Osteria - Palo Alto

3/5 stars

IT WAS ON "THE" LIST: My list, to be exact. I've been wanting to go here for ages because A) my favorite genre of food is Italian, B) I've only heard good things from friends and from Yelpers, and C) they make they're own pasta!

ATMOSPHERE: It's tiny! Service is cold, cold, cold! They weren't rude, per se, but brisk. Efficient. Like robots. We had dinner reservations at 8:45PM on a MONDAY! What I'm trying to say is, "Make reservations if you want to dine at Osteria." Because even on a late Monday night, they were packed. Good luck with making the reservations over the phone. The robots are cold over the phone, too.

FOOD: So that's what fresh pasta tastes like! But first off, I have to rave about my absolutely perfect caesar salad. It was $6.50, HUGE (enough for a meal all on its own), and was probably what a caesar salad was meant to be. I squirted lemon all over mine to mute the anchovy taste in the dressing and was in caesar salad bliss. Loved how my crisp romaine was cut (I don't get places that serve you the caesar salad in whole leaf form and expect you to use your knife when eating your salad) and wasn't drowning in dressing.

OK, on to the pasta. I didn't like mine, but I loved my bf's. I ordered the large fettucine made out of spinach with prosciutto and mushroom. Yay! Pasta comes out, literally, steaming hot. Nay! It's hard to eat really, really, really hot pasta. It burns the tongue it does! My large spinach fettucine noodles were way overcooked and mushy - I don't know, is it because the noodles were fresh? Is that how it's supposed to be? My bf's penne with sundried tomatoes, asparagus, and chicken was delicious. The penne was al dente (which makes me wonder if large, fresh, noodles are harder to cook) and the vodka-style sauce was my favorite. His sister had the eggplant and it was prepared well too. We shared the hazelnut creme brulee and it was a perfect finish.

IN A MOUTHFUL: Will definitely come back to try again. I especially like how it's not a chain. It's hard to find amazing Italian food in the South Bay, but I keep looking!

(2007)