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Ate: January 4, 2006 Published: January 8, 2006 $$$ For the first review of the New Year, we headed to King's Highway and to a place that had been recommended to us by a couple of different people. In a nondescript small strip center, a few miles north of the hip nightclubs on King's Highway, we found Luigi's New York Italian Trattoria. This is our third review of an Italian restaurant, and I swear that we aren't picking them out on purpose. With the influence of lots and lots of relocated Yankees, Myrtle Beach has become home to plenty of Italian restaurants of every shape, form and fashion you can imagine. For a couple like us who loves to eat, this is a very good thing indeed. During the day Luigi's is an Italian delicatessen mainly offering several hot and cold sandwiches. But we weren't coming here for lunch. Every night, Luigi's transforms itself from deli to trattoria and the menu goes from sandwiches and salads to full meals. Just like most of our favorite places, Luigi's is a small and intimate affair with a small dining room and an open kitchen. Our evening, however, began on a rather ignominious note with the menus. Mine was a little sticky and it was a little difficult to peel open. That's never a good sign, but my wife was in an even worse predicament. Her menu was stuck together more firmly than mine. When she managed to get it open, the culprit proved to be a red blob of something that did not smell very pleasant. Because of the smell, the two of us ended up sharing my menu. Things did not get any better when the waiter brought us some bruschetta, with an emphasis on "some." We each got one small piece and again, my bride seemed to get the short end of the stick. Mine was unimpressive, but hers was downright soggy. She couldn't even pick it up with her hands without it falling apart. This was not exactly shaping up to be one of our better dinners. When we got our appetizer, things did improve somewhat. Our clams casino were hot and fresh from the oven. Served on the half shell, the clams were baked with a mixture of minced peppers, onions and garlic along with bread crumbs. They tasted pretty good and were full of flavor, although I had a hard time tasting the clam in a couple of the smaller shells. This was our first time trying clams casino, so we don't know whether or not they were supposed to be as mushy as they were. We suspect not. When they were served to our table, we expected something the consistency of deviled crab. Instead, the texture was closer to soggy stuffing. After a bad beginning and a mediocre appetizer, our main courses finally managed to bring our dining experience up a couple of notches. We hadn't ordered anything fancy and that's exactly what we got. The waiter brought out two big, heaping bowls of pasta - good Italian home cooking. My bride was surprised by the cream sauce in her spaghetti carbonara. According to her, she had been distracted by the word "bacon" in the dish's description and hadn't read anything else. The sauce was rich, thick, creamy and everything that a good white sauce should be. But this dish is a called spaghetti carbonara for a reason, and it was all about the bacon. Not only was there a generous amount of bacon crumbled and mixed in with the spaghetti, but the bacon drippings had been cooked into the sauce and you could really taste it. Emeril Lagasse is right, pork fat does rule and it made this dish something that both of us absolutely loved. Normally, I only try a bite or two of my wife's dish. Tonight, she had to knock my fork away when I started to get greedy. My own big, heaping bowl of pasta was the classic Italian potato dumpling gnocchi. These were big, fluffy pillows that really held onto the savory tomato sauce. I've made gnocchi in my own kitchen once. Once. It was in one of my misguided attempts to woo the woman who is now my wife, before we both agreed that the cooking should be left up to her. Making gnocchi is a simple process until you get to the last step, a messy, time-consuming procedure where you put grooves on each individual dumpling. Many places will skimp and skip that last step, even though the grooves are what help the gnocchi grab onto the sauce. But Luigi's did not skimp. My gnocchi had those grooves and the sauce clung thickly to them. I enjoyed my dinner as much as I enjoyed what I tried of my wife's. As with some of our other dining experiences, I guess the best word we would use to describe our evening at Luigi's is "inconsistent." The start was definitely shaky, and our main courses were the only things that we really felt were worthwhile. Other people have said that the quality of the food makes up for the lack of décor, but the two of us aren't so sure. Both of us were in the mood for pasta, which are also the least expensive entrees on the menu. Their other dinners are predominantly in the eighteen to nineteen dollar range, with specials running higher, so Luigi's can get pricey in a heartbeat. This restaurant had been recommended to us by friends, so we came in with high expectations. But with sticky menus and soggy appetizers weighing down our dining experience, we didn't really feel like our expectations were met. |
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