TABLES FOR TWO.(Uovo restaurant)(Restaurant Review)

UOVO -- 175 Avenue B (212-475-8686)--Uovo is Italian for egg, and a large photo of one adorns a bare brick wall in Matthew Hamilton's spare, stiffly stylish restaurant. As it happens, Hamilton cooks eggs beautifully--delicately scrambled with frisee or poached and dropped in a hearty soup of Portuguese sausage and garlic--but they don't dominate the menu any more than prunes dominate the menu at Prune, the tiny but successful restaurant where Hamilton used to cook.

The cuisine is part American (brisket, succotash), part southern European (salt cod), and the menu is divided, Italian style, in three; the human stomach is really designed to fit only two of these courses, but each section has its temptations. Two particularly striking starters of late were a salad of watercress, sheep's cheese, and lamb's tongue sliced so thin that its texture seemed almost mushroomy and an adventurous cold almond soup. Of the second courses, a standout was octopus, grilled in typical Mediterranean style but served with pickled burdock root. (House-pickled vegetables line a shelf above the bar.) More puzzling were the ricotta dumplings--pale, floury, and tinged with lemon zest, they tasted like cake batter.

Hamilton's way ...