Buca di Beppo [to go]:

David was feeling a little under the weather one morning and had a craving for spaghetti. I felt alright, but was not up for being social and interacting with a server at a restaurant.

I also did not want to change out of my pajamas.

So, delivery then. Larosa’s, located about 2.5 miles up the street by Rookwood commons, has spaghetti. Balboa’s just opened up in O’Bryonville, but we could not find a menu of theirs anywhere online, so their spaghetti status remains a mystery.

I called Larosa’s for delivery. We’ve had hit or miss deliveries with them—sometimes they deliver to our apartment, sometimes not.

This time, not. After much tense negotiation with David, I volunteered to go out and pick up the desired spaghetti. Marriage is full of little compromises.

I searched around and decided that if David wanted spaghetti and meat balls, he was going to get a top notch spaghetti and at least one ½ pound meatball. I ordered online from Buca di Beppo’s website.

I ordered:
1 kids pepperoni pizza ($4.99)
1 kids chicken parmesan (which comes with a “mini” side of spaghetti) ($4.99)
The small order of spaghetti and meatballs ($16.99)
1 extra meatball ($4.99)
A small Caesar salad ($9.99)

I headed over to Rookwood after placing our order and strode across the parking lot in my flip-flops and pajamas for my bag of takeout. It was ready right when they said it would be, and packaged in a large back full of aluminum tins. It was also extremely heavy, so I am sure that I made an amusing sight as I lugged it back to the car.

If you’ve never eaten at Buca di Beppo before, you need to know their portions are gigantic. They do the family style Italian dining, which means if you order the tiramisu, it will come out in a large bowl. A small order of a dish should serve two to three people, and a large serves four to six. I figured ordering off the kids menu and getting the small size should reduce the potential gluttony that is a Buca di Beppo meal, right?

Nope.

Our meal came with some very good white bread. David dug into the salad first, under kitty’s supervision. A small Caesar at Buca is a large Caesar everywhere else.

He had already eaten half of it at this point

I impatiently ate some of my pizza, which was a good size. Nice thin crust, good pepperoni. Solid pizza. Not spectacular, not bad.

The kid’s chicken Parmesan seems to be intended for, shall we say, a huskier child. At $4.99 with a side of spaghetti, I thought this was a really good deal.

David ended up eating my supposedly kid-sized “mini-side” of spaghetti and the extra meatball, and still couldn’t finish if off. We were curious to see what the small spaghetti looked like. It was in the bottom of the bag in a large metal tray. Upon opening the container, I discovered why the bag was so heavy. The marinara sauce from Buca is very nice, it’s lighter and a little sweet. I liked my chicken Parmesan, the chicken was juicy and the breading was crisp. Sometimes Buca can be a little to enthusiastic with the garlic, but with Italian cuisine, it’s a risk that you take.

vat O' spaghetti

For the next two days, the answer to “what’s for dinner?” was “Spaghetti.”