: calamari stuffed with mushrooms and, surprisingly, more calamari! This dish was entirely new for me, so I did not know what to expect. I was very happy with the result: three pieces of calamari, filled with a calamari stuffing and accompanied by a few kinds of delicious mushrooms. This appetizer turned out to be quite excellent: the tender calamari were perfectly matched with the various mushrooms, (I liked the taste of each one) and the subtle sauce brought all of the dish’s flavors together. As an entree, I ordered a pasta that was recommended to me by a friend: Bucatini Amatriciana. This dish consists of a homemade pasta, which looks like a thick spaghetti with a hole in the middle, served with tomato sauce onion and pancetta. I really enjoyed this pasta, I especially liked how fresh it tasted, the menu even says that they use organic eggs. It is very difficult to describe the tomato sauce, it was a bit rich but also showed me that it was different from many other sauces that I have tasted before in other typical Italian restaurants. In addition, I found the pancetta to be particularly Delicious, this is another kind of food that I do not eat so often but its saltiness accompanied the tomato and onion flavors well. For dessert, I tried “Grandmother’s apple cake”. I was served a piece of hot cake, which seemed to have more apples than cake (which actually was a good thing), along with some slices of fresh strawberries and a little whipped cream. By this point, I was extremely impressed by this restaurant, so it should not be a surprise to any of you that everything about this dessert was superb. In addition, the waiter brought out some small hot cookies with the flavor of orange zest.
Finally, I was brought a tiny glass of a digestive drink called grapa.
Normally I do not like this drink because the taste is so harsh, but actually this kind of grapa was smoother and was a very nice way to end a great meal.
I would like all of my blog readers to know that Sandro’s is not an inexpensive restaurant, the pastas, for example, can cost as much as $22. However, everyone deserves a nice meal, and if that is what you are looking for, then I definitely reccomend Sandro’s.
Dan