Ottimo ristorante a College Station (Excellent Restaurant in College Station)
Saturday night my mom came up and watched our 15 month old while the wife and I went out on a date. She is now 23 weeks pregnant and so of course she gets to choose the dining arrangements! She was ruling out almost everything except authenticate Italian food, but she didn’t want to go to a chain restaurant such as Johnny Carino’s or Olive Garden.
Then she remembered this little place by the College Station Medical Center she had seen while going to her doctors. The restaurant is Luigi’s Patio Ristorante, and it is located in a little shopping center at the intersection of highway 6 north and Rock Prairie road. They have directions on their website here. I had never seen it before and I’m always willing to try out new restaurants and food, so we headed that way.
The outside of Luigi’s is nothing special… it’s true beauty is inside. They have done an exquisite job of decorating the interior so that you forget you are in College Station, TX. When you walk in you are instantly transported to a patio in Italy! We noticed a little band stage when we arrived at 6:00 PM, but they did not play until 9:00. I was kind of bummed because I really enjoy live jazz music.
We started the meal off with an order of calamari that was absolutely fabulous. Sometimes calamari can be over cooked which makes it too hard, or the batter used is too thick. However, the calamari was perfectly cooked and breaded and the marinara sauce and tartar sauce that came with it was fresh and delicious. We usually stick with one appetizer, but we decided to order some soup. We figured if the calamari was that good the soup had to be good too.
We decided to split a bowl of the minestrone and it came out pretty quickly. Hands down it is the best minestrone I’ve ever had in my life. It was chocked full of vegetables and just the right amount of pepper and seasoning. Whoever prepared the soup knew exactly what they were doing in making perfect soup! Typically this is where the meal comes in, but again because the soup was so good we decided to go for the other soup on the menu – a tomato basil.
This is but one of the parts of the story where the plot crescendos for Luigi’s hospitality. My wife doesn’t really like tomato basil but she was really craving a cream based tomato soup. Unfortunately, the waiter informed us, the tomato soup of the night was not cream based. He saw the disappointment on my wife’s face and whisked away to the kitchen. Within 10 minutes the chef had prepared – from scratch – a cream based tomato basil soup just for her! I’m lactose intolerant so I typically try and stay away from heavy cream. But this soup was, again, perfect! I would go there again just to have a taste of that soup and I would bring my lactaid! I cannot describe in words the wonderfulness of the soup they make, but suffice to say you will have to go there to experience it for yourself.
Did I mention the bread? My wife and I love bread with our meal so we requested some with our soups. The waiter brought what I think was some type of sour dough or ciabatta bread with extra virgin olive oil on it. It was still warm and we are pretty sure they prepare it fresh each time they bring it out. We asked for more after the first plate was gone and the second batch came out just a little different. It gave the bread a personality you usually only find in homemade bread.
After a bit of good conversation the main course arrived. My wife had chicken fettuccini alfredo that was delicious and I had penne con funghi porcini which was again delicious. The servings were huge and neither of us finished our main course. I would have taken it home but we were headed to a movie and I didn’t want it to spoil in the car. I miss my bowl of pasta 
. Based on these two meals I would guess you can’t find anything bad on the menu (PDF).
Finally, we arrived at dessert. We usually don’t order dessert but the waiter did a fantastic job of describing their special dessert of the evening. I cannot recall the name of the dessert, but it was two slices of multi-layered walnut vanilla and chocolate ice cream, and pistachio gelato with an orange grenadine soaked slice of sweet cake between the ice cream and the gelato. The whole thing was garnished with fresh blueberries and blueberry syrup. Even though I’m lactose intolerant I made an exception because of the wonderful flavor.
After dinner, we went and saw Marley and Me, which was wonderful. I’ll save that for another post because I cried like a baby at the end of it (as all the reviews said I would). The interesting part here is that I left my credit card at the restaurant! I must have been talking about the great experience and left it in the ticket book. They are open until midnight on Saturday so we drove back to pick up my card.
Again, walking into the restaurant is an experience in and of itself. We talked to the manager (I’m guessing) and he went to get our card. The great thing about this is that he actually asked for ID before handing the card over. I respect that he had the foresight to question me before handing over the key to my castle so to speak.
He also informed us that the band was about to start playing so we decided to sit down and listen. The manager then started playing saxophone in the band! The jazz music was great and I wish we could have stayed and listened longer. We were both getting tired (as all parents of small children do around 10 PM) so we had to leave. Just as we were getting ready to leave, the owner (again a guess – he was an older man with a lot of soul, and he is featured on their website) started playing a clarinet solo. Again, fascinating music that just added even more to the atmosphere!
All in all, we are very very glad we went to Luigi’s and have decided to make it a regular in our date nights. We ended up getting out right around $60 (including tip) for a very nice dinner date. I would not take our child there because it might disturb the atmosphere. But I’m sure when she gets older we will include her in the great experience!
