Cunetto's on the Hill

For dinner, I had pasta in a garlic, olive oil, and anchovy sauce, with a small salad.

Cunetto was actually the first Italian restaurant we tried in St. Louis, back in August. None of us liked it, although I had less strong feelings about their food than Jon and his parents, who uniformly hated it. Now that I've eaten there again, I agree with them.

The salad at least was okay. Their house Italian was tasty, and the lettuce was crisp. There was no Provel that I noticed. The croutons were boring and the meat (dried ham? NO idea) was not very flavorful, but the whole thing was not bad. It helped that I'd had nothing to eat all day but a banana and a granola bar.

The first problem is that my menu item's pasta is described (in two languages, no less) as "macaroni/maccheroni". Macaroni, in English, is generally thought of as shortish, tubular pasta. See: macaroni and cheese. What does it mean in Italian, you ask? I speak close to zero real Italian, but, unfortunately for Cunetto, I speak enough Spanish to comprehend written Italian.To summarize: "Il maccherone è tipicamente un tipo di pasta corta.". And yes, there are regional terminology shifts within Italy, but why on earth would you confuse people on purpose? Because what I received looked an awful lot like spaghetti. I know this was not a random fluke, because it's what I ordered in August, and the same thing happened (at which point, I assumed it was a fluke). Can you imagine being on, say, a blind date, or a job interview, and choosing the macaroni so as to be less messy?

The second problem was the salt. Oh god, the salt. At first I thought they'd done a poor job of soaking their anchovies, but Jon's carbonara was just as bad.

The third problem depends, I guess, on your perspective. Their portion sizes could kill a large mammal (if the sodium doesn't). One serving of pasta is 1/2 cup, about the size of a scoop of ice cream. Their entree is easily four cups. Maybe more. Also, they serve it in an oblong server that can barely hold it all, which no doubt leads to more blind date/job interview fun. At under $10 for that many servings, their menu items are a great deal, but it's so much, it just ends up being grotesque and excessive.

I could complain more, but why bother? It's a St. Louis institution, and family run, and cute. I want to like them. They're packed on the weekends, and in no danger of going anywhere. Good for them. But will we be going there again? NO.