Sagra Enoteca Trattoria.
1610 San Antonio St.
535-5988
30.27984° N, 97.74352° W
Pepper grinder rating: 0.
Men’s room rating: 2. (You go to all that
trouble to redecorate the place, and then leave a rusted, pitted waste bin in there?).
WiFi: Yes.
Dwight’s comments:
Small and kind of pricy. I liked my wild boar osso bucco at first, but
after a while the dish became sort of a chore to get through. I found
myself wishing I had ordered the scallop special, until the person who did said they thought it was skimpy.
I can see this as being a place I’d take a date to, but I’m more likely
to go back to Gypsy Italian Bistro instead.
Lawrence’s comments:
Sagra is obviously aiming to be an intimate, upscale Italian place near
downtown. And as such it’s more or less fine. But there are caveats.
First, the inside is pretty small; you have to be careful of bumping
into people behind you when you slide your chair back to get up.
Second, the food is decent, but what I had wasn’t good enough to justify the overhead. The best thing we had was the calamari, which very nice, with a light, crispy, well-seasoned batter. Unfortunately, as usual, it still didn’t dethrone reigning champ The Clay Pit. This is not an inconsiderable problem, given that the Clay Pit is all of two blocks away.
My entrèe was the Rigatoni alla Bolganese, which struck me as underflavored. The sausage I had on the side was much better, so you might opt for the Penne alla Arrabitta that contains it instead. For dessert I had the Gatto di Formaggio (read: fancy-ass cheesecake), which was…interesting. Not bad, but tarter than I expected. It’s probably a bad sign that I regretted not skipping that and stopping at the TCBY three blocks away instead. Service was a bit iffy at first, but got better as the meal progressed.
Third, there are the prices, with everything being just a bit more than you expect it to be. After the meal, there was that disheartening moment when all of us had put in what we figured we owed for the meal…only to discover that we were still considerably short of the total. There are a number of less expensive entrees on their extended menu; unfortunately, none of them actually seem to be available during the dinner hour.
Combined with the lack of any traditional “hearty” Italian entrees, I can’t really recommend Sagra over competing Italian offerings.