La Casa Ristorante, Russell Lea
EDIT: CLOSED
It started with a drink. Ok well technically it started with an email asking me to save the date a whole 1 month ahead of time to have dinner at La Casa Ristorante (271 Lyons Rd, Russell Lea). Stalking the menu and blog posts for a whole month kinda led a bunch of us to over order haha but it was so worth the food coma!
A complimentary bottle of prosecco and a garlic pizza kicked off the night, with the bubbly Carmel enveloping each of us with a warm hug. Every person that stepped through the door was welcomed like long lost family and soon the placed is packed with happy humans.
The oil is smiling at me! (I’m not crazy I’m not crazy)
Garlic prawns with cherry tomato, chilli & verjuice ($17) aka the garlic prawns of awesome. Seriously the best garlic prawns I have ever eaten, uber fresh prawns with enough garlic for me to be able to fight off a legion of vampires.
Crispy fried calamari served with rocket, aioli & balsamic ($16). “We HAVE to get the calamari,” Gianna cries. No worries mate, one plate of calamari coming right up! The calamari rings are lightly battered and a swipe in the aioli and a dab of balsamic later and our table momentarily pauses in conversation to fight over the remaining rings.
Of course what is a visit to La Casa without ordering Our Mamma’s original style meatballs ($15)! We were reduced to 10 year olds with drawls of baaallllllls mmm delicious baaaallllls. It might have been that second bottle of prosecco. Or the bottle of red. But man those balls were delicious! Hand shaped with love and rich tomato sauce that was totally to die for. I’m still thinking about your balls Mama Rugerri!
Pappardelle with pancetta, swiss brown mushrooms in a creamy white wine sauce ($21). It was insane how delicious this pasta was. Creamy and light, the ribbons of pasta wound its way around my heart to be held and bound forever with love.
Gnocchi with sausage, sage in butter & red sauce ($22). You know how people always say gnocchi are like pillows of happiness? No? Well this totally was! Light as can be, these plump little nubbins were gleefully spooned onto plates with all traces of sauce scraped clean.
Fettucine pasta with prawns, garlic, olive oil, chilli, spinach & capers ($23). Somehow I managed to not try this pasta um oops?
Wagyu Beef Cheeks slow cooked in red wine jus w/baby spinach & buttered potato puree ($36). But I made sure the beef cheeks were the first thing to hit my stomach and hot damn those were tasty cheeks! “Don’t bother with a knife,” laughed Carm and she was right cos these babies just fell apart the moment a fork came by.
La Casa’s famous meatballs topped with Fior di latte in a folded pizza ($23). We had wanted to order a pizza but knowing that we’d already ordered 3 pastas we settled with the meatball calzone to satisfy our pizza quotient. Meatballs wrapped in pizza equals awesome.
We also got the full rack of pork ribs ($34) in case, like, we were still hungry. We weren’t but no way were we letting it go anywhere! All cutlery was discarded in favour of gnawing at the ribs covered in finger licking delicious sauce.
Explodey point was imminent so we ordered 3 Tiramisu’s ($10.50) to share which had the perfect fluffy creamy mascarpone to coffee soaked savoiardi biscuit ratio.
Aaaand Cannoli filled with ricotta ($8) and some shots to end our epic meal. Truly that was an epic dinner and I’m still dreaming about the baaaaaallls 😛
