Caro Amico

I likes me some Italian food. The problem is that I haven't found a great many decent places in town for good Italian grub. Most places seem to go with a "more is better" mentality that doesn't always pan out.

We've covered Italian in the past here. Looking at the list of restaurants that have made the list, the only really noteworthy ones are the fairly expensive ones. Pastini Pasteria is actually pretty good, but otherwise there's really a lot of schlock out there.

We've also covered Caro Amico before, but that was related to their pizzas. We haven't had a sit-down meal there for awhile.

Which is part of what excited me about Wednesday. For Father's Day, we took my father-in-law to Caro Amico, which is one of his favorite old haunts. Unfortunately, we took my kids as well, which made it hard to really enjoy the atmosphere or to really get into the food. This review will suffer on that account.

The view from Caro Amico is nice. We were on the middle floor, which has a deck/patio area overlooking the sloping west side down to the river.



The third floor has a better view, but there was a private party up there and I didn't wish to disturb them to get you a photo.

I've recently been trying to count calories somewhat (believe-it-or-not, considering my lunch at BrunchBox today), so I tried to avoid pasta for dinner and stick with something a little less carb-o-riffic.

My wife and I split a chopped salad as an appetizer. Delicious. A green salad with a nice light vinaigrette, it also had bits of salami, olives, and provolone cheese. The full salad could easily feed three, and we left part of it untouched.

For dinner I went with the Steak Marsala. This isn't in my normal wheelhouse, since I generally like to stick with more traditional pasta dishes, but traditional pasta didn't fit as well into my current dietary scheme.

My dish was a flat-iron steak topped with mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and garlic in a marsala sauch. It was served with some penne pasta in marinara, which I did take a couple of bites of.



(Sorry for how dark the picture is; my wife gets bent when I get all food-bloggy on her).

The meal ended up being very satisfying, even leaving half the pasta aside. The steak was well-prepared, and the flavors worked well together without any being over-powering. I drank a Lagunitas IPA with my meal, and it was fabulous.

For four adults and two kids the tab was about $112 (pre-tip), which wasn't too bad. Service was great, atmosphere was nice (to the extent that I could enjoy it); I'd continue to say that Caro Amico is among the top Italian places in town.

The Olive Garden

Rusty and I had a brief discussion as to whether we should include the Olive Garden in this blog...after all, it's just a chain. But, I felt that not including the meal we had at the the Olive Garden the other night would violate the spirit of this blog, which is to talk about where we eat. It would be snobby not to talk about it.

Rusty's family and my family met at the Olive Garden by Mall 205 this past Friday night. I remember when the Olive Garden first came to the Portland area...it was the coolest thing around (I was ten, give me a break). The Olive Garden is certainly a chain restaurant, in that the food is the same from place to place. Our meals were tasty, but nothing too exceptional. Rusty had a pizza, his wife had the soup and salad, and my wife and I both had the five cheese ziti al forno. Our daughters (ages two and three respectively) shared a dish of spaghetti. As is always the case, they brought us plenty of salad and bread sticks.

The Olive Garden is not cheap. Meal prices range from $11 to $18.

I think what was great about this particular meal was the service. Our server was terrific! A word of caution, this server did come on the heels of two very atrocious servers. But I have found, over the years, that the Olive Garden tends to hire and employee well-trained people. As Rusty observed, in a city like Portland where there are so many places to eat, sometimes what makes or breaks a restaurant is the service. I guess that's why we waited 45 minutes to be seated in a very full restaurant. The Olive Garden may not be exceptional food, but it is a nice place to go and enjoy a warm meal with good service and friends.

DiNicola's

I love Italian food. I find it hard to have an unpleasant Italian food experience.

And I love and respect tradition, honor it, and respect a place that can establish one.

So when my friends wanted to go out to dinner last week at DiNicola's, which I'd never been to (but had heard great things about), I was thrilled to take them up on the invite. And I was looking forward to what I'd find.

This review, by the way, will end up being a "pass" recommendation, but I'm going to start with what I liked.

First, the place is cramped and a bit messy in appearance. While in many ways that could be a bad thing, it fits well within the archetype of the family-owned Italian restaurant, and helps sell the place as being thoroughly what it sets out to be. When you sit there, you feel like you can expect good food.


Second, the food has some good qualities. The garlic bread (which you have to pay extra for, and which I'd rather see as a throw-in) is good. The pizzas are made with quality ingredients and have good flavor. The noodles are good quality.


Finally, the service was great, and the people were all friendly. And kids are welcomed and accomodated, which is always a plus.


The problem with the place is that the food is too rich, across the board. Nobody at our table is a dainty eater; we all had skills. I ordered a pasta dish with a "Mezza Mezza" sauce, meaning it was a mix of marinara and cream-based. My wife ordered a pizza, figuring she and my daughter would share a couple of slices and we'd take the rest home. Our friends ordered a separate pizza to split.


I couldn't get through much of my dish. Not that is tasted bad, but it just sits in your stomach like a rock. I took some home and tried again for lunch the next day, and ran into the same problem. It just sits too heavy and ends up making a person feel a bit queasy. My wife had the same issue with her pizza, and a couple of days later I had a slice and, again, felt gastronomically overwhelmed. Our friends didn't offer any actual complaints, but they didn't seem all that pleased with what they'd ended up getting.


We ended up throwing away about half of the pizza because, although it was tasty, it just wouldn't sit well.


Now, it could be that we were there on an off-night, either for us or for the restaurant. I'm open to input to that point, and I'm actually interested in getting some feedback from readers on this place. But given my experience, I'm not going to be heading back anytime soon, unless I hear some pretty clear indications that I'm being unduly harsh...

Serratto

After dinner at Sunsai, my pals took me down the street to Serratto for dessert. A pretty penny was spent on the decor of this restaurant. Sadly, the chairs we had that night were quite uncomfortable, about an inch too tall.

But however uncomfortable the chairs were, the dessert Tuesday night was fabulous. I chose the Milk Chocolate Cobbler. A pool of warm chocolate was covered with a crust that was topped with vanilla bean gelato. Decadent, rich, creamy, and remarkable.

It's been too long since I had dinner at Serratto, so I can't comment on it. But, it's worth investigating, if only to have another Milk Chocolate Cobbler.

Il Piatto

Yesterday my wife and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. For dinner last night, I took her to the place that we went to on our very first date...Il Piatto. This restaurant is tucked away in a neighborhood on SE Ankeny. But don't let the off-the-beaten-path location fool you. It's a fantastic and romantic place.

We decided upon a very earlier meal last night, so we arrived at 6:00. Only one other couple was there, which was fine by us. Every other time, the place has been packed. We were seated promptly, ordered some beverages, and perused the menu. My wife opted for the risotto and I chose the Ravioli di Spinaci. But first, I started with Spinaci con Pancetta salad.

The restaurant is laid out with a number of smaller tables surrounding some larger tables. There is a mix of lamps, pictures, cloth and bobbles throughout the room...just enough to make it feel authentic without being ticky-tacky.

My salad arrived, well timed. I found the salad to be superb...lots of spinich tossed with gorgonzola, pears and warm bits of pancetta. It was large enough that we could have shared it to start.

Then, the meal arrived. My wife's risotto was out of this world.; thick, creamy and tender. There was too much for her to finish, so she had to bring some home. My ravioli was just enough. There were four large ravioli stuffed with spinach and mozzarella. The tomato sauce had a kiss of saffron (which I found to be just right, but it was a bit much for my wife, who doesn't particularly enjoy the saffron).

The cost of the meal was a couple of dollars a dish more then you would spend at the Olive Garden, but light-years ahead in quality and flavor. We didn't have dessert at Il Piatto, as I had another place in mind.

By the way, this is my second-favorite restaurant in all of Portland.

Geraldi's

I'm always hopeful that GastroBoy will get off his keister and write something. But, in a painful acknowledgement of the truth, I find myself jumping the gun and posting about our lunchtime spot today.

I was planning on eating in (honest, I was). I have a package of my favorite Trader Joe's freezer burritos here in the office, waiting for their 3 minutes of nuclear (or, as JLowe and the Prez say, "nukular") exposure to prepare them adequately for consumption. But GB mentioned going out, and it got my juices flowing.

We couldn't decide where to go. GB threw out many options, even uttering our eventual destination once or twice. But I was so busy mulling bad choices that I failed to hear the good one, and then, suddenly, my mind seized upon it. Geraldi's on 4th! And, like a shot, we were off.

Geraldi's, for anyone who hasn't been there, specializes in quick Italian fare, but the primary reason to go there is the sandwiches. They come in two sizes, big and bigger. All are served on fresh french bread loaves, nice and warm and sliced down the middle. The half sandwich, depending on type, costs on average $6 to $7. The whole gets up closer to $9, a good value given the size, but too big unless you're regularly a pig.

I ordered the 1/2 Chicken Parm, shown below.



Not a flattering picture, for sure. The sandwich isn't supposed to look pretty, though. It's supposed to taste good.

And it does. The chicken is plentiful and filling. The sauce is always the same, which is nice in that it you want predictability in a regular haunt, and when something is so right, to change it would be a crime. And the mozarella cheese is plentiful.

GB got something different, but I was too busy madly devouring my lunch to admire his.

I don't have it in me to do a thorough expounding upon the virtues of Geraldi's. But let me say this: it is one of the most popular hero joints in downtown for a reason, and anyone who's had it swears upon it for life. If you're not a chicken parm guy, go for the meatball hero. If you aren't into that, JLowe usually gets the Chicago beef. Really, there's no way you can possibly go wrong. And, if you don't want a sandwich, I recommend the lasagna. Whatever you get will be filling, delicious, and you will walk away highly satisfied for about $10 every time. Go to Geraldi's once and you, like all three of us, will be a fan for life.

Pastini Pastaria

Man, that JLowe goes out to lunch alot.

In fact, I can report to you that he went out to lunch yesterday. I know this because I was there.

It goes like this. I used to work with JLowe, and also with some other people. I don't miss JLowe at all, since he's widely known as my "Hetero Lifemate." But I do miss some of the other people, so I invited one in particular out to lunch.

Now, I'm a married man. The person I invited out is an unmarried, attractive woman. She's a great person and a good friend who used to work in the same department of the office that I did, so that was why I asked her out. But I know better than not to bring a wingman to maintain the appearance of propriety, so I invited JLowe.

The plan was for lunch last Friday. In fact, I went out and had pictures of my 19 month-old daughter printed up so that my friend, CW, could see them (whenever I see her at the coffee shop or whatever, she asks to see pictures, and I didn't feel like being that lame-ass dad who only has the ones on his cell phone when she asked again).

Friday turned into Tuesday when my boss surprised us with a lunch meeting. I had been assigned the job of picking a place, and I threw that job back on CW because I picked the last time we went out to lunch (which, I believe, was last fall). She shifted the job over to JLowe.

JLowe and I happened to go to the driving range on Saturday, and on our way back into my area of town we passed a billboard for Pastini Pastaria. And we were surprised with some knowledge: they have a new store at 9th and Taylor, downtown, well within range of our various offices. And so the decision was made, at that point, that lunch would be there.

Pastini Pastaria is a local chain with 5 locations hitting most of the major areas of town (they aren't in NoPo yet, but I bet that's just a matter time). Their hallmark is affordable, delicious pasta dishes served quickly. Not really any frills.

We got there at about 11:55. We ended up being a party of five, thanks to some last-minute (and entirely welcome) additions from my old office. Noone chose the same dish.

I ended up ordering the Linguini Misto Mare, which is shrimp, halibut and seasonal shellfish with garlic, lemon, herbs, butter and white wine. It comes with some nice bread on the side. It cost $8.95.

The dish itself was well-sized. Not so much that eating it all made you feel at all guilty. Not so little that you were left wanting any more. Exactyl perfect. The fish wasn't skimped on (there were four mussels, four shrimps and several chunks of halibut). It was just about perfect, as far as portioning goes.

Food was served to our group about 7 minutes after it was ordered. We were able to have good conversation, order, be served, and eat in an unhurried manner and were done by 12:40, which was, in my mind, pretty good given the range of pastas we selected and the number of people being served.

Most importantly, everyone was pleased with their food. No complaints.

The only disappointment was that none of us ever remembered to ask them to split the check, and they never offered. I think a downtown place during lunch hour ought to, but that's really a minor gripe. Just be sure to ask for it, if you need it.

So, go to Pastini Pastaria. I've been to two of the five locations, always been happy, and never felt like I over-paid.

La Terrazza

I've eaten at La Terrazza dozens of times. They have simple, quick hearty pasta dishes, a daily soup, salads and sandwiches. You pay before you sit, so you can just leave when you're done (my wife's favorite feature). My wife always gets the Fettuccine Pesto Y Pollo.

Today, I was having a lunch meeting with an old friend and we decided that this would be the place to get lunch. I ordered the Ciabatta Turkey Pesto, but that's not what I got. Instead, the Ciabatta Prosciutto and Mozzarella showed up. But, I didn't realize it 'til I was half-way through the sandwich. I was hungry and not paying attention. When I finally came to my senses, and started thinking about what I was eating, I found myelf disappointed with the Ciabatta Prosciutto. Why didn't I say something about getting the wrong sandwich? But, it's the first time that I've really been disappointed at La Terrazza. I will return, as I'm just chalking it up to an exceptionally busy day for the restaurant. La Terrazza is located at 3rd and SW Salmon.

Caro Amico

There are many reasons to love our wives. From the various things to do to take care of us, to the various ways they make life easier, to the various surprises they throw our way. Tonight was such a night, where a pleasant surprise that could've been annoying ended up making me pretty happy.

In my experience, guys are often more free and easy food-wise than women. Most guys I know will go to any restaurant their significant other wants to go to, and most women I know eat by mood. Now, to be fair, there are certainly times I'm not in the mood for a type of food (usually it's Chinese that I'm not looking for), but in general even if I don't want to eat some type of food, I'll do it if my wife wants to bad enough, and I'll generally walk away happy.

In my home (I don't know how it is in yours), there's a nightly conversation that starts around 6pm. Usually my wife initiates it by saying "what should we have for dinner tonight?" Then the game is on. Usually I'll go through our fridge, freezer, and shelves first. So tonight, my first offer was to grill up some chicken and make up some barley; then to make up the homemade tamales we have in our freezer. After that, I offered to make grilled cheese and soup. And then the offerings dried up, because we need to go shopping.

So I started throwing out various choices. I could get rolled chicken tacos (one of my wife's favorite choices) from Trader Joe's. I could get take-out from a local restaurant. I even offered Chinese. No dice. "None of that sounds good to me, I'm not in the mood for that."

There's something she's always in the mood for, though, so I finally offered it. Pizza from Caro Amico. We've been to Caro Amico for a wide range of food. Their appetizer tray is superb. Their Caesar Salads are wonderful. Their pasta is good, their calzones quite tasty. And, if you eat there, the view out to the East is quite lovely.

But 9 times out of 10, if I'm darkening their doorstep, it's to pick up a pizza to take home. In fact, generally speaking any pizza served in our home is from there. And, generally speaking, we're eating the Stevie's Wonder with some black olives added.

The Stevie's Wonder is a thing of beauty. Take a thin-crust pizza, put sauce on it, then add cheese, pepperoni, garlic (and more garlic), and pepperoncinis. That, in and of itself, is lovely enough. The black olives are my wife's personal touch, and they push it over the edge from delightful to delectable.

It's pretty simple to place an order. Call the restaurant, order what you want, and show up about 20 minutes later. Go into the bar and let the bartender know you're there. He'll bring your food out and take care of your payment. And, half the time, he'll hand you a coupon towards your next pizza order.

Usually I try to show up about 12 minutes after my call-in, so that I have time to read the ever-present newspaper on the bar and drink a Stella Artois. The service is always prompt, and often there's someone in the bar who'll try to chat you up (tonight the guy next to me was reading a book, but last time I was there some out-of-towner was talking to me about his college football team, who was playing on the TV above).

There are a lot of great pizza places in town, and I don't mean to suggest the Caro Amico is the king. But for a very good quality pizza, at home or take out, and some nice environment while you wait (either way), you could do a hell of a lot worse.