suckered by the name /CasaDeBarolo

Y (May '23)

SCORE: Can lah

ORDER: Gnocchi with veal and truffle

VALUE: Ok lah. 70 EUR for one with 2 glasses of wine

After getting some work done and bumbling around Torino, I wanted to get something to eat in / around the old center of town. Being a sucker for barolo, I'll be the first to admit that I was drawn in by the name of this establishment: casa di barolo. Not to mention, it was one of the few places that was willing to serve me at the inhuman dinner time of 1900.(for Italians). The menu did seem quite appealing as it had other interesting options beyond the classic torinese options of vitello tonnato / agnolotti del plin

As I sat down, I was geniunely impressed with the array of wines they had on the menu. However having some morning meetings the next day, I decided to go light on the wine. I ordered the plin just as a baseline check to see where I would rank it in terms of Torinese restaurants, and then I went with a gnocchi with veal and a duck breast. Wines to pair with by the glass, of course.

As this was still early by their usual client standards, I had the restaurant (and the staff) pretty much to myself. This was not the most useful, as aside from one staff member, the rest hardly spoke any English. I ended up relying on Google translate continuosly, eventually got exhausted (as did they, I'm sure) and I just entertained myself doing the crossword. The restaurant was spacious, with tables in what appeared to be 3 different sections. It looked like they were setting up for a long table event later.

The plin was quite disappointing. The braised veal was overcooked, the pasta a bit too thick, and in addition to the usual brown butter with a dash of broth, they had this creamy sauce at the bottom, which just made the whole thing a bit too jelat. This wasn't a good sign as this should be something they should have down pat


Then came the gnocchi with veal ragu. this was a nice mix of meaty and chunky with starchy and creamy. The gnocchi had a slight sweetness to them which worked wonderfully with the veal chunks. Add to that the aroma of black truffles, and I was certainly a happy camper.


Then came the dish that I was most disappointed by - the duck breast. This was my attempt at getting more protein in. The duck breast showed up chewy and rubbery (second time this trip with bad poultry), and the fat under the skin had an unpleasant texture. It wasn't quite unrendered, but it was like it was sitting in the sous vide bath too long. I ate the breast by itself, as chewy as it was, to make up my protein requirement


The wines were decent, although nothing they recommended was a revelation by any stretch. I felt a bit underwhelmed by what I ate, and most disappointed that they didn't get their town's signature dish right.

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