Antico Strikes Again! Hard-to-Twirl Noodles at My Fave Spot

Antico Posto is my ab-fab favorite way to start the weekend! (Can you tell by my jubilant punctuation?)  Nothing like carbs served with carbs served with garlic and olive oil!  And here we go...

Pappardelle with Fennel Sausage, Goat Cheese, and Tomatoes

My mom and I had the lunch special, Pappardelle with Fennel Sausage.  Fresh pasta in a tomato sauce, tossed together with crumbles of house-made Italian fennel sausage and topped with piquant fresh goat cheese and a pretty chiffonade of basil.  Can I get a "Whoop, whoop?"  As rich as goat cheese is, it actually felt like the one ingredient that lightened up the dish.  All the rich, earthy flavors--the tomatoes and the sausage--needed something sharp and acidic to perk them up.  The dish was so well-balanced in its flavor profile.  I took half home, but it's already gone.  I had it for dinner.

I love pappardelle.  However, that being said, pappardelle is very, very, very difficult to eat gracefully.  For those of you who don't know what pappardelle is, think fettucine...on steroids.  It's about halfway between a fettucine noodle and an un-ruffly lasagna noodle.  This is the sort of pasta that stands up well to something super meaty and hearty.  Thus, it was the perfect pasta pairing with the crumbled sausage.

But the size (nay, the girth!) of the noodles requires you to A) be able to do origami to fit an entire noodle into your mouth or B) cut your noodles into bite-size pieces.  Good luck trying to twirl these babies!  It will not work, especially with the thickness of the noodles at Antico.  Any thicker and they could be considered boiled flatbread; any thinner and they'd break when tossed with the sauce.

But from what I think could be considered an engineering standpoint (bear with me...I know it's a stretch), Antico's pappardelle are the perfect size.  And although it absolutely kills me to cut my pasta, it's worth it.  Especially since it keeps me from getting tomato sauce behind my ears.  That would not be classy.

Unfortunately, we skipped dessert today.  But next time, I shall have my Panna Cotta with brandied cherries.  It is so good.  But you knew that already.

Peace and Love From a Noodle-Cutting Classy Lady,

~AF