My girlfriend returned from some time in LA last night so after a day of travel what better to do on a rainy night in New York then go get some food. A nicer meal than normal was in order but neither of us were very hungry so to make things easy we chose,Bacaro. because it was close, had good wine, and we could get a meat and cheese plate. We sat downstairs and ordered a carafe of wine, a mixed vegetable salad, fried zucchini blossoms, and the dubious meat and cheese plate. The wine was good and since I didn’t order it I don’t know what it was called. The mixed vegetable salad was ok. It consisted of chopped up green beans, peas, celery, fennel, radish, red cabbage, arugula, some gorgonzola cheese, and light vinaigrette. If I went to Bacaro again I would not order this dish. The zucchini blossoms came out at the same time as the salad and they were pretty standard. Deep fried with some creamy white cheese in the middle it is pretty impossible to mess these up. I will say that I don’t understand why they are served on a folded paper napkin as it creates a gross cheese and paper situation. Some bites definitely contained napkin which is not cool. I get the need to soak up some of the grease but it didn’t appear as if the napkin soaked up enough to be worth eating it. The waitress came over and topped off our wine glasses with carafe which was disappointing to realize we had gone through a carafe and only had about a full glass each. Nat ordered another one and the cheese and meat plate arrived. Now Bacaro is owned by Frank DeCarlo who also owns Peasant and if you have ever tried the meat and cheese plate at Peasant you will know it is of legendary proportions. Unfortunately they couldn’t duplicate this success at Bacaro. We received three breadsticks, three apple slices with a piece of gorgonzola on top, two cheese puff ball sized hunks of reggiano, one piece of prosciutto, three quarter sized slices of hot sopressata, one piece of bresola, two little chunks of mortadella, and two other cheese I could not identify. There was not real star of the show because nothing on the plate was of a substantial enough amount. A meat and cheese plate is usually to share so there should be at least two pieces of each item on the plate. You never want to have to decide between who gets the piece of prosciutto. It’s just not right. Not to mention the plate was sixteen dollars which means they could afford a few more chunks of something on there. To top it off I rarely see mortadella on a butcher plate. Mortadella looks like bologna so I refuse to eat it. I don’t care if it tastes better because there is no way it looks good compared to the other meats on the plate. Get it out of there. I took a picture of the pathetic plate but it’s not worth sharing with you. Instead I included the above video of Lynrd Skynrd’s, Simple Man, as it was playing in the restaurant last night. I overheard a man at the table next to us comment that before there were beefs in rap Lynyrd Skynyrd had beef with someone. I can’t remember who but I know they were cool with Neil Young even though Sweet Home Alabama was a response to Southern Man and Alabama. I did read on a google search that they played four shows with Queen in 1971 and didn’t get along. But that hardly sounds like beef. All in all Bacaro was ok if a bit too pricey for what we received. I would go back if I had unlimited funds or someone else was paying.