Casa Mono in NYC is a small Spanish cuisine inspired restaurant  which recently celebrated its 10th Anniversary!  Casa Mono is owned by Mario Batali , Joe Bastianich and Andy Nusser; Chef de cuisine is Anthony Sasso and Sommerlier is Nancy Selzer. 

I loved the food at Casa Mono and am glad I went there for lunch.  It’s almost impossible to get a reservation there for dinner may be because there are limited seats in the small space there.   Dishes were universally delicious with delightful combinations of taste,  texture, and color.  I highly recommend getting all the dishes that we had.  The portions were small, but we were fine with that because we wanted to try as many dishes as we could.

• Ensalada Mono with Manchego – loved this salad.  This is the first time that I have had frisee paired with manchego and with almonds (frisee with blue cheese and candied walnuts / pecans are more common).  The dressing was light, subtle, and so delicious.  I wonder what made the almonds orange (forgot to ask while I was there)
• Blackened Beets with Cana de Cabra and Jamaica Horchata is a delicious beet salad.  The cheese and the horchata were perfect with the beets.  This salad was not too sweet.  The crisp bread with sesame and poppy seeds added a nice texture to the salad.
• Asparagus with valdeon (blue cheese) and spring herb salsa was absolutely divine!  The asparagus was tender and the spring herbs included lavender among other herbs.  There was a soft-boiled / poached egg that was a surprise and was perfect with the small capers and the green salad!
• Paella croquetas with uni and baby tomatoes were extra-ordinary and my only complaint about this dish is that it was too small. The croquetas were delicious and crisp fried.  The uni (sea urchin roe) was also fried and melted in the mouth.

Even though the restaurant recently celebrated its 10th year anniversary, it’s incredibly tough to get a dinner reservation at a decent hour at Casa Mono (or may be I have not figured out how many weeks in advance I need to make an Open Table reservation!).  The next time I go to Casa Mono, it will be to try their incredible wine list over dinner.

Related reading on Not Just Vegetarian

• Barraca 
• Soccarat Paella bar
• GastroArte (Sadly, GastroArte is now closed)

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