Viaggio

psss. I have a secret to tell you. Some Italian food is better than others. And Viaggo is some of the best. Like maybe they put crack in the sauce good. Like using my finger to get every last drop of sauce out of the take out container good. Like you should probably go eat there tomorrow good.

Neill and I had dinner at Viaggio on Friday night with three friends. We got a reservation for 8:00 and after a bit of a wait we were seated in their cozy dining room. I was a wee bit testy at first because as I've mentioned before, I really hate to wait. I'm kind of annoying like that. But, after a glass of wine and seeing the menu I was in a much better mood.

We ordered three appetizers for the table--the meatballs with romaine salad, stuffed artichokes, and fromage fritti. I know what you are thinking - any restaurant that offers a salad with meatballs is probably pretty freaking awesome. And you would be right. And lemme tell you. The Meatballs. Oh The Meatballs. They were ridiculously good.

For the main course I ordered spaghetti carbonara and the people sitting to my right and left both ordered the rigatoni with sunday pork gravy. This is notable because I'm a big fan of stealing bites off other people's plates when they aren't looking. It was a win for me that night because both dishes were complete standouts. My carbonara was rich and a bit smokey and the rigatoni came with big hunks of tender slow cooked pork with a big ol' scoop of ricotta cheese on top.

Damn. It was bomb.

I wish I could tell you about dessert, but we skipped it with the plan to hit up Black Dog Gelato on the way home. Unfortunately, it was closed. But, no worries. We topped the night off with a 99 cent cone from McDonalds. ha. Aren't we classy?

Anyways, I really do think I need to try Viaggo again. By the end of the night we had gone through a few bottles of wine so I want to make sure the food is actually as good as I remember it. But mainly, I want to get my hands on some more of those meatballs.

Il Bellagio

I'm probably a little biased because we originally went to CityPlace to eat at Legal Seafood and only ended up at Il Bellagio when we found out our original destination had closed down.

That being said, our experience at Il Bellagio was pretty decent. My risotto with shrimp was rich and creamy and my fiance's homemade Italian sausage was also very good. My grandfather ordered the linguine with clams and the number of canned clams in the sauce far outweighed the fresh clams that came with it, but it still had a lot of flavor.

Il Bellagio has standard Italian food. Nothing was stand out, but it certainly was good. I would eat here again if I happened to be at CityPlace for dinner - but I wouldn't go to CityPlace just to eat here.

Caro Mio

Once again, Yelp has pointed me in the right direction. I wanted to find a restaurant near my friend's house that we could easily walk to  . . . not always an easy task around those parts. So, of course, I went to Yelp and found Caro Mio. I'm pretty sure everyone that night was glad we decided to give Caro Mio a try despite its unassuming location :)

I'm not sure if I can add anything to the reviews that hasn't already been said . . .
+Big delicious portions (the food definitely isn't cheap, but you get a lot for the price!)
+BYOB and no corkage fee
+really cute, small, independent restaurant

We went on a Wednesday night and it was pretty busy. Apparently it was only *us* who had never heard of it!

I'm definitely going to suggest hitting this place up again. And when we do, I'm ordering the creamy pesto sauce . . . with some pasta. YUMMO.