Little Italian Restaurants.

I have two local places that I really like for Italian food. The funny thing is, they are both mom'n'pop - with one spouse being Latino (Mexican and Peruvian) and the other spouse being the Italian one.

Anyway, one is around the corner from my parents' house - Franco's. Their marinara is UNBELIEVABLE. So good, and chunky, and just awesome. It goes so great with the fried calamari. They also have a totally WONDERFUL "minestrone" that is more like a vegetable soup. My favorite, though? Is the stinkin' Chicken Marsala. So. Intensely. Good. Also, $17 a pop for 2 pieces of chicken breast, sauce, and a small side of spaghetti. So I don't go that often. I prefer to take advantage of the lunch specials but they are only on WEEKDAYS!! All day Saturday is dinner prices. Oy. Anyway, it's good every once in a while when I feel like "splurging".

So, my nice cute new-parent neighbors downstairs told me about this other Italian place a few streets over from where we live - Cafe Corleone! (Yeah, like the gangster. They have the pictures from the movie up and everything.) The husband - the chef - is from Sicily. So my neighbors recommended the place, said the pizza was amazing. We had it together for the first time about 3 weeks ago (the week before the new baby came!) and the pizza was OKAY - perhaps slightly undercooked? Or maybe it just got too cold in the car - because the cheese was a bit hard. But I do love me a stinkin' margherita pizza. Yay! Basil!

However, I tried the spaghetti with meat sauce ("bolognese") and LOVE IT. YES, BETTER THAN CHEF BOYARDEE - yet slightly reminiscent. It is a really, really, really good sauce, and the pasta is cooked SO well. Dang. And it's $7.50. I can handle that.

So Friday after school, I decided I wanted to have that for dinner. I ordered the calamari appetizer (totally thought it was fried, and it turned out not to be!) as well as the chicken marsala- just to compare.

The calamari is fanTAStic. It is cooked in a "spicy" marinara sauce, with chunks of onion, and it is SO good!!! I dipped heaps of the garlic bread in it and that was a great entree in itself - $8.50 for the dinner portion.

Scarfed down the spaghetti (whoo, gorging mode) and loved it as well. What is great is that both sauces were totally tomato based, and you could TELL that it was a distinctly different sauce. I love that. Hate when one place calls it "alfredo" AND uses the same sauce for chicken mushroom. Hmm.

Then later, wanted to try the chicken marsala. THE SAUCE TASTES THE SAME!!! I must freaking love chicken marsala. What is in that amazing sauce?? Maybe I like sweet sauces, too. Anyhoo, it was good, but maybe I don't wanna order it again. There were a couple little chunks of fat in the breaded chicken, and they also serve it with chunks of rosemary baked potatoes, that's not my fave.

I will definitely be having the calamari and bolognese again though. Man.

While I was waiting for the food, I started a conversation with the nice signora (she's the one from Peru, actually) about the giant Italian flag she had up on the wall with "Campione del Mondo". I just asked where she got it, and she said during an Italian festival in LA. So I told her I was in Berlin for the finals and she got real interested and we chatted for a good 15-20 minutes while the food was being made in the kitchen.

She told me the regrettable story of a friend who was in Berlin for the finals and promised to get her an Italian jersey ... and ended up bringing back a Brazilian one instead. Oops.

She also talked about going up to Macchu Pichu, and then mentioned a "secret" "locals" haunt in Venice where the only way you can get to it or know about it is for a local to tell you about it. She says she told some friends about it and asked if they had gone there on their trip, and they said they went, but never got in, because the line was so long!!!!! Dang, Venice can have some great food, and there is also some gross tourist junk. But when you crave fried calamari at 9pm, what can you do???

I must HIGHLY recommend the Trattoria da Bepi (near Piazza Apostoli, off the top of my head, if I recall correctly -- whoops, I just looked it up and it's actually Campo SS Apostoli) in Venice because the owner is just SO NICE. Such a nice sweet man, and I ate there 3 times while I was there. Will definitely go back there again. That's where I had the BLACK SPAGHETTI (omg, so scary-looking - made from cuttlefish ink). But it actually tastes not-dissimilar to another very black dry noodle dish in Chinese cuisine! I found that funny. The arugula salad was disappointing, though. Old, tart, tough arugula leaves in a bowl with vinegar and olive oil, salt and pepper brought out. That was it!! For 5 Euros.

Anyhoo, I told the Cafe Corleone lady I would love to get directions to the Venetian place some time so I will go back for that. Maybe bring my map!!

And lastly, I nearly forgot about a super cute little mom'n'pop place near my last school. A lovely fellow teacher treated our entire first grade level to lunch on our first day back at work and I started going there regularly! The wife is Italian, I think, and the husband is Greek - they go on vacation every summer, and they always remember my name! And they know I love their Italian Wedding soup, the soup of the day every Wednesday. They are so sweet. Prices went up a year or so ago, but they used to have daily sandwich specials - 6" for $2.99 (BLT, meatball, Italian sub, etc.) which they no longer have. And a linguine with clams (I liked the white sauce) used to be $4.95. You just can't beat it! Great great large, unlimited topping pizza for $9.99, and it is just as good the next day. It's the best next-day pizza ever.

The Deli News, in Los Altos!!!!

But nothing is likely to top the margherita I had for 4.50 Euros in Naples at da Michele.

I LOVE those last two shots. And of COURSE I am going back.