In a town rich with Italian food, Parma Cucina stands out

Linguini frutti di mare, a on a regular basis offered shellfish pasta special at Parma Cucina Italiana

In the better San Diego location, you could visit three diverse Italian places to eat each individual week for a 12 months and however not attempt them all. Extra like five a week if you include things like pizza counters. And that would not consist of all the present-day restaurants and steakhouses that feature pasta menus. It is enough to make you wonder how we at any time have time for Taco Tuesday.

Anyway, that is my justification for becoming late to the social gathering with regard to Parma Cucina Italiana. The charming tiny Hillcrest cafe has been active profitable above loyal consumers for the much better element of a decade, and I’m selected all of them have been recommending it to good friends the total time. Surely, I would have have caught on sooner, had I not been distracted by the yearly onslaught of new Italian places to eat that seem to open every 12 months.

As with so lots of far more latest arrivals, indigenous Italians are guiding the menu and ambiance at Parma Cucina, setting a tone the two welcoming and authentic to northern Italy. I’m inclined to think a deficiency of hoopla or pretension has something to do with the cheerful and steadily increasing group that crammed its eating place (and parklet seating) on a latest Saturday night. But, for each common, credit need to be specified to the stellar simplicity of the foods.

Approximately ten several years in Hillcrest (which a lot more a short while ago features parklet seating).

We started with a salmon carpaccio starter that showcased so substantially fish for $17, I worried it would derail our appetites. As a substitute, my spouse and I equally went on to devour our pasta entrees, and adhere to them up with dessert: a single of the additional satisfying illustrations of tiramisu I’ve tried. Even the accompanying espresso shot tasted best.

Regardless of the kind of tried-and-real simplicity we encountered — the menu highlights dishes these as lasagna ($24), pesto with shrimp scampi ($23), and gnocchi with 4 cheese sauce ($23) — my most important training course variety did give me a possibility to try one thing for the 1st time. That would be the stuffed pasta form, fagottini, designed to resemble the form of sweet wrapper with a solitary twist at the top rated (commonly found with really hard candies). Below, the selfmade pasta is crammed with a blend of ricotta cheese and truffle, covered in a cream sauce showcasing extra truffle, as properly as porcini mushrooms ($25). If you find any dish with a deeper umami profile, make sure you tell me about it.

A generous part of salmon for a carpaccio appetizer

As a partner, I was particularly appreciative for a dish I didn’t try. My wife’s preferred Italian buy is linguini frutti di mare, in other phrases shellfish pasta. I have used the much better aspect of a calendar year taking her close to to Italian dining establishments, in search of a good 1, but it is mostly led to disappointment — especially considering I get paid to suggest dining places.

A little, properly attended Italian restaurant — one of hundreds in better San Diego

Ultimately, listed here was Parma Cucina, with a on a regular basis presented exclusive, which lays shrimp, mussels, and clams with white wine and tomato sauce, above your option of linguini or risotto. Not only is it one of the restaurant’s extra visually stimulating dishes, it attained me reward points for scheduling a intimate evening out.

Stuffed pasta in the form of sweet in a one-twist wrapper, filled with truffle and ricotta cheese, n a creamy mushroom sauce

That said, when I do it once again, it will be on Tuesday. That’s owing to an ongoing special that prices a 3-class food for two at $56. Now that I’m ultimately acquainted with the nice night time out provided by Parma Cucina Italiana, I may well have to leave Taco Tuesdays to the solitary folks.