Weekend in Providence

My love and I headed to Providence for a little weekend getaway.  You probably already knew that Providence is in Rhode Island, but you may not know that it has some pretty fantastic food.

Two technological tools made our eating life in Providence awesome:  Facebook, and Yelp.  We'll start with Facebook.

I posted on my status that we were headed to this city we know nothing about, and could use some ideas about where to eat, drink, and/or hang out.  An old camp friend recommended Al Forno in a way that made it sound like we would be stupid not to go there.  I checked out their website and found that, among other claims to fame, this restaurant was called the "number one casual dining restaurant in the world" by a writer for the International Herald Tribune.

Excuse me?  The WORLD? 

Clearly, we were going.

We arrived to find that there was a two-hour wait (no reservations for parties of under 6) and that the two bars were (barely) standing room only.  So, we waited.  In the meantime, my honey called another restaurant (whose name I will not mention here) and made us a reservation there, in case we (read: HE) couldn't take the wait.  Luckily, we made some friends at the bar, and our wait ended up only being an hour-ish.  And then, a series of really wonderful things started to happen.

1. I got to TALK to the waitress about the food.  She was a Brown student who spent a semester in Florence, so she KNOWS things.  It was, like, heaven. 

2. We shared this delicious appetizer--margherita pizza with pepperoni, sliced lengthwise.  Crushed tomatoes, scallions, and grilling made for some major deliciousness.

3. My partner in crime and eating got their steak special.  Since steak is his favorite food, I always ask him to rank steaks on a scale of 1-10.  This was an 8.5, just half a point shy of Peter Luger's rating.  Pretty high praise.

4. After a lengthy Q&A with our waitress, I went with the rigatoni bolognese.  I have eaten this in Bologna, and in many great Italian restaurants in the US, and this was right-on.

5.  Dessert came.  An exceptional bread pudding with some kind of chocolate melted into its layers, and a sweet cream on the side.  WOW.  I went to get my new friend (the one we met at the bar) and had her come try it.  We bonded over this marvelous dish, and decided then and there to head out for drinks to celebrate her birthday.

The short story on Al Forno?  Go.  It's worth the price and the wait.  And if you thought you had no reason to visit Providence . . . well, now you do.

And to Katie, the Facebook friend who said we must go: thanks again.

Eat up, and love it, my friends.

Francie