![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.comstocksmag.com\/sites\/main\/files\/imagecache\/lightbox\/main-images\/adamos_wine_3.png\" "\\"Adamo's")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n Adamo\u2019s serves wines from the owners\u2019 family estate in Italy,
\n including this Tuscan red.\n<\/p>\n
Seeing no Chianti on the wine list, Alizae
\n helps me find something similar. She recommended a wine named
\n Thybris from Castello di Corbara in Italy, which is 100 percent
\n Sangiovese with notes of ripe red fruits, spices, coffee,
\n vanilla, plums and tobacco. She carefully polishes the wine glass
\n with a towel before she pours. I scan the menu.\n<\/p>\n
\n For starters, there\u2019s cacio de pepe arancini \u2014 risotto balls
\n blended with pecorino cheese \u2014 fried octopus served with crispy
\n grilled potatoes, and cherry peppers stuffed with goat cheese.
\n There are three salads, including a Caesar, a Sicilian citrus and
\n fennel and the house salad made up of mixed greens, preserved
\n tomatoes and pickled red onion tossed with a red wine
\n vinaigrette.\n<\/p>\n
\n There are seven entrees, including chicken alfredo, four cheese
\n ravioli, gnocchi, salmon piccata, shrimp scampi and carbonara. I
\n go with what\u2019s been my usual choice for the past several years \u2014
\n a bolognese with house-made fettuccine, beef, mirepoix and the
\n mandatory San Marzano tomatoes. I recently tried to make my own
\n bolognese for the first time and failed miserably. No matter how
\n small I chopped the carrots, onion and celery, or slowly stirred
\n in the canned San Marzano tomatoes, it ended up tasting like
\n plain tomato-y sauce.\n<\/p>\n
\n \n Though an Italian might disagree, the Seat at the Bar Diner likes As if this hearty dish wasn\u2019t enough, Adamo\u2019s \n The owner John Adamo, the greeter in the blue checkered shirt, \n \u201cI bought it just before COVID hit and said \u2018What have I done?<\/a><\/p>\n
\n pasta bolognese with a side of meatballs.\n<\/p>\n
\n side dish of meatballs called to me, so I asked the bartender to
\n add them, too. I\u2019m always interested in how different chefs make
\n their meatballs. On the East Coast, both my mother and friends
\n used ground veal mixed with ground beef. Here in California, it\u2019s
\n hard to find ground veal or even ground pork. On the East Coast,
\n butchers package up ground beef and veal combos, knowing they\u2019re
\n used for meatballs.\n<\/p>\n
\n comes over to talk to me and calls me by my first name, which he
\n memorized from when I walked in. He wants to know what I ordered
\n and I told him my problem in making bolognese. Turns out he
\n didn\u2019t grow up in New York City like many Italian cooks. He\u2019s
\n from southern California, but his family is from Naples, Italy
\n (and had a restaurant in the Bronx). He currently owns Adamo\u2019s
\n with his daughter Chiara.\n<\/p>\n
\n Did I make a mistake?\u2019\u201d Adamo says with a laugh.\n<\/p>\n