Casa Barilla

Casa Barilla just opened at South Coast Plaza. We were able to have a late lunch there yesterday. The restaurant is inviting, with displays of various dry pasta stored in bins. They have cute little recipe books shaped like pasta, salad, and chocolate. We were hungry and excited.

You have to line up and place your order and someone delivers your pasta as soon as it is cooked. Our party ordered the special, Carbonara, which we were to share. Everyone else ordered their own pasta. One had the Tagliatelle Bolognese, traditional slow-cooked meat sauce, someone ordered Linguine Vesuvio, sauteed calamari, and shrimp with capers, tomatoes, olives and spicy tomato sauce. I wanted to try the Spaghetti al Pomodoro, traditional crushed tomato sauce and fresh basil. Someone else had the Orecchiette Pugliesi, Italian sausage, broccoli rabe, cherry tomatoes, chili, roasted garlic and Pecorino cheese.

The best ones were the Carbonara and the Pomodoro. It is hard to get a very good Pomodoro; it's the simplest of all yet most places manage to screw it up. The tomatoes were fresh and had a wonderful flavor and so did the fresh basil. The pasta was aldente. The carbonara was perfect, not too creamy and just delicious. The Bolognese and the Vesuvio were also good but I'm afraid to say that the Orecchiette Pugliesi was not at all good. It was tasteless. None of us liked it and if I may be so bold to say, I think this should be taken off their menu.

I have always loved Barilla pasta. It's the only pasta I use when I cook any noodles. It's just too bad that Casa Barilla is not near my casa because there would be no need to buy any pasta with Casa Barilla around to cook my pasta for me.

There are a few Casa Barilla Restaurants around. You can check their website to see if there is one near you.