Once upon a time, my friends and I took a trip to Metropolis, Illinois, to go SCUBA diving at Mermet Springs. When we were finished one night, we were hungry, so we googled restaurants around after deciding upon Italian and came up with the Italian Grill on Broadway in Paducah, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River.
We loaded up in our vehicles, made the 8 or so mile trek, dropped one of our party members off to go get us a table and proceeded to find a place to park. We weren't having luck finding a place to park and then got a phone call from Mark (who was the lucky sole dropped off) that there was a 4 hour wait. Man do we know how to pick restaurants or what?!?!
Jump forward a year and we planned on making reservations because if the wait was that long, the food must be excellent! That year jumps us forward to this past weekend. Thursday we loaded up and headed to Metropolis, Illinois, again only this time we had reservations to eat at Italian Grill on Broadway Thursday night. There were 6 in our vehicle and John and Nelda joined us for dinner so we had a great group of 8 people enjoying Fine Italian Dining.
The waiter came to get our drink orders and then brought those as well as Olive Oil/Balsamic Vinegar for dipping our delicious bread in to. (ours looked like a smiley face at one point)
The bread was Italian with a Garlic butter on top topped with Parmesan Cheese. YUM! And the dipping oil was excellent with it.
The waiter mentioned at the beginning before he took our orders that salads were no longer included with the meals. He said they had so much waste, and instead of doing the salad, they've added in extra meats that are in the dish of your choice to make up for the lacking salad. Although you can add a salad to your meal for an additional cost.
Now the food. Oh the food. So one thing we learned last year when researching this restaurant is they make all noodles in house that day. Yes, those are FRESH Noodles. Will we be able to go back to pre-packaged noodles ever again?
So this is my meal. I ordered Steak Gorgonzola Pasta. Now the waiter said that any of the pastas already made had no substitutions. If you wanted something or wanted something left off, build your own pasta was the route to go.
My Steak Gorgonzola Pasta is a hand cut NY Strip, grilled your way (not over medium, I went medium rare), in a creamy gorgonzola sauce, sautéed spinach, onions & mushrooms, and served over fresh pasta.
Mark and Jared got the same thing. Karen and I laughed and asked if it was bad that they tend to order the same thing, but I don't think it is :). It's just fun :).
So they went witht he Cajun Pasta with Crawfish and Sweet Italian Rope. So it's the fresh pasta with roasted garlic, onions, peppers, tomatoes, cajun spices, and extra virgin olive oil. So I tried a bite... I'm not a seafood type person and it was a little fishy for me, but they ate ever last bite. Then complained they ate to much but couldn't quite because it was just so awesome.
Our reservations were for 7pm that Thursday night, but we arrived early and they seated us early. The waiter said that the restaurant opened in spring 2015 and when new restaurants open, people from the tri-state area flock to try new restaurants.
They gave us the option of eating downstairs which tends to be a little more quieter or up stairs for the better view. We went for the view.
This is where they were making pizzas when we left but I assume this is also where they make the noodles? It was fun to sit there and watch them working on the pizzas. We stayed a few minutes to watch before moving on down the street to check out this area of Paducah, Kentucky.
Labels: Dinner, Eating Out, Food, Friends, Summer
