December 23, 2009 - Due Mari

Due Mari in New Brunswick, NJ
http://www.duemarinj.com/index.html

This was actually our second time eating at Due Mari, which is significant because we generally try to not eat at the same place twice. Our first time here, we succeeded by getting a couple pasta courses for the table, and failed by getting a meat or fish dish as an entree. So armed with this knowledge, and seven of our closest friends, nine of us embarked on a holiday dinner that promised to be full of pasta, pasta, and more pasta, and a bit of wine for those willing to wait.

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We started off by letting our friend who knows way more about wine than any 25 year old should pick a bottle of red and another bottle of white for the table. The most peculiar of things proceeded shortly after the wine was picked. One of our waiters promptly brought the bottle of white to the table and poured it for the white drinkers (what can I say, we're an ethnic group). The whites waited for the red to be poured so that we could toast the return of Ellie and the beginning of most people holiday break. Unfortunately, it took about 10 minutes for the red to arrive. And it was from a different waiter. Which tells me a couple things. First, they were smart enough to bring a couple waiters to our large table, and second; they completely forgot about the other bottle of wine. I guess it wouldn't have been a big deal if this was the only gaff in service, but the culmination (which I'm sure you'll get to hear about in more detail) of gaffs ensured that we won't return. Well, unless it's just for a quick pasta snack.

A few couples ordered some antipasti to get the table started. These were all fine. A couple people wanted oysters, so I decided to jump on that bandwagon. I don't remember the types, but the one from Long Island was definitely the best one. In fact, the others weren't that great. I think that is my fault for ordering a Pacific Ocean oyster when there was a Long Island option. To sum it up, the Long Island was good on it's own, and the other two would have been better as shooters with cocktail sauce. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a huge oyster shot fan, but that's usually because I'm walking down some beach area and they are $1 during happy hour. For triple the price I want triple the quality, and with that only the Long Island sufficed.

For our entree's, everyone opted for pasta. I mean it. There were nine of us and not one meat or fish dish was ordered. I guess enough of us had been here before to know better, and that forced everyone else to make the correct decision and order pasta. We pulled a fairly convoluted scheme, where one person from a couple split the pasta tasting menu with another person from another couple, thereby allowing two couples to split a tasting menu but not having to order four menus. I think it overly confused the waiters, and for all I know there were some people ordering five courses and other people ordering one course, so it was hard for them to organize the whole thing correctly. But come on, I'm sure there are restaurant management books out there to deal with this situation. I have a hard time believing that I will ever be a patron with an original request to any type of establishment.

While I'm on the subject, someone at the table doesn't eat beef but wanted the tasting menu, which has a beef course. He asked if it could be substituted, and instead of a simple yes and the options that it could be substituted for, our waiter said that he had to go in the back and ask the chef. Again, really? Nobody has ever asked to sub out a tasting menu dish for dietary reasons before? They couldn't come up with an answer off the top of their head for a large group? So the waiter eventually came back and said that it could be substituted (thanks, the original question wasn't rhetorical at all) for this one other item. Which cost less on the menu. There were actually a couple items that were the same price or cheaper on the menu, but he only had one choice to substitute it with. Compare this with the story that I hopefully wrote about for WD-50, where we wanted to sub something just because we wanted the item. Our waiter promptly suggested which course it most naturally replaces and brought one of us the substituted item and kept the other plate with the planned item.

Eventually (don't get me wrong, if you've been reading these blogs you should be able to tell that I really enjoy long meals, so it's not that I was perturbed that I had to be anywhere, but the spacing between courses was not up to par) our food came out. This was clearly the highlight of the night. Fine, they had an off day with the service, but the gnocchi is absolutely amazing. If I worked in New Brunswick, I would probably stop eating PB&J's altogether and grab a gnocchi side every day. Then I'd bring some home for dinner. All the pasta at Due Mari is made in house, and the gnocchi tastes like it was hand spun (or however you make pasta) only an hour before. And the marinara sauce complements it perfectly, although I do have to push a bunch of tomato chunks off to the side. But they are big and easy to flick away.

In addition to the tasting menu, we ordered a spaghetti with lobster. This was pretty amazing. It came with almost a whole lobster. Okay, it probably came with exactly half a pretty big lobster, because I would never throw an entire lobster into a meal for my patron if I were a chef (note to future people, don't go to my restaurant if you want huge portions. Oh, and I don't want to own a restaurant, so also don't hold your breath). The spaghetti itself was cooked appropriately and it was a very decent portion of food in all. This was a solid dish.

I don't see the tasting menu online, but I'm pretty sure we received cheese ravioli, duck confit agnolotti, pappardelle with short rib ragu, and probably one more dish which was likely the cavatelli with sausage. Usually when I forget a course Ellie reminds me that it was my favorite course. But this time I think she won't be able to do that, because my favorite course by far was the cheese ravioli, as this was almost definitely the best ravioli I have ever had. Yeah, I know, it's weird that cheese would be the star out of duck confit, short rib, and lobster. But hey, I don't make the stuff, I just eat it. Somehow the cheese remained extremely moist. It was like a melted brie texture but the flavor of more closely resembled ricotta, parmesan, and fontina. In fact, it's quite possible that there secret is to stuff ravioli with fontina. Whatever the secret, it's done to perfection.

The short rib was also very good. I still find it strange that wasting short rib by putting it in a sauce can be a good idea, but like most pasta sauces, it successfully takes the flavor of a small amount of meat and disseminates it throughout the whole course. The duck confit was meh and I can't even remember the other course.

Finally, the tasting menu came with a dessert. They were actually very good about letting us swap the dessert. I don't remember the order or the food, but suffice it to say that four desserts were ordered. Two hot desserts and two ice cream desserts. For some reason, we were served one hot and one cold at the same time. The people who received their desserts waited for the other hot and cold to arrive. After literally 20 minutes of trying to flag down any one of our waiters, they were forced to eat there now cool hot dessert and melted ice cream before the other desserts were served. On the plus side, the restaurant rightfully felt bad, so they filled up coffees on the house and brought out a giant tiramisu dessert for the table. This was actually a really good tiramisu, and it was nice to have mostly because I would never order tiramisu if given the choice.

Eventually the check was received and we had a big discussion about the legal consequences of not leaving the stated tip if a menu says parties of x or more will automatically have gratuity added to the check. For what it's worth, I totally understand a restaurant adding gratuity to large parties, because I imagine there are many parties who forget to tip when there are that many people involved, so tacking it onto the check makes sense. The problem is that they added 20% and the service was awful. It was so bad that I would have considered leaving less than 15% under different circumstances. Also, the 20% was added to the wine portion of the tab, which I understand is not customary. We ultimately paid the 20%, wrote a note to management, and I researched the legal implications the next day. It turns out that in NYC, restaurants are legally allowed to add tips to checks where the party is eight or more. However, I do not believe that this means the party is obligated to pay the tip. I'd love some insight on this though.