Pasta Pomodoro

As a rule, we try to avoid large chain-restaurants, but we're eating at every restaurant on college avenue, and that means eating at places we don't really want to go to. So, with out further ado, onto our review of Pasta Pomodoro, or as we like to call it, "The Yuppie Olive Garden".

The first thing we noticed after being seated at Pomodoro is that they print the calorie content of every dish on the menu. This was a real bummer for us. If we knew the food was going to be delicious we wouldn't care how many calories were in it, but since we had low expectations anyway, we ended up ordering the healthiest items and skipping dessert. We figured, why waste 1500 calories on a dish that will probably taste like it came from a mall food court anyway? Bad move, Pasta Pomodoro. We would've eaten way more food if we hadn't known how bad for us it was.

The one thing they don't tell you nutrition info for is this complementary bread and olive oil dip thing. This was probably the best thing we had at Pasta Pomodoro. The bread was warm focaccia, and the stuff in the bowl is some kind of lemon, olive oil, and pesto concoction; we have to admit that it was totally great. The lemon added a nice tangy flavor that may not have been authentic, but was definitely yummy.

Best part of all: zero calories (we assume).

Verdure with grilled chicken: 462 calories. This was not very flavorful, but we were impressed that the veggies tasted fresh and not overcooked. Pretty boring, but at least it was healthy and filling.

Pollo Griglia: 698 calories. What you see is what you get. It's grilled chicken and a side salad.

Fun fact: the side salad at PP is exactly the same as the side salad at Filippos.










Good to know: We went on a Wednesday, which is "Wine Wednesday" at Pasta Pomodoro. All bottles of wine are half-price. So you can get a bottle of wine that would cost eight dollars at the grocery store for only eighteen dollars! Bottoms up!

Needless to say, we went home and ate ice-cream without looking at the nutrition label.

We give Pasta Pomodoro 2 Sabuys. If they hadn't scared us off with their scary menu, we might have tried some of their pastas or pizzas, which are probably more fun than what we ordered. But at least it was better than the Burrito Shop.

Next stop: The Edible Complex Crêpevine

Enoteca Molinari

Ooops! We did it again! We are the worst bloggers ever. We went to Enoteca Molinari back in March, and our lazy asses just got around to writing a review. If anyone still reads this, we're sorry.

This was the second time we've had to double back because a new restaurant opened up on a section of College that we've already been through.

Enoteca Molinari specializes in wine and small plates:

We don't remember which wines we tried, but we liked them a lot. We won't say much more than that because we're both pretty ignorant about wine, but if you're into that sort of thing, you can see their wine list here.

 "Insalata di lattuga" is Italian for lettuce and croutons. It was pretty good in general, but the croutons were amazing. We think it was something about the olive oil they used.

 Bread and butter available upon request. Scoring major points with Briana who will basically boycott any restaurant that doesn't give you bread and butter.

Panissa fritta, chickpea fries with chimichurri sauce. The fries had an awesome texture, but not much flavor on their own. The sauce was killer; light, tangy, cilantrotastic. Together they work really well, although we would have liked to see a higher sauce to fry ratio.

Also, you can play Jenga with the fries to decide who gets more sauce. 

Bistecca con rucola e Parmigiano - Piemontese top sirloin beef with arugula and Parmigiano. The steak was simple and nicely cooked. There wasn't a bunch of sauce marring the flavor of the meat. The cheese and lemon brought out really nice flavors with the arugula when you got a little of each in one bite. It was a pretty filling small plate item.

 We can't remember what this was called, but it was mushrooms in sauce over polenta. The sauce was really rich (in a good way) and the mushrooms were fantastic. The polenta (like all polenta) was polenta. Despite how this picture looks, this dish was tiny.

Molinari was out of the one dessert that looked appealing to us, so here is a picture of the inside of the restaurant that we took as we were leaving to go get frozen yogurt. We sat right there at the bar, which was quite pleasant.







We give Enoteca Molinari 3.5 Sabuys.

Next stop: Pasta Pomodoro