Casa Mono - Review

Intro
Casa Mono - Highly Recommended
52 Irving Pl, New York 10003
Btwn 17th & 18th St
Phone: (212) 253-2773

I've been avoiding all Mario joints for a while now due to my terrible experiences in the past. However, I have always wanted to go to Casa Mono and Porthos has highly recommended this place. I was in the area, so figured why not. Good call as this place was definitely rocking with the flavors there, albeit slightly salty imho. Great, fun food but a tad pricey. Overall, I give the restaurant an 84/100.

Our Menu
1) Goat Confit with Saffron Honey *
2) Razor Clams a la Plancha ***
3) Pig's Feet Croquetas with Green Tomatoes *
4) Skirt Steak with Onion Marmelada **
5) Duck with Rhubarb **
6) Pork Belly Fabada with Horseradish *

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way * Good ** Great *** What the F – in a good way

Dish Comments
1) Soft, tender flavorful goat meat that is slightly overpowered by the honey.
2) This was a complete wtf moment for me and how I imagined Spanish food should be. Simply cooked fresh ingredients that was full of flavor. Tender, rich, briney, with a good dose of garlic.
3) Crispy and tender, but the pork feet are definitely lost and not the star of the dish here.
4) Tender and very flavorful steak. Combined with the sweet/sour onions and this was a dynamo dish.
5) Mr Risotto's favorite dish of the night. Perfectly cooked duck - tender, juicy, with a great strong duck flavor. The rhubarb had the sweet / slightly sour thing going on which went perfect with the duck.
6) A decently tender pork belly, but not that remarkable otherwise. A good dish though.

Overall Restaurant Experience

• Food 8.6/10 – Big flavors here although it was slightly salty. The food is generally cooked very well. It was funny after reading the book Heat that you get to see that Mario likes putting sauces underneath the main ingredient - done in almost every dish we had at Casa Mono. Although Mario doesn't run the place at all, Mr. Nusser's training at Babbo shows that he picked up some of Mario's tricks.
  
• Service 7.5/10 – We sat ourselves at the bar and the bartender was generally helpful. Took a while at times to get his attention, but it wasn't so bad.
  
• Atmosphere 7.5/10 – It's so cramped in there and the noise level is pretty loud. There are a couple of tables there for maybe 30 and seats in front of the bar and in front of the chefs. The room is pretty dark and was packed with a younger crowd. We got there at 8pm on a Thursday and it was an hour+ wait for two.
  
• Price 7.4/10 – Pricey place - about $80 per person ($19 for a majority of the appetizer sized tapa), but in the long run I was very happy with the experience.
  

Closing Comments
Big flavors that don't necessarily seem too Spanish to me. Still delicious though and although a tad pricey I would definitely go back with more people, so we can sample more items.