Dolce Vita World Bistro

Location: 907 E. Genesee St.

Price: Lunch menu starts at $5, dinner starts at $12

Rate: 4 of 4 peppers

Dolce Vita World Bistro’s location on E. Genesee Street places it in the center of food competition. With Franco’s Restaurant next door, Phoebe’s Restaurant and Café across the street, and Strong Hearts Café down the street, only a truly great restaurant can hold its own on that block, and after being opened for less than three months, Dolce Vita has staked its claim as a contender.

The restaurant seems to pride itself on the ‘World Bistro’ aspect of the title. By offering selections from across the globe, Dolce Vita is able to give diners a taste of different foods without having to step out of the element too much.

With a vibe that’s more local than global, the environment merges a bar and café feel into one space. This makes it the perfect place to have a first date. It’s decorative enough to spark conversation and have a romantic feel while it’s still comfortable and cheap. It also offers an extensive bar and public art gallery, while also providing free Wi-Fi.

The Indian-Barbados salad is a great appetizer to begin with. It’s large enough to hold you over until the entrée, but doesn’t kill your appetite. The salad comprises apples, mandarins, shredded coconut, mixed greens, fresh-ground peppers and pears with lightly drizzled vinaigrette. The pepper complements it with an extra twang of taste that prevents the salad from tasting like candied lettuce. It’s addicting, for a salad. Once you eat one leaf of lettuce it’s hard to put down the fork.

On the lunch menu, the entrées are mainly sandwiches, but the combinations make it a far departure from the typical ham and cheese. A good selection is the Kobe Burger, a Japanese recipe. The beef is tender and succulent, even after being cooked well-done. For someone who doesn’t like meat, the Mediterranean mushroom sandwich looks like a burger but is really a huge mushroom on a bun. A grilled portabella mushroom stuffed with feta cheese and roasted peppers sits on a bun. One bite opens an incredible burst of flavor that almost takes away the bland taste of a mushroom.

All lunch menu items are served with either kettle-cooked potato chips or, for an extra price, French fries. The fries are crispy and seasoned enough so that they truly capture and slightly jazz up the flavor of a potato, but not so seasoned as to become heartburn inducing.

If by the end of this meal you’re not starting to get sleepy or feel the need to unbutton your pants to let your stomach expand, take a crack at the dessert menu. All desserts are homemade, and the waitress highly recommended the tiramisu (which was unavailable at the time of this review), but a great second choice is the Dark Forest cake.

This is essentially a brownie-sized chocolate dessert that features layers of chocolate topped off with whipped cream, strawberries and chocolate sauce. Even though it was a little rich and, after a large and truly satisfying meal, a little much to swallow down, the cake was still the perfect way to polish off the meal.

And don’t worry about the music, Dolce Vita will custom create your very own atmosphere by plugging in patron’s MP3 players and playing the music of their choice.

For a quick lunch between class, a date or when standing at the crossroad of the E. Genesee Street restaurants, Dolce Vita World Bistro should be the obvious winning choice.

kaoutram@syr.edu

Published on October 6, 2009 at 12:00 pm