Italian is my favorite absolute cuisine. I don't think anyone else has mastered the carbohydrate quite like the Italians. For breads, you've got pizza crust, ciabatta, focaccia, panettone, etc. For rice, risotto. And pasta..... ah, pasta - a staggering array of shapes and sizes, in preparations limited only by the imagination.
New York certainly has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fantastic Italian restaurants. Batali alone accounts for eight outstanding establishments.
The food I had when I was in Italy itself was fairly mediocre - didn't know where to go, I expect. (Though the tomatoes blew me away. You can really taste the difference when a tomato is naturally ripened in the sun. Pure bliss.)
The Italian Pavilion was, sadly, closer to my actual Italian experience than my New York Italian experience. We started with a ho-hum salad and a cured salmon dish with olive oil, orange segments, olives and capers.
We also had a potato and salt cod (baccalà in Italian) dish that confused me because I associate it so strongly with Spanish cuisine.
The lasagne was gummy and goopy. Mine is leagues better.
Very poor form, Italy.
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