Memorial Weekend Kickoff at Carbone

I absolutely love Memorial Day Weekend in NYC. Most people clear out, headed to the Hampton's or Berkshires, leaving those impossibly hard restaurant reservations wide open for people like me! So this year we kicked things off at Carbone so I could finally have my favorite noodles in the entire world once again.

Of course before the noodles actually arrive there's so much more at Carbone to enjoy.  Every meal starts with a gratis basket of bread filled with crunchy garlic loaves and mozzarella & tomato topped grandma bread...

Freshly sliced salami with parmigiana cheese

And a bowl of pickled cauliflower dotted with spicy chilies.

For our appetizer we split an order of the Scampi alla Scampi; enormous prawns roasted with butter, lemon and garlic.  These looked like they would be challenging to eat but they came out of the shell quite easily with little lobster fork.

Then we moved onto our favorite dishes of the entire meal the Cesar Alla ZZ prepared tableside with chopped anchovies and crunchy sourdough croutons...

...and of course that wonderful Spicy Rigatoni.  Mr. T and I never order the same dish at a restaurant but this is so good we just had to have our own bowls.  

So rich, creamy and spicy; words can't even describe the level of deliciousness on this plate.  This dish easily takes a spot on my top five favorite foods of all time.

We were too full for a big dessert so we ended with some coffee and mini rainbow cookies instead.  Carbone always puts a bottle of Sambuca on the table as a complementary digestif.  I suggest taking a shot even if you don't like liquor, it will help ease the pain of the enormous bill that's about to arrive.

181 Thompson Street
New York, NY 10012