Bar Civita

This "casual elegant" restaurant has a kind of cucina rustica that is supposed to be Italian-inspired American but is, thankfully, heavy on the Italian. The menu is limited like a hostaria, and in fact none of the main dishes appealed to us, but both the antipasti/appetizers and pastas were delicious.

We had a pot of pork rillette with a crema mortadella that at $4 was a steal -- a generous portion with crispy crostini to spread it on. The crostini with feather light ricotta were as advertised -- feather light cheese topped with grilled melon on bigger slices of costini.

The part of Italy doing the inspiring, btw, seems to be Puglia, because my strascinati pasta is attributed to that region. This had a tomato sauce with the rich, deep flavor of long simmering, with spare rib pork ragu, house pancetta, basil and ricotta salata, served hot and a completely satisfying entree amount. Andrea's gnocci with a fresh summer vegetable succotash was a wonderful invention. The vegetables tasted like they were purchased that day at a farmer's market, and the corn in particular seemed to be from a fresh cob. We had a very nice Puglia red at an appealing price of $35.

We were quite happy with this newcomer and it was proof, if we needed it, that Tom Sietsema, who panned the restaurant in a First Bite column, has become cranky and unreliable in his reviews.