Restaurant Review: Picco

My weekend has been seriously uneventful due to the fact that I have been fighting one of the 1 million colds the kiddos bring in my classroom, and Eric has been (of course) at football :) I have worked out but I haven't done much else so I thought I'd do a restaurant review I forgot to do last week.

I love to go into Boston for dinner so I was excited to try out Picco in the South End of Boston. It seemed like a reasonably priced restaurant, which can be difficult to find in the South End. We took Eric's mom and headed into Boston. There was a parking garage behind the restaurant that cost about $12 (something to take into consideration when planning to dine downtown).

First, the atmosphere: Picco has the feel of an upscale pizza place with a lot of brick, and open kitchen and a pretty large bar area (considering it's a small restaurant). They also have a beautiful outdoor patio, but it was too cold for us to sit out there. They do take reservations and I would consider making them because we ended up with one of the last tables available even though we were fairly early in the night. It definitely seemed like a kid-friendly place and there were many children around when we arrived. At the same time, it also had the downtown, hip feel.

Eric ordered the pumpkin curried soup for an appetizer. I am not a fan of curry, so I did not particularly enjoy it, but Eric thought it was delicious and was already pleased with the restaurant before he had received his meal.

For meals, Eric and his mom went with pizza and I went for the homemade pasta with tomato sauce. They had some more creative options, but we are pretty simple eaters. I think it says a lot about a restaurant when they can do simple things well, as well as the signature meals. Eric ordered the Alsatian pizza with garlic, shallots, cheese, onions and bacon.

They cook the pizza "well done" so Eric asked for his lightly toasted. Eric's mom ordered the Margherita pizza.

The reports on the pizza were good and I have to say my pasta was soooo good. It was definitely North End style (Italian section of Boston) and it tasted very authentic Italy. There is something special about homemade pasta that just cannot be replicated with the store bought brands.

But...it does not end here. I have to admit that the real reason I got Eric to come all the way into Boston with me even after football practice was with the Adult Ice Cream Soda. There was no question we were going to order dessert with this on the menu. It was made with Belgium Lambic (a raspberry flavored beer) and vanilla ice cream.

That is Eric's look of "do I really have to wait for you to take a picture to dive into this amazing treat?" Obviously, I tried it too so I can vouch for how amazing it was. Plus, it's fun to have a beer float!

I also ordered my own dessert- Toasted Gingerbread with Vanilla Ice Cream. Delish.

Overall I think everyone who lives in, or is visiting Boston should visit this place for the Adult Ice Cream Soda alone. However, you might as well eat your meal there because the food was delicious and very reasonable. It came to about $60 for the 3 of us, and we all ordered a meal and dessert, plus Eric's soup. Not too bad for the South End neighborhood.