Ni.Do. Caffe (Not Neato)

Harvey Bilt and I were talking restaurants a week or two ago.  He mentioned some I hadn't yet tried, and the new installation of Ni.Do. Caffe was among them.  I've been to the other Ni.Do. Caffe, on Biscayne at about 73rd Street, but I hadn't yet visited Ni.Do. Secundo (If you haven't seen the movie "Big Night," you should), at the old North 110/Tunky-Tunky (Biscayne at 110th).  Why Ni.Do. Caffe wants a second store just a few miles up the same street is a mystery.

I suggested Harvey blog these (Ni.Do. Secundo and Pinch) himself, but he didn't want to.  So I figured I'd leave it for some future time.  That time came last night, 2/14/16.  It was Valentine's Day, my companion and I had just been to a Seraphic Fire concert (amazing) at South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, and we needed dinner plans.  We were supposed to meet friends of mine in Ft Lauderdale, but the restaurant we chose jacked up the prices for Valentine's Day, and my friends don't eat that late anyway.

My companion and I decided on a plan of our own.  We bypassed Pollos Y Jarras in downtown Miami, in favor of Zaika on NE 123rd St.  We called ahead, to be sure they were open.  They told us they were.  What they didn't tell us until we got there was that there was a 40 minute wait, which at that time of day was not of interest.  So we thought of Pinch.  If Harvey wasn't going to blog it (he and Vicki like it), I figured I would.  Oddly, Pinch seemed to be open when we passed it first, but they didn't answer the phone when we called, and online said they were closed.  Maybe they were hosting a private party.  It was getting later, Ni.Do. Secundo was nearby, and they said they were open, so we decided to swing that way.  We had just had Italian food for dinner the night before, but what the hell, Italians have Italian food for dinner every day.

We got to Ni.Do. Caffe around 8:00.  They asked if we had reservations.  This struck me as an odd question, since they had many vacant tables, inside and outside, but no, we did not.  It was even more odd when the maitre d' seemed to give great consideration to what to do with us.  He could have made a sweeping gesture with his hand, and told us to sit wherever we liked.

We were seated at a very small table, not genuinely big enough for two people, and we were presented with menus.  I'm not sure whether it was portentous, but the menu informed us that "Ni.Do." stands for Niente Domani, or "There is no tomorrow."

There may be no tomorrow, but there are apparently two Ni.Dos., and they're related.  It turns out the owner of Ni.Do. Caffe hired a second chef, and the new one is from a different part of Italy.  He has his own preferred recipes, and the owner lets each chef cook however he wants.  He seems to have given each chef his own restaurant.  They're the same idea, but different.  Ni.Do. Secundo seemed more casual than Ni.Do. Primo.  It has rustic decor, raw-looking wood floors, and a television set on the wall.  It was unclear what this television set represented, since the sound was not on, and whatever was on was not interesting to watch.  There was also an open refrigerator installation that contained various raw and prepared foodstuffs, apparently for purchase.  It was like a little grocery store in a restaurant.

And then, who was our waitperson?  The maitre d' seated us and immediately turned us over to some woman who seemed to be the waitress.   But it was the maitre d' whom I later informed that we were ready to order, and it was he who took our order.  The woman came back and asked the obligatory question: did we want "regular" water, or did we want the kind you have to buy.  "Regular" was fine, and there were two other people, plus the "waitress," who irregularly refilled our glasses.  I'm guessing we would have gotten better service if we had paid for water.  Yes, I am aware this is snide.  I have not, however, had an opportunity to be proven wrong.  I will also say at this point in the story that the service was almost uniformly poor.  There were lots of people flitting around, but I was not persuaded that this activity was actually purposeful.

We ordered one salad and one pasta dish, both to share.  We agreed to receive them at the same time.  In retrospect, this was a mistake.  But who knew?  In the meantime, we waited.  Why, you might ask yourself (I'm now reading Tristram Shandy, and I can't help the digressions), did I use up a whole sentence, just to say we waited?  Why, indeed.

While we waited, I became acutely aware of the lack of bread.  This is crucial for two reasons.  One is that I am a hound for bread.  The other is that Ni.Do. Primo serves spectacular bread.  The third of the two reasons is that we were getting distinctly hungry.  So I asked.  Oh, yeah, they off-handedly and perhaps grudgingly conceded, sure, they do serve bread.  Remember I mentioned waiting?  It was hard to tell whether they were somehow too busy, or they just weren't that interested.

At some point, a new character appeared.  He was somewhat larger than most people, he was dressed like a cook, and he emerged from the kitchen.  He looked around, then he retreated to the kitchen.  I had in mind that he might be the chef, taking a moment to survey his outer domain, but that he lacked the nerve to say hello to the patrons.  Then, he came back out, and then, he went back in.  This happened a third time, too.  But the third time was a bit different, because he somehow had plates of food in his hands, and they were our dinner.  He brought them over.  I guess he was server #5.

Now, consider a tiny table, the usual accoutrements (salt, pepper, bottles of oil and vinegar, a votive candle, etc), two plates, two glasses of water, and now the addition of two dishes of food.  Never mind that there were no plates for us to use for sharing (we had already said we intended to share).  The fact is, there wasn't room.  We were unable to navigate with this condensed clutter.  We asked for the plates to use for sharing, and this, of course, had to result in the removal of the bread plates.  This might not seem like a big deal, to you (it was to me), but the loss of the bread plates was mitigated by the fact that the bread wasn't delivered to us yet anyway.  Not much of a consolation.  Until we eventually did receive bread, which was a very far cry from the magnificent bread Ni.Do. Primo serves down the street.  But dividing the dishes, and having room for anything, was still a major problem, and it remained so until we were eventually done and could have the plates cleared.  Which was a bit of a story in itself.  I was relieved to have finished my dinner, and what my companion, who eats like a bird, didn't eat of hers, and to have been able to pile dishes upon dishes, to make the collection of plates vertical, since horizontal was increasingly unbearable.  At that point, one of the water-servers asked me if I was done, and if he could remove the plates.  The completely empty plates.  The ones I stacked for him.  Yes, I told him to feel free to remove them.

The bill came in a little wooden box with a lid.  My companion considered this "cute."  Not so much, for me.  Once you add your credit card, they take the box away, then they bring it back with the original bill, your credit card, a pen, and two copies of the credit card bill (one for them, and one for you), there is no more room in the little wooden box than there was on the table.  I was so happy to be able to leave.

My companion saw a silver lining.  I asked her what it was, and she suggested that the food was "good."  I'd go as far as not bad, but I wasn't sure I could make it all the way over to good.  The salad, for example, she said, was "good."  What did you like about it, I asked?  The cheese, she pointed out, and the dressing.  They were "good."  My companion is a professional writer.  She writes fiction.  Humor fiction.  And she is personally a "foodie," and she likes to write about food.  No one ever committed "damning with faint praise" like this particular individual offering no more than that the food was "good," exemplified by salad dressing that was "good."

The spinach salad, with pear, "Gorgonzola" (tasted like goat to me), endive, and "Raspberry-Gorgonzola vinaigrette") was OK.  "Good?"  Maybe.  $13?  No.  The whole wheat bigoli pasta with vegetables (essentially primavera) was fine.  "Good?"  Probably.  $16?  Maybe.

For my money, it's Ni.Do. Primo from now on.  If you want something done right, Harvey...