Some life advice: When Alison Cook likes it, you should eat it.
Now that the Astros’ season has begun, I’ve got a great game day tip that’s right next door to the ballpark: Duck into Osso and Kristalla, the casual Italian trattoria end of Astros owner Jim Crane’s twin restaurants, for rigatoni with a giant cheesestuffed meatball on top.
That’s right — a giant meatball, sportsmanly food that even a woman can love. The mighty sphere is beautifully tender, threaded with herbs, and it oozes a gratifying sploosh of melted mozzarella when stabbed with a fork.
The backdrop of ridged pasta tubes have just the right amount of bounce to them. The marinara sauce has a fine tart tang and the kind of red-peppery bite Houstonians love, thanks to chef Danny Trace’s halfItalian roots spliced with a Louisiana upbringing.
In fact, Trace’s grounding in Creole cuisine, honed at Brennan’s of Houston and Commander’s Palace, is what gives this simple Italian menu surprising pizzazz. It’s a comfortable, conventional lineup that’s a far cry from Trace’s ambitious menu at the much fancier Potente next door.
My heart may not beat faster here when I see fried calamari as an appetizer, but when the squid rings and tentacle bonnets turn up fried to a feathery crunch with oh-so-southern buttermilk, then tossed with sharp slivers of pickled pepperoncini, I can eat an unseemly pile of them all by myself.
In fact, dipping the squid into a bright lemon bianco sauce on the one hand and that spirited marinara on the other, I found myself thinking back on Creole-Italian meals of yore at Mosca’s, the 71-year-old familystyle joint on New Orleans’ West Bank. Trace may be cooking with more finesse at Osso and Kristalla, but his food’s in that big-flavored, swaggery spirit.
The service is efficient, and the food comes out promptly from the open kitchen, which is good when you’re on a schedule. And the room itself is a crisp, airy space in which to relax over a stubby little tumbler of Italian wine before heading off to the ballgame.