For last night’s anniversary dinner, we decided to do cheap & delicious in Little Italy (my favorite place to dine outdoors during the summer months). My family and I have been frequenting Il Fornaio for years, mostly because it’s an inexpensive gem of a hole-in-the-wall that’s nothing like the overpriced tourist traps that make up the bulk of the restaurants on the Mulberry strip (although I’d skip the Caprese next time – they cut the mozzarella way too thick, and I wasn’t nuts about the dried herbs sprinkled over the top). I always get the same thing – baked ziti for about $10 – but will be changing my future order to the dish that Kendrick’s grinning about up there: rigatoni tossed with tomato cream sauce, bacon, and shallots.
Or…you know what? Scratch that, I need to make me some bacon-cream rigatoni ASAP. I bet I can come up with a pretty good approximation, but would welcome recipe suggestions!
(Apologies re: iPhone photos…I left my camera home in all the excitement.)
Oh, and we brought these back home with us for a little late-night snack:
Rrrrr.
