Osteria Mozza

Osteria Mozza on Melrose Ave. in Los Angeles has always been a good place to go if you want great pasta and a good selection of Italian wines. You won't find any French wines here. Mario Batali, Nancy Silverton and Joe Bastianich according to the Zagat guide book, "lives up to the hype".

It has been a almost a year since I've been there. My friend Mary took me there for my birthday.... I know, you must think my birthday is endless, it keeps going on and on...I don't mind it at all.

We started with the butter lettuce with bacon, gongonzola with hazelnuts and egg. It was a good start. Then we had to have my favorite burrata with bacon and marinated escarole and carmelized shallots. The flavor of the salty bacon with the sour escarole and sweet shallots on a piece of toasted bread was wonderful.

We both decided to concentrate on pasta so we ordered the Garganelli with Ragu Bolognese that was delicious and the Tagliatelle Verde which is a lamb ragu with olive & taggiasche and mint. This I haven't had before. It was good but not outstanding. I should have ordered the Maltagliati with wild boar ragu. I have ordered this many times in the past and have loved it but I thought I should broaden my horizon.  Now I know, horizons are overated!

For dessert, we both decided to split an order of Cannoli di Gelati. It came in 3 flavors: caramel, pistachio and espresso.  We both inhaled the trio of cannoli.