Ho-Hum Hostaria del Piccolo – Santa Monica

If SoCal were a person, he’d be too cool for school. I’ve never met anyone so mild, so seamless, so smoothly flawless, all without the slightest hint of trying. His fashions are crisp and airy and light, even his fitted jeans have flow. He never appears frazzled, and he seems immune to stress.

SoCal is undeniably cool, and so are the Californians in it. Between the never-break-a-sweat climate and the overall attitude of ease, the will-wait-for-a-walk-signal slowness adds a pervasive air of contentment to a life that just can’t get any sweeter.

We can’t all be as cool as California, and the sooner we realize that the better. Because when places like Hostaria try, the results aren’t always what we imagined. Take the Ricottina appetizer, for instance. Fewer cheeses are cooler than ricotta. It’s mild, it’s smooth, and so non-confrontational you often forget it’s even a cheese. Add heat to a cheese this cool and it melts into the gooey glue that soups up stuffed shells and magnifies manicotti. But when you sear it plain and dry like the people at Hostaria, you get a slab so drab you might as well be eating mashed tortilla held together but the elementary-school paste that weird kid used to eat. A mix of mildly salted mushrooms on top doesn’t help – the rubbery texture only blows up the blandness.

Despite all the cities crammed with the educated, the well-educated, and the over-educated, wine tasting last for hours despite the long hours at work, and outdoor dining reigns supreme no matter how many briefs you still have to review. And when you combine all this understated knowledge in its purest form, you get something spectacular like the Pappardelle. It’s so simple with its ribbons of day-glo spinach pasta covered in crumbles of ground-duck ragu. But the pure, unadulterated savor of duck is absolutely amazing as the natural juices coat your palate. Devouring this dish is like a conversation with someone from SoCal. So much more can be said when you speak simply.

The only thing simpler than meat and pasta is a plain pizza with pizzaz. The Moderna manages a crust that hits the perfect balance between crispy and chewy with tomato tangy and fresh. The arugula adds a bite to the minimalist parm and mozz. It’s pretty much margherita by another name, and I assure you, it does smell (and taste) as sweet.

No sane person made the Tiramisane or they would have realized how much mascarpone they loaded it with. The cream was as thick as my forearm, and the sliver of denser cake at the bottom wasn’t soaked in …well, anything. There are few soakers stronger than espresso, and I couldn’t taste an iota of it.

We can’t all be cool like California, and Hostaria is a fair warning of what comes from trying too hard to look like you’re not trying. There’s an art to keeping it simple like the entrees, but when we try too hard to convey our lack of effort, it sometimes looks and tastes like a lack of effort, especially in the unfortunate case of the app and dessert. So despite the strong showing of entrees in the middle, Hostaria’s lack-of-effort sandwich makes me reluctant to make my way back.