EAT YOUR HEART OUT

FLUSHING - Stuffed pasta may not be widely regarded as an aphrodisiac, but Durso’s Pasta and Ravioli Company is working on that. For the past six years, their heart-shaped ravioli has been seen as the perfect Valentine’s Day option for locals who express their affections through cooking. “A lot of people want to do something a little bit more intimate for Valentine’s Day,” says Robert Durso Jr., who belongs to the third generation of the pasta-making family. “And really, nothing’s more intimate than a home-cooked meal.”

Durso’s heart-shaped ravioli come with two stuffings—cheese and lobster—and are only available from late January through the end of February. While the Dursos rely on machinery to create most of the products in their extensive line of both stuffed and non-stuffed pastas, the heart-shaped ravioli are made entirely by hand, with cookie cutters. Food coloring gives the stuffed hearts a bright red hue. “Few people make them, especially by hand,” Durso points out. “They’ve become increasingly popular. Every year we sell more than the previous year.”

Despite the old-school method by which they are produced, the heart-shaped ravioli are a testament to how much the Durso family business has evolved since Robert’s grandfather, the late Gerald Durso, founded the company in 1967. The original store was a few blocks away from its current location on Crocheron Avenue and sold exclusively hand-made cheese ravioli. However, in recent years, brothers Robert Durso Sr. and Gerald Durso Jr., the house chef, have expanded the menu to include about 30 different pasta cuts, sauces and prepared foods, all made fresh daily on the premises. In 2007, celebrity chef Bobby Flay deemed Durso’s ravioli “the best in the United States” and challenged Robert and his father to a Throwdown!, televised on the Food Network. Though the win went to Flay, the recognition was nonetheless a tribute to the Dursos’ mastery, despite the lack of formal culinary training. “It’s just passed down,” says Robert Durso Jr. “We all have a love for food so we sit in the kitchen and experiment.”

They now offer a wide variety of ravioli fillings, including pumpkin and osso bucco, but this time of year, it’s the heart-shaped ravioli that gets the most attention. What hasn’t changed? Gerald Durso’s original pasta recipe, which calls for semolina flour, water and a heaping helping of good old-fashioned passion.

Durso’s Pasta and Ravioli Company, 189-01 Crocheron Ave., Flushing, 718-358-1311

Written by Nathalie Alonso; Photo © Ron Sumners | Dreamstime.com

KAISEKI BY KATSUNO

FOREST HILLS - Several years ago, during a trip to Japan, I had the good fortune to experience a traditional kaiseki-style banquet. I remember it as one of the greatest meals of my life. Kaiseki, the haute cuisine of Japan, evolved in Kyoto from the Japanese tea ceremony, and is replete with ritual and symbolism. A kaiseki meal is usually structured around a theme, often a season or a holiday, and both the ingredients and the tablescapes capture and express this theme in incredibly subtle, but powerful ways. I had never before been exposed to such a rapturous meal, so intricate in flavor and texture, and thought I never would again.

And then I discovered Katsuno restaurant in Forest Hills. A dinner there was so transporting for me that I inquired if they prepared kaiseki. “Yes, for two to eight diners with advance notice,” replied Yuka Seo, the owner. Yuka is married to Chef Katsuyuki Seo and the couple also own Restaurant Seo in Manhattan, though they live in Forest Hills. Katsuno’s prices vary, depending on the number of courses and types of sake included, she explained. I booked the works for a dinner party of eight.

Like Queens itself, Katsuno is utterly without pretense. The décor is modest. Instead of being attended by kimono-clad, deferential sylphs on their knees, as is customary in Japan, we were served by Seo herself, who dashed back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room with effusive good cheer. It’s all about the food here. Which is just how I like it.

Our much-anticipated meal was a fall-themed, eight-course extravaganza paired with five kinds of sake. Confirming the old saw that “Japanese food is a feast for the eyes,” gasps of awe erupted from our table each time a course descended. Japanese-maple-leaf-strewn platters bore carefully plated delicacies like grilled and stewed Magret duck, garnished with bright green gingko nuts that had been pierced by split bamboo skewers, giving the illusion of having been plucked from trees. Squid dressed with mentaiko (pollack roe) did a clever impersonation of a chewy, briny pasta dish. Dobinmushi, an aromatic broth made by steaming matsutake mushrooms, the truffles of Japan, with dashi (a fish stock made from dried bonito) in a teapot, came next. Yuka explained how to savor this delicate broth: Pour some into the teacup and inhale its heady fragrance first, then sip some soup and pluck out the mushrooms and other ingredients with your chopsticks.

We soldiered on through dish after dish, including buttery Kobe beef chunks and matsutake rice inside a swirl of bamboo skin, clasped by a skewered maple leaf, another soup and finally dessert. We all left the table feeling sensuously well-sated without feeling as stuffed as we might have after an equally elaborate Western dinner. Another meal, another exquisite memory.