A little taste of Italy

So for this month's edition of family food adventure--a monthly tradition where we get together with the family and try out new restaurants--we decided to try Filomena Ristorante in Georgetown. This place had made an appearance on the Travel Channel's Pasta Paradise episode and there were some pretty good reviews and I had received a good number of recommendations to try it out. So we figured we'd go see what all the hype was about.

The first thing I want to point out is the decor. Tacky and over the top doesn't come close to describing it! We went the weekend before Valentine's day and the place was all decked out with red sparkly hearts and cherubs hanging from the ceiling, white doves carrying red hearts in their mouths hanging over each of the dining tables and red lights strung from wall to wall. And all these "festive" decorations were on top of a mash up of bizarre decorations--think of a home inhabited by a hoarder with a mix of goods from the flea market, yard sales and hand me downs! And I don't even want to begin to describe the pseudo-garden of Eden set up behind the buffet table. With that being said, the wait staff were extremely friendly and the food totally made up for the decorations!

There were 4 of us at lunch and we all decided to forgo the buffet at the restaurant, we wanted the good stuff this place was known for, pasta. We ordered the gnocchi della mamma, rigatone con salsicce, fettucine alla carbonara and cannelloni frutti de mare.

The gnocchi was good in a simple bolognaise sauce, how could you go wrong with that! The potato based dumplings are purportedly made on site by the Pasta Mammas and it was definitely fluffier than what I've had before.





According to the menu, Bono came here and ordered 2 bowls of the rigatone. The marinara sauce definitely tasted like it's something that came out of your grandmother's kitchen and the sausage was plentiful and meaty.

The fettucine was another pleaser and if you were able to get a bite of  the prosciutto with the fettucine, it was delicious! The sauce was a little too runny, but overall, not bad at all.

But the definite crowd pleaser was the cannelloni frutti de mare. How could you go wrong with  a dish of shrimp, crab meat, scallops, mozzarella, parmesan and ricotta cheeses stuffed in black pasta sheets smothered in lobster sauce!




There was a lot of hype over the huge portions of the meals, I really didn't notice it. But then again, I was with 3 guys who normally inhale their food in two bites, so we all polished off our dishes and didn't take home a doggy bag.

Overall consensus, the food was definitely really tasty and a great choice for the food adventure. And I had eyeballed their linguine with clams --my hands down all time favorite dish--so I am totally going back and giving that a shot. There wasn't much of a lunch crowd, but I could see how it can get packed for dinner and why there's so much buzz around this place.