Found a Great Restaurant

So, last night, I walk up to Pam and say...I feel like Italian. I can’t explain why really. I just had a hankering. If you live in Short Pump, the World headquarters for chain restaurants, there are lots of options...Carrabba’s, Olive Garden, all the usual suspects. However, I don’t know about you, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to resent National chains. Not resent, really...that’s too strong a term for it. It’s more like that when I see a chain restaurant I know that ultimately the profits from that chain go someplace else. Yes, I know they supply jobs to local people, etc.. but chains are a local manifestation of some far flung enterprise that benefits it’s corporate owners who wouldn’t know a Short Pump from a long one. Maybe when I see what a hash our government in Washington is making of the country, something in me feels the need to withdraw from that faraway place, to more closely identify with our state...our town...our Italian restaurant. So, what did I do? I did what every red blooded American does...I googled....Italian joints near me.

This is Vinny’s, less than a mile from my front door off of Lauderdale. If this place looks familiar it’s because it probably reminds you of another famous Italian restaurant in the Bronx where Michael Corleone killed the two dirty cops...

But, I digress.

So, we walk into the place and are greeted by a grandmotherly woman with a thick Italian accent. Nice. Pam notices that there is a special on the chalkboard beside the front door...something-something with pancetta and Asiago cream sauce. There’s a nice crowd, mostly families, not so loud that you have to shout, but not so quiet that you have to whisper. Our waitress greets us with a cheerful smile. She is young, pretty, with an even thicker Italian accent. Even nicer. I ask her for her professional opinion...What’s the most delicious entree on this menu? She doesn’t hesitate. The name of the dish rolls off her tongue with beautiful flair. She points to it and I see the word sausage in the description and I’m all in. 

Our waitress, who we have discovered has just moved from Sicily eight months ago with her husband, and who’s mother was the one who greeted us when we arrived and is just here for a visit but didn’t want to spend a minute apart from her daughter so volunteered to be the hostess, brings me a frozen glass mug for my beer, then seems thrilled when Pam orders the special and I take her advice on the sausage thing. Soon, a basket of garlic bread appears, and fresh, cold salads.

Ok, my dish was amazing. The delicious sounding name for it is Tortellini Campagnola. It looked like this...only with a lot more sausage!!

Pam’s dish was the special, and as such there was no picture on the menu. However, I am here to bare witness to the fact that it was the finest thing I have placed in my mouth inside of any restaurant in years. The tortellini was homemade, the pancetta was exquisite and the Asiago cream sauce tasted like some sort of diabolical plot cooked up by a cabal of Mafiosos determined to turn me into a 300 pound couch potato. The minute that sauce splashes over the tastebuds, you realize that you are powerless to resist it. Maybe if the choice was...eat more of this or save your children...you might be able to put down the fork, but beyond that, it would be hopeless. It was just that good. Pam couldn’t finish it, so there’s a styrofoam container in our refrigerator with the remains. I am currently plotting a way to trick Pam into letting me eat it for breakfast.

So, we are thrilled to have found Vinny’s Italian Grill. It’s local, run by real Italians, and is five minutes from my house.

Go ye, and do likewise.