rob gross

Hi,

Three of us dined tonight at Alia, in Winthrop (on Shirley Street). I
had previously noticed this very pretty Italian place while getting
food at D'Parma's (down the block), and thought it worth a try. Like
D'Parma's, it's BYOB (I don't know if there's a corkage fee). It
struck me as having a much nicer atmosphere than D'Parma's. The food
wasn't cheap, but I was expecting it to cost a bit more, based on the
ambiance. The tables were far apart, and the room was lovely to look
at.

We started by sharing an appetizer of eggplant rollatini, which was
more of an eggplant crepe: a thinly-sliced piece of fried eggplant,
rolled around a filling of ricotta cheese and herbs, with tomato sauce
on top.

I had one of the most expensive dishes on the menu ($15): seafood
puttanesca. This was a plate of mostly calamari, with some shrimp, a
lot of olives, and the right amount of spaghetti, in a spicy red
sauce. One of the others had chicken marsala, which he described as
unlike any other marsala he had eaten (and very good). The chicken
picatta also won raves.

There are two choices for dessert. The cheesecake was NY-style. It
is probably not homemade, because the waitress twice described the
tiramisu as homemade. It was much better, except that it seemed to
have an entirely unnecessary topping of Hershey's chocolate syrup.

With some Pellegrino and soda, the total (including tip) was $81. Not
cheap, but much less than the same meal would have cost in the North
End. The savings would have been proportionally greater had I known
that I could have brought a bottle of chianti from home.

I don't know if Aria is worth the extra nuisance compared with eating
at Carmen's, Zafferano's (which might have closed), or Rino's, all in
East Boston and all slightly more accessible to downtown. All three
of those have their own wine lists, which justifies the trip to
Winthrop for some of us. I'm astonished at how many first-rate
Italian places (I include D'Parma's with the others) one can find in
such a small and not particularly wealthy area. I hope that all of
them succeed.--Rob

--
Rob Gross (617) 552-3758
Department of Mathematics http://fmwww.bc.edu/gross/
Boston College gross@bc.edu
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806