My boyfriend and I have walked by Asellina numerous times over the past few months — at first we didn’t see much of a crowd but all of a sudden we would walk by at 9 p.m. and the place would be packed. I quickly put the pieces together — Kim Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian were filming their current season of ‘Kourtney and Kim Take New York’ at the Gansevoort Park hotel (the hotel right above Asellina). So, my guess is their fans were piling in in hopes of getting a look of their favorite celebrity sisters. It’s a good thing people were congregating at Asellina because the food is pretty good. Whether or not you see the Kardashians, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your experience at this restaurant.

The first thing I have to tell you about this restaurant is that the service is impeccable. Our waitress was very attentive, energetic and exceptionally kind. My boyfriend and I are those types of people that always asks the waiter/waitress what they recommend, what are their favorite dishes on the menu, and what plates people typically enjoy the most.

With the help of our waitress, we started off with a couple of appetizers: The Ahi Tuna Tartare that comes with robiola cheese, black truffle and spring onions, and we also ordered the Veal Meatballs.

Veal Meatballs appetizer

The Ahi Tuna Tartare was tasty but it wasn’t anything extraordinary. I love tuna and I love to be wowed whenever I eat a new tuna tartare dish — this didn’t wow me. But the quality of the tuna was extremely fresh and the cheese added a fantastic flavor and texture to the fish.

I really enjoyed the Veal Meatballs (although I always feel guilty whenever I eat veal, can you blame me?) — they were nice and moist (exactly the way meatballs should be) and the cheese melted on top was very stringy and provided subtle but enjoyable flavoring. The red sauce it was marinated in was also very good — it was similar to a classic grandma’s red sauce, and you can never go wrong with that!

Fillet filled ravioli & truffle, and a pappardelle dish

For our main plates we ordered one of the specials — ravioli stuffed with fillet in a light butter sauce topped with shavings of black truffle, and our other plate was the Pappardelle which was made with homemade sausage and porcini mushrooms. The ravioli was delicious! You can never go wrong mixing butter and truffle together. Over all the dish was very enjoyable although I do wonder what it would have tasted like if the chef added a bit of extra seasoning on the inside of the ravioli. The pappardelle on the other hand was disgusting. My boyfriend has said in the past that he doesn’t like something that he’s eating, but he’ll keep eating it because he’s hungry. This time, both me and my boyfriend put our forks down and decided we needed to send the plate back. The flavors did not go well together at all and if I was forced to take another bite, it would have been torture.

Spaghetti in a red sauce

Our waitress was so understanding and suggested that we get a spaghetti in a red sauce to replace the pappardelle. That’s exactly what we did and we loved our replacement. The pasta was perfectly cooked and the red sauce was out of this world.

Even though we had one bad order, we are excited to go back to try the pizzas and flatbread — both looked delicious and we couldn’t help but eye them down when they were ordered from near by tables.