Boys Eat More – Etto Pasta

I constantly get people asking me for recommendations of a good restaurant and before I give them any recommendations I always ask budget, location, cuisine and most important how many boys or girls It makes a drastic difference to the bill if you went to a fine dining restaurant with all boys as opposed to all girls A couple of weeks ago Mr Bao and I caught up with Yue (my colleague), I knew these two boys were going to skip breakfast and be famished at lunchtime, so I needed to take them somewhere that would fill them up without hurting their wallet too much…so that’s how we ended up at Etto Pasta.

Before going I read up on Ash and Libby’s blog post, I knew Etto Pasta was in South Melbourne, but I didn’t realise that it was only a couple of stores up from Max Brenner ~ I expected Etto to be more of a sit-down restaurant, but was more like a takeaway store with only a few tables inside. As soon as we walked in we could smell all those Italian flavours like tomato sauce, cheese and basil ~

I really liked the one page no nonsense menu it was all there in front of you. I particularly think the little chart which explains the different thickness of the pasta was very clever as I never would have know what parpardelle, which turns out to be the thickest long pasta they offer

The boys were hungry so we quickly decided and ordered at the counter, Yue suggested a creamy based pasta and ordered the Smokey Pancetta Carbonara with leak and a crunchy herb bread crumb topping and we chose parppardelle pasta. We were all impressed at how light the carbonara was and not at all oily or heavy. I also liked the thickness of the parppardelle which was covered in that delicious sauce ~

Smokey Pancetta Carbonara $13

It wouldn’t be an Italian meal without meatballs! This was the 100% wagyu meatlballs with salsa verde and once again topped with crunchy herb breadcrumbs this time with linguini. Meatballs were delish with the fattiness and flavour from the wagyu beef, once again the sauce was light with a tang from the tomato.

Wagyu Meatball Polpette 100%$13 linguini

Italians also like their sausages, this time the boys wanted to try the short pasta so opted for the rigatoni with the spicy Italian sausage, I love anything spicy with some heat. So this was probably my favourite dish I wondered how they cooked it so well, usually at home when I get short pastas, I either overcook or undercook them. But the rigatoni was  al dente with a good bite to it ~ Mr Bao also liked the basil pesto which added a nutty flavour.

Spicy Italian Sausage Rigatoni $13 free range pork sausage with basil pesto

Last pasta dish was the black angus beef ravioli in a white wine sauce, the ravioli pasta dough was light but still firm, they were also all the same size with the perfect amount of beef filling. The filling was delish and full of flavour which is important to me ~

Black angus beef with white wine and vegetable Ravioli $12

After all that carbs the boys were finally full but I insisted I wanted a salad, they wouldn’t even touch it! Fine I’ll eat it all by myself and I enjoyed it ~ It was healthy, refreshing and actually quite tasty because of the parmesan cheese sometimes the simplest things can be so satisfying

Rocket and Parmesan salad $7

We all enjoyed Etto very much, all pastas were homemade, cooked wonderfully with a great bite. But to me the sauce is crucial to all pasta dishes and they were amazing especially the creamed based ones that had all the flavour but wasn’t too heavy ~ The boys were happy and rubbed their bellies as we walked out, they both said they’re going to return for lunch after a morning basketball session My only complaint would be that they don’t offer any desserts…I think a tiramisu or scoop of gelato would have made it even more satisfying