Tortellini boscaiola ($13.95) was probably made from purchased pasta, because who has time to make all those tiny stuffed dumplings? The filling was a typical cheese with a hint of nutmeg; the sauce was creamy, with lots of flavor from pancetta and a hint of white pepper, with fresh peas. To me, mushrooms are woodsier (“boscaiola”) than peas, but I’m not suggesting any changes to this dish.
A special on haddock Florentine ($17.95) was a terrific, buttery piece of fish on nicely made baby spinach, and there was quite a lot of it. Again, the dish was really made by the sauce, a thin, lemony cream sauce almost like the Greek avgolemono soup.
The wine list is from all over, and it lacks a good Italian Barbera. We snuck by with a better-than-good Australian shiraz, Penfolds Thomas Hyland Shiraz 2003 ($24). This balances oodles of dark fruit with some vanilla oak, but it doesn’t have the acidic backbone of, say, a Barbera d’Alba. So it may be better with the meal just described than with a lot of red-sauce dishes. As you might expect from an espresso bar, even decaf cappuccino ($2.50) is wonderful, and it doesn’t even have decaf American coffee.
Caffe Italia purchases its desserts, but it does so really well. The cannoli ($3.75), especially, had a rich creamy filling and fresh-fried shells; they’re as good as any I’ve had. Profiteroles ($3.95) as presented here are kind of inside-out candies. The filling is excellent chocolate mousse, wrapped in pastry, but first you have to get through a gray outer shell of marshmallow cream. Since marshmallow cream and even Marshmallow Fluff are technically known as Italian meringues, there is a kind of justice to this, and every bite is worth a bit of a tussle. All three desserts were served on large retro glass plates with polka dots.
Service was excellent in our little room on an early weeknight. Things might slow up on a busy weekend, but Italian food is to be savored. The atmosphere was a good combination of familial and accepting. This part of East Boston doesn’t have as many Italian families as it once did, most having moved north or to the suburbs, while the new residents are mainly Hispanic immigrants from many countries. The view out the window is of an apparently Dominican music store, and there is a Colombian restaurant on the next corner. So Caffe Italia becomes a meeting place for the old residents, the yuppies, the lucky person getting lost returning from the airport, and whomever else loves Italian food in an old-new style, which is sort of everyone.
Caffe Italia, 150 Meridian Street, East Boston | Sun–Thurs, 4–10 pm; Fri, 4–11 pm; Sat, 4 pm–midnight | MC, VI | full bar | no valet parking | sidewalk-level access | 617.569.1800
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Robert Nadeau: RobtNadeau@aol.com
