Writing about our very tasty world of takeout foods, the question always hangs heavy: Does the stuff really travel? Will it be edible, yummy and reasonably intact in the recyclable container? Or will I be presented with a cold bucket of mush?
It’s pretty much why I’ve stayed away from the options offered by the area’s numerous high-end restaurants, which have created multifaceted offerings served in myriad small receptacles. Do I really want to open a dozen vessels of caviar and truffles and thinly sliced beef, and assemble them on a plastic plate on my kitchen counter next to my NutriBullet? I’d rather chow down on something that travels well — and will taste pretty good the next day, perhaps for breakfast. Which brings us to a much-loved food from my childhood, then and now. I speak, rapturously, ecstatically…of noodles.
Yes, I know. Few call them noodles anymore. “Pasta” is the acceptable phrase among the S.Pellegrino crowd. “Spaghetti” is still considered an alright term on the pizzeria and beer strata of society. But noodles? It’s been a long time since the sound of my mother’s voice announcing that she was making noodles tossed with sour cream, butter and cottage cheese for dinner made my mouth water. Or maybe — yes! — ‘sketti with catsup and butter, another standard in my house, which actually tasted pretty good.
Nowadays, my digestive system is turned on by dreams of gnocchi, risotto and every manner of exotic pasta, in shapes that defy the imagination. But when I think of noodles, a certain warm fuzziness creeps over me. I become happy, content, ever-so-briefly well-adjusted. I think of good, filling, honest dishes, served in simple shapes and sizes. I think of a return to the earthbound peasant values of yesteryear, when a good eater would tuck a napkin as big as a tablecloth into his or her neck, and settle down to eating a plate of food the size of the area between his or her neck and knees.
I think of noodles and I become a happy guy. And I’m happiest because the noodle aesthetic is upon us once again. The way that meatloaf and mashed potatoes came back, we have entered the Age of Noodles Redux. And they’re good for you too — no kidding, they really are. Those lean and mean body specimens who run in marathons gorge on noodles the night before their exertions. Noodles are complex carbohydrates. They’ve got chocolate bars beat, hands down.
Technically, the word “noodle” comes from the Latin nodellus, meaning “little knot.” Maybe that’s because of the way that noodles like spaghetti, tagliatelle, linguine, fettuccine and so forth get all twisted up in the bowl. Be that as it may, the word “noodle” has come to mean many things to many people, most of them pretty cheerful. If you’re having a good time at the piano, you’re “noodling” around. If a person is smart, they’ve got a good “noodle” (though, oddly, if they’re dumb, they’re a “noodlehead”). If you’re tall and thin, you look like a noodle, which in Yiddish means you’re a langer luksh — a “long noodle.”
The return of the noodle is taken by many seers as a clear indication that, thanks to COVID-19, we’re in a thrifty Making Ends Meet Decade.
Where do you get some great noodle dishes to-go — along with the aforementioned gnocchi, risotto and shapes various and sundry? Wonderful restaurant options follow.
This is food my mother would have approved of, despite her ability to disapprove of everything in sight. At least, I’d like to believe she would. And don’t wear a tie — you’ll get sauce all over it.
Alex Di Peppe’s Italian
608 E. Live Oak Drive, Arcadia; 626-445-0544, www.alexdipeppes.com
Alex Di Peppe’s Italian is a tribute to the American Dream, to what our immigrant population has given to us (and aren’t we all immigrants and the children of immigrants?), and to the pleasures of Southern Italian red sauce cooking. It’s also a tribute to the importance of family.
The restaurant was founded in 1969, opening first in South San Gabriel, and then in Arcadia, where it sits to this day — a restaurant that exudes warmth, with murals on the walls of scenes from around Italy, and a menu of dishes we know well, but may have forgotten, in a world of carpaccio, crudo and esoteric pasta shapes, and arcane sauces.
Di Peppe’s is where you go when the need calls for old school everything. The antipasto (called a “Special Antipasto” on the menu) comes in three sizes, in each case, a pile of salami and mozzarella, tomatoes and olive, onions and pepperoncini, all nestled over non-trendy greens, with an equally non-trendy Italian dressing.
About the only out-of-line topping on the properly thin crust, crunchy pizzas are the ham and pineapple on the Hawaiian pizza. I don’t understand pineapple on pizza, never have, never will. But as my daddy used to say, “That’s what makes horse races interesting.” Me, I was happy as an order of pasta with clams to, well, get an order of pasta with clams, made with a choice of red sauce, or olive oil and garlic.
The choice of pastas is simple, and simply fine — spaghetti, fettuccine, angel hair, penne, ravioli or gnocchi — that last being just a tad edgy, since gnocchi was not something many of us grew up with at the spaghetti houses of blessed memory. It was out there.
But in my family, if it didn’t come from Buitoni, it didn’t exist. (Or to be more precise…if it wasn’t spaghetti, it didn’t exist. We knew just one pasta shape — spaghetti. But over the years, we’ve come to appreciate so many more. I especially like penne — it has more tooth, more bite. But really, topped with a hearty, country cuisine friendly heap of chicken cacciatore, and what pasta wouldn’t taste good?
Aside from an order of pasta, topped with any of nine sauces, the menu goes through the requisite choices of chicken (including a Tabasco chicken, which is an outlier among the many dishes, for Tabasco is from Louisiana, and not The Boot), veal (the veal with peppers is another dish awash with memories, though the marsala and piccata bring back plenty as well), seafood, and a menu section headed “Parmigiana,” which is where the chicken, the eggplant and the veal cutlet parmigiana dwell. (They’re also available as a combination of the three dishes, a terrific notion for those just don’t know…)
Alex Di Peppe’s is so old time, neighborhood friendly, it offers spaghetti nights on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. It’s a time to return to your roots, and in my case remember what spaghetti night was like back in my home. Where there was no garlic bread…and ketchup on everything.
Contessa Italian Foods
The Shops on Lake Avenue, 380 S. Lake Ave., Pasadena; 626-744-0252, www.contessafoods.squarespace.com
Contessa Italian Foods isn’t just a destination in which to buy pasta — it’s where you go for an education in the many (many!) subtleties of wheat and water. We learn, “Tuscan artisanal pasta…its flavor recalls local soil, the humidity of a certain year and as in a good wine slight differences in taste and texture will occur year after year.
“Early versions of what we call pasta can be found in Greek literature, as well as across the ancient world. The first commercial pasta production was probably in Milan by the early 15th century, with export of Italian pasta already recorded in the beginning of the 1700s. By then, pasta was certainly associated with Italy, and its tradition of many sizes and shapes, which better ‘hold’ a specific sauce, was well established!”
Further, we’re told that, “The Artisan Pasta Factory of the Fabbri family in Tuscany, has been celebrating the most traditional methods of pasta making for the last five generations. From how the wheat is farmed, to how heirloom grains such as Senatore Cappelli are been sourced and locally cultivated. In this artisanal production important steps long lost in the mass and commercial production, are kept very much alive. This pasta will taste and feel different from what you are used to…”
Tastes that you’ll find in the Casarecce (Tuscan durum wheat blend)…the Spaghettoni Toscani (Senatore Cappelli Super Tuscan Durum Wheat)…the Cornetti …the Linguine…the Nastroni Toscani…the Penne …the Stracci…and the Millerighe. You will learn far more about pastas here than you had any idea there was to know.
At Contessa, pasta isn’t just something you put sauce on. It’s a way of life. A life in strands, ribbons and unexpected shapes.
Di Pilla’s Italian
9013 Valley Blvd., Rosemead; 626-286-0275, www.dipillas.com
Di Pilla’s Italian has been around since 1967. But it looks, and feels, as if it has been at the corner of Valley and Rosemead boulevards since the early 1900s. There’s a rollicking, Neapolitan style to the place that seems to turn every meal into a party — or a scene from “The Godfather.” And many if not most, are drawn in by the pastas. There are dozens of pastas on the menu, and even more because one of the options is to choose a pasta, then choose a sauce.
A section of the pastas is designated “meatless,” though there are plenty of other meatless pastas on the menu; this is a great place for vegetarians. And for one of my favorite combinations — a matrix of lasagna, ravioli and mostaccioli. Add on side orders of sausage and meatballs, and you have a perfect red sauce plate.
With spumoni for dessert. At Di Pilla’s, life is easy — and reasonably priced too.
Gale’s
452 S. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena; 626-432-6705, www.galesrestaurant.com
With its well worn bare brick walls, its distressed flooring, and its unusual artistic flourishes (is that head in the corner from Michelangelo’s David, or Canova’s Perseus?), Gale’s could be a terrific dining discovery on a backstreet in Firenze, rather than a parking lot off Fair Oaks. Which is a roundabout way of saying that we’re lucky to have it.
There are a lot of options for Italian food along Colorado, but only Gale’s takes us to a hidden world. Like many of my favorite restaurants, it’s hidden in plain sight. I like that about an eatery. It’s hard to go wrong with anything on the menu at Gale’s. And definitely not with the pastas.
The kitchen has a particularly good feel for the classics — among the 13 pastas, you’ll find corkscrewy rotini pasta in a meaty Bolognese sauce, linguine with clams, or a nice baked lasagna with that same chunky, meaty, cheese heavy Bolognese sauce. So simple, so basic, so good. A mantra that fits Gale’s so…well.
1028 Huntington Drive, Duarte; 626-357-3938, www.grano081.com
Grano Italian is an affable neighborhood destination, adjacent to the biggest CVS I’ve ever seen — it had a clothing department, and a section of electronics, both extensive!
The pastas at Grano are generous and tasty, and emerge reasonably fast. There’s fettuccine alla scoglio, pasta strands tossed with clams, mussels, shrimp, calamari and garlic in a red sauce, heavy with capers — a good thing, for I do love capers, which can overwhelm a lesser sauce, but this is a red sauce with body, taste and muscles. And there were so many more to opt for.
I was heavily tempted by the gnocchetti gorgonzola, for I’ve got a medium passion for gnocchi, but a massive passion for gorgonzola, one of the great “strong” cheeses of the world, a cheese that stays with your long after your last bite.
Had I opted for an entrée, the zuppa di pesce would have been the one. But enough seafood is enough seafood. It didn’t satisfy the sweet tooth that always arises when I eat a spicy fish dish. And it was a treat to see an old school friend like spumoni on the menu.
In The Bronx, we’d eat our spumoni with slices of pizza, making a perfect lunch. We had no gelato back then. We had spumoni, the perfect dessert for those of us who can’t decide. If they hadn’t had spumoni, I’d have driven to Fosselman’s over in Alhambra for ice cream, because any excuse would do. But spumoni brought me back to my salad days, long before we’d ever heard of arugula or gnocchi. Spumoni connects worlds. And Grano connects Italy with the USA.
Lascari’s
14104 E. Lambert Road, Whittier, 562-698-5899; 16255 Whittier Blvd., Whittier, 562-943-1113; www.lascarisdeli.com
At Lascari’s, it’s easy to celebrate the great joy, the unmitigated pleasure…of red sauce. And of pasta too, while we’re at it. It’s a great place to go when your craving for pasta totally overwhelms you — spaghetti with marinara sauce, with meatballs and sausage as well, flavored with garlic and oregano in outlandish amounts. That’s Lascari’s.
To the spaghetti, you can add two meatballs, two Italian sausages, mushrooms — or go “mezzo-mezzo” (one meatball and one sausage). If you’re further unsure, you can get a plate that’s half spaghetti and half ravioli, with as choice of meat sauce, meatballs or marinara. You can also get your spaghetti with olive oil and garlic.
You can get it your way. Which may, if old school is your object for the evening, also include a pantheon of classics — baked ziti, lasagna, manicotti, linguine with clams (your choice, red sauce or white), along with a bestiary of dishes we just don’t find on modern menus. I’m talking about such joys of the Italian-American kitchen as baked eggplant parmigiana, veal parmigiana, veal piccata, chicken Romano, chicken marsala and fettuccine Alfredo.
There are numerous incarnations of Lascari’s, which the Lascari family has been husbanding since 1970. Lascari’s is an homage to the great joys of old school Italian cooking
Porta Via Italian Foods
1 W. California Blvd., Pasadena; 626-793-9000, www.portaviafoods.com
People speak rapturously of Bay Cities Italian Deli in Santa Monica, which is good — but it’s not the Italian markets of my youth. Domingo’s in Tarzana comes a bit closer — it’s got the sort of ripe cheese funk needed to give a market the proper aromatic grace notes.
It wasn’t until I wandered into Porta Via Italian Foods that I felt I had found a true outpost of Little Italy. The place looks good, it smells good — and it sure as heck tastes good. There’s also a pretty fine Insalata Bar that begins with a selection of four greens (mixed, romaine, spinach and arugula), which you can trick up with a variety of mix-ins — capers, bacon, caramelized onions, feta, artichoke hearts, olives and more. And for a few bucks extra, you can add tuna, chicken, cured meats or shrimp.
It’s a fine warm-up for more substantial dishes like the Italian sausage with broccoli rabe, the well roasted leg of lamb with lemon salad, and the orecchiette with broccoletti — one of the 16 prepared pastas available to eat in, or take out, as you wish.
There are another 11 frozen pastas, including full and half pans of lasagna Bolognese, sausage lasagna, vegetable lasagna and baked ziti. Lotsa food — just like in the old country, in the old world.
2315 S. Garfield Ave., Monterey Park; 323-722-7600, www.ravelloosteria.com
You could pick up Ravello Osteria — a garlic-heavy Italian wonder on the southern edge of Monterey Park — and drop it in the Little Italys of New York and San Francisco, and it would fit in just fine. It’s an old school Italian eatery, with many long tables, serving oversized pizzas and platter of pasta. All that’s missing is an old guy from Naples, playing music on a concertina, and the place could be just down the road from Pompeii.
Ravello combines the best of two worlds — it’s both very good…and it’s fun, because the waiters and the cooks, all know what they’re serving is some of the best down-home Italian cooking for miles around, in large portions, at reasonable prices. And in that spirit, it’s hard to resist.
Among the seven well-turned, classic pastas, it’s tempting to get the spaghetti carbonara, the linguini with lobster, or the penne with sausage and rapini. But it’s also hard to resist the chicken breast with wild mushrooms, the double rib cut pork chops and the rib eye steak, with roasted garlic mashed potatoes.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com
