Etto
Etto- Italian Street Pasta
261 Clarendon St, South Melbourne
03 9696 3886
Etto pasta and I have been atwittering a few times over the last few months. Etto is actually around my ‘hood, but I probably wouldn’t really go check it out if it wasn’t for the power of the media. That’s what I love about Twitter- you discover new cafes and restaurants either by recommendation or interaction. One thing to note though: I did dine here anonymously and paid for my meal.
The concept is simple: you pick your sauce (tomato/ cream/ al crudo), pick your pasta, then pick if you want anything extra (chilli, special cheese, side of salad or garlic bread).
I chose a sausage tomato based sauce with penne w/ chilli $13. I was hangry as hell and it didn’t look like a huge portion. But to Etto’s credit this dish is actually really filling- and I was quite full after half a dish!
The sausage pasta is made with a rich tomato sauce, the sausage was meaty and the fennel flavour was prominent. The pasta was cooked perfectly al dente- I love it! I haven’t really tried a dish where the pesto is served with the tomato but I quite like it. The only thing I thought was that the tomato sauce was slightly more acidic than I would like it to be, and that thrown the flavour off a little bit.
Hubby’s has chosen al crudo with black truffle and salami with spinach tagliatelle and chilli $14. Even though hubby and I both agreed that we can’t really taste the black truffle, the crunchy garlicky breadcrumbs and Mount Zero olive oil base more than made up for it. I sneaked a few more bites of his dish and concluded that his dish was way better than mine.
We also ordered a side of garlic bread, which was absolutely yumgasmic. Crunchy on the outside, melt-in-your-mouth garlicky on the inside. Oh my. Even though I only managed to eat two slices (yes the pasta is really filling!)
Service was friendly and overall it was a fantastic place to grab a quick bite. Too bad they don’t do home delivery but I can’t wait to take Shoe Queen here when her pasta craving hits! 8.5/10