Italian Food!!

Frank hates it when I say this, but here it goes.  Italian food is all the same to me.   I can go out and spend a lot of  money or stay home and open a jar of Ragu.  Tastes the same.  It is all good, but one is not monumentally better than the other.  My opinion has changed though after my trip to Boston last week.  I traveled to the North End neighborhood after running 26.2 miles.  Not really expecting much, but feeling I deserved a plate of pasta.  My cabbie recommended this place called, "Antico Forno."  Like all of the North End, this place looked authentic.  Like there was a woman from the old world cooking in the back.

 

Since Boston is a coastal city, I decided to go start with them mussels.  Now, I have eaten a lot of food; eaten a lot of mussels.  These were the best mussels I have ever had.  They made me happy and excited for the rest of the meal.  I ordered "rigatoni salsiccia e ricotta."  It was homemade regatoni with sausage, sweet onions, in a plum tomato sauce.  The whole dish is topped with ricotta cheese.  It was out of sight.  I don't even like ricotta cheese.  Best pasta dish ever.  My meal made made the grueling, hot, 26.2 mile scorched earth death march worth it.  After dinner, we stopped be the world famous Mike's Pastry.  Some fellow runners got the cannolis.  Tried some.  Now those were just O.K.  Not  a big fan of cannolis, but a huge fan of Boston, its marathon and the North End.  So much so, I am trying to figure out how to re-qualify for next year.