Reviewed April 10, 2009

After dinner engagement #1 and tea & cookies, Emily and I moseyed over to ápizz to meet Megan and Aimee for dinner engagement #2. I had never been to ápizz before, but I loved it from the moment we walked in. We sat right by the kitchen with its exposed-brick walls and flaming pizza oven:

The flash-free warm glow:

Warm and crusty bread arrived at our table.

I was on the verge of ignoring the bread since I obviously wasn’t hungry, but then I noticed what arrived with it: marinara sauce and fresh ricotta.

Seriously, ricotta will kill me every time! I had two pieces like this:

And I think I also had another 1/2 piece when Megan ordered more bread for the table in honor 364/365 days completed of her 40th year 😛

Obviously, I was not alone in my excitement about the bread with ricotta. Aimee and Megan went crazy, too.

Since Emily and I had eaten already and were still considerably stuffed, we decided to take it easy and split the Insalata Verde: baby arugula, sweet grape tomatoes, parmigiano crisps, and red wine dijon vinaigrette.

It was perfect. Those parmesan crisps were just straight baked and crunchy cheese, mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Oh, about taking it easy? Emily and I also split the Ravioli con Zucca: open ravioli, ricotta, mascarpone, caramelized butternut squash, brown butter, sage (clearly, the one butternut squash ravioli we had each just had at Stanton Social only whet our appetite for more). Here’s my portion:

Oh my goodness. This ravioli was like the Stanton Social one times a million — the flavor was much stronger. And the butternut squash was in chunks on the side, so its caramelized perfection could come through without being hidden in the cheese. Ah-MAZE-ing.

Megan also ordered the ravioli, so we were all swooning in ecstacy together. Aimee ordered the Polpette y Pomodori: veal-pork-beef meatballs, fresh ricotta, and tomato gravy … aka the most humongous meatballs I’ve ever seen:

I had a scrumptious bite.

And I also had another bite when Aimee couldn’t finish. And then performed a gold medal-worthy spoon olympics routine until the sauce was all gone, too 🙂

I was pretty relieved when no one wanted dessert after this. I would have taken one for the team and forced it down if it came to that (it’s a tough job …), but there was literally no room left in my belly! The tastes (ok, they were more than tastes) I got were beyond yummy, and the ambience was just so warm and cozy! I was sad to leave (and sad to say goodbye to my Emily!), but the time did come eventually for me to roll myself down the road to the subway station and eventually to my apartment where I collapsed in a ricotta-induced haze.

I will certainly make a note to return to this restaurant next time I have availability in my stomach. Unfortunately, it seems booked for the forseeable future.