Sicilian Pasta Kitchen

Today I met up with Viener for lunch at Sicilian Pasta Kitchen downtown. I had to drive there, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the restaurant does offer a parking lot for its patrons, though the lot was a little on the small side and was also shared with several other businesses and a church nearby. Nonetheless, I found a pretty sweet parking stall and did not have to pay, which I was very happy about.

The interior of the restaurant, from my brief glance around, was very mahogany and woodsy and classy, but not unlike many of the chain restaurants in town that wish to appeal to the yuppie twenty-to-thirty-something business crowd. In essence, it didn't stand out, but it looked good.

I was seated right away on the patio, and when Viener arrived and we found our patio table to be a tad too sunny, the hostess was gracious enough to move us to another table right away. The server came by shortly to take our drink orders, although we opted to stick with water. I was pretty impressed with their menu; everything looked appetizing, and the choices offered included an array of pastas, pizzas, appetizers, and salads, not to mention a few specialty entrees as well. Being a tad boring, however, I ordered the Pizza Rosario (mushrooms, cheese, spicy Italian sausage) and Viener chose one of their other pizzas (which I no longer recall the name to).

Our bread was then brought out to us. The buns were of the crusty variety, and thus made a crumbly mess all over my plate and the table. We were a bit disappointed that our buns were cold, which made it a tad more difficult for the butter to spread. However, the buns were soft on the inside, which we were glad to see.


When our meals arrived, I was shocked to see how large my pizza was, as well as how well it was smothered in cheese. This was very appealing to me given my love for fromage, but Viener didn't quite share my enthusiasm for the mozza. The crust was thin and crispy without a doughy or greasy feel to it; in fact, the crust was so light and tasty that I actually wanted to eat it, which is something I rarely do with my pizza slices.

When we finished as much of our entree as we could, the server came by in good time to pack up our leftovers. She even labelled my box to distinguish it from Vieners, which we appreciated.

The bill came to $16.05 each, which I realize is a bit pricy for a 12" pizza, but good value considering the quality of the pie. Thought I realize that many would prefer to spend less money at fast food pizza joints like Pizza 73 or Dominoes or (*shudder*) Little Ceasar's, I would argue that it is better to spend a little more to get a smaller but better-tasting product than to spend less and get massive amounts of mediocre food.

All in all, I would definitely recommend Sicilian Pasta Kitchen to pizza lovers anywhere who are willing to pay an extra few bucks in order to have a quality thin-crust pizza that is both delicious and cheesy. My palate tells me that this restaurant serves what is arguably the best thin-crust pizza in the city (even better than Il Forno's). Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself and see! ;)

Rating: 9.5 / 10