Otto; Italian for Hell No!

Or maybe it is Italian for overrated? Or big fat stinky rip off? What ever it is I am calling fugazi on it.

I called to make a reservation for 2 and it was a no go till 10:30. That was fine. I asked if there was walk in gelato and the woman on the phone said yes.

My brother and I went to Taim for falafel. I knew it would be amazing, I was right. We sauntered over to 5th ave and went in. It was a packed restaurant. I looked around for the gelato counter and no dice. I asked the hostess about it and how we could get samples. She said that there were no samples and that we ordered through her.

I ordered Olive Oil, Salty Caramel and Creme Fraiche. My brother ordered milk chocolate chip, salty caramel and something else.

We waited in the lobby area of the restaurant (between the men's room and the coat check.) It was nice cause I met tons of people as they asked if I was on line for the restroom. I also got to direct women to the ladies room (I love helping.)

Ten minutes later a guy comes out with two containers that would be a medium at all the other gelato places. Each had been packed in such a way that the gelato was flush with the top. That is like getting a cone with the ice cream in the cone, but none above.

The kicker, it was over $8 for each serving. We paid and went off to the park. I was 4 feet out the door and I had to stop. It was so awful I could not swallow the stuff and walk at the same time. I had tried the salty caramel and it was SALT. I shudder when I think about it. It was a nightmare. Not correct. I had envisioned a vanilla with a swirl of caramel that had a slight salt bight, much like Hagen Dazs's Caramel Cone. Oh no. This was brown salt. I am aghast still thinking about it. It was so salty it should have been renamed Kosher Salt, cause that is what it was made of.

As overwhelming as the Salty Saltamel, the Olive Oil was on the opposite end of the spectrum. I get to say Michael Kors' line from Project Runway.

"Frankly, I was underwhelmed."

The Olive Oil was light green, not fruity, not peppery, not olive oil-y. It was however garnished with a drizzle of olive oil, and guess what else; MORE SALT. Thats right they put more salt on top of this one. I am stumped.

The Creme Fraiche was sweet without any of the tang that it should have had.

It was so bad that we walked to Grom to have some of the Melon to wash the bad feelings away. The line was 16 people deep. We went to L'arte and I had a sample of the Grapefruit with Campari and that helped make all the nastiness go away.