When it rains it pours. Just yesterday, AppleEats ran a piece highlighting the itameshi craze. Itameshi, as our restaurant critic Howard Portnoy explained, is “Italian food spoken with a distinct Japanese accent.” Today we’re back to tell you about New York’s newest itameshi restaurant, which answers to the name No Strings Attached, or NSA for short.
As its name suggests, noodles (aka pasta) constitute the main event at NSA. Among the farinaceous offerings, you will find stuffed macaroni bites in arrabbiata sauce with Japanese sausage. The pasta pillows are themselves filled with sauce, this one a four-cheese cream. Garganelli is joined by Parmesan, basil, and garlic, Japanized by the addition of braised Wagyu beef.
Dessert features a tiramisu done with matcha ladyfingers and augmented by a matcha-infused white chocolate disc. There is a mascarpone cream to help you locate your cultural bearings.
The kitchen is overseen by Brooke Apfelbaum, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America with experience at Bar Boulud and Chef’s Club. Apfelbaum: Funny, that sounds neither Japanese or Italian.
No Strings Attached, 135B North 5th Street, Brooklyn.
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