Where: 301 Manukau Rd, Epsom. Ph (09) 630 6141.
Our meal: $158 for three starters, three mains, one dessert, three beers and a bottle of wine.
Wine list: A good selection of Italian wines and beers, and BYO.
Verdict: Friendly enough, but service woeful and food not much better. If you want a good neighbourhood Italian cafe, go elsewhere.
Out of 10
Food: 5
Service: 4
Value: 7
Ambience: 7
KEY POINTS:
Tripe. There, I've said it. And eaten it, at Me Ne Frego. Cooked the Italian way, with tomato and onions. And if you didn't know it was tripe, you would never guess, you might think it was a rather muscular pasta. But back to the beginning.
We came to Me Ne Frego because our first choice of Italian restaurant was unavailable due to a private function. Oh well. Friends had recommended MNF, however, so we went there. It's not a big place, it does bear some resemblance to a real trattoria, I'm led to believe. It's rather cute, with red, upside-down colanders serving as light shades.
The 10 or so tables were all occupied the night we were there, with one party of eight. Large by MNF standards. The menus are handwritten but readable.
We decide on crostini for starters ($8 each) because that's all there is. The toppings are imaginative, however, so we chose green beans and sardines, smoked roe, and a seafood mix. Bill's beer, Peroni, arrived with commendable haste, but the same could not be said for the wine and crostini. When they did arrive, after half an hour, they were jolly good.
The green beans were flageolets, and excellent with sardines. The smoked roe closely resembled taramasalata, and none the worse for that. The seafood mix was just that - bits of marine creature bound together in some sort of sauce, but okay. The Nikau Point sauvignon blanc was very good too. By this time we had ordered our main meals - tripe Toscana for me ($27), lamb shanks with artichoke for Annie ($30) and fettucine coloso for Bill ($22). And so we waited and chatted, and waited, and waited. There was only one cook, a big man with lots of white hair, in the very small kitchen.
The sole waitress was doing her best, but when one end of the largish table of diners had had their plates cleared before the other end even received their meals, there was something awry. Our meals arrived eventually and all at once.
The tripe was overcooked for my taste, but the sauce was excellent, spicy but not overpowering. Annie's lamb knuckle was tough, and the artichoke just sat like a blob on the plate and didn't achieve whatever it was meant to. Bill had the meal of the night, rapidly downing his coloso, a rich mix of minced pork and mushrooms with pasta.
The salads were a combination of tired lettuce, chopped canned beetroot, canned sweetcorn and cheap tomatoes. We left them, so there was still room for dessert.
We shared a very good tiramisu, made on the premises using bitter chocolate. I can recommend it, if nothing else.
Me Ne Frego apparently translates as I don't give a damn. And frankly, my dear, I don't.
