Pasta Triptych

We enjoyed dinner with KCS on Saturday night at A La Lucia, a relatively new and pretty popular Italian restaurant in the North Old Town section of Alexandria. Since it’s opening about year and a half ago, the restaurant has enjoyed a lot of success, having added a dining room and expanded its bar area. But even with the added space, you’ll still need a reservation to guarantee a meal there, especially on a weekend night.

The ambience is modern with a very old world sensibility. A cramped entry leads to a large inviting bar area where many are none too shy to enjoy their full meals. We had our dinner in one of the new dining rooms. Warm mustard-colored walls featured lovely wall hangings, and vintage-inspired lamps emitting very low lighting hung from the walls.

Soon after we sat down, our waitress brought us complimentary bruschetta. Though it was delicious, it was clear it had been in a long queue of bruschetta, the tomatoes having rendered the toast a bit soggy, causing them to fall apart.

For appetizers, we went with the Meatballs with Polenta and the Roasted Red Peppers with Olives, Capers, and Anchovies. Six delicate veal meatballs were filled with herbs and spices and sat in a dish of soupy polenta with tomato sauce. The meat and starch combo was perfectly complementary and surprisingly light.

The red peppers, onions, olives, and capers were fashioned into a circular mold with two slivers of anchovy balancing on top. The mold was placed atop several pieces of crisp, cold romaine lettuce. The saltiness of the capers, olives, and anchovy married nicely with the roasted sweetness of the vegetables. And the lettuce turned out to be an appropriate vehicle for the vegetables.

It was decided from the beginning that we’d get three pasta dishes and split them three ways. Unfortunately there were more than three that piqued our interest. Still, we decided on the Malfaldine (thick ribbon-like pasta strands) with Veal Ragu, Rigatoni with Sausage, Onion, and Peppers, and Cannelloni stuffed with with Veal and Vegetable.

The cannelloni was tremendous. It was a special that night, so it's not always available. Two long cylinders of pasta were filled with tender ground veal (similar if not exactly identical to the veal mixture used for the meatballs) and topped with just enough mozzarella and a thick tomato sauce featuring big chunks of stewed whole tomatoes.

The rigatoni was an excellent version of a classic dish. Huge, perfectly al dente rigatoni were covered with generous crumbles of spicy ground sausage nestling in a thick sauce of tomatoes and peppers. This item is featured on the regular menu and was AC's favorite.

KCS’s malfaldine, another special that evening, was a new adventure for all of us, as we had no idea what to expect when we ordered it. The pasta was a perfect vehicle for pasta sauce, as the curly edges of each long strand trap in sauce well. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of sauce to this sauce. Delicious and tender sliced pieces of veal, carrots, and celery comprised a relatively dry mixture. But while we would have liked more liquid to this sauce, the generous portion of meat sauce was full of flavor, and the pasta offered an interesting element of texture.

Had we not packed up some of the pasta for later, we would never have had room for their gelato. We were at first dismayed that we could only try two flavors (gelato should always be served as a trio in restaurants), but after careful consideration, we settled on the Dulce De Leche with Pralines and the Limoncello Crème Sorbetto. The dulce de leche was a like a dream come true for me. I’ve always enjoyed pralines ‘n’ cream, even the cheapo varieties, and anything with dulce de leche is A-OK in my book. The gelato was so creamy and rich, and the pralines (not enough of them, in my opinion), were crunchy and sugary as could be. The crème sorbet was powerfully lemony, and not icy like a lot of sorbets. Next time, we’ll go for the grapefruit Campari sorbetto and the gianduia (chocolate and hazelnut).

For great pastas and gelato, go to A La Lucia:

315 Madison Street
Alexandria, VA
(703) 836-5123

—AK