FoodB

We were very saddened to find out that one of our favorite Italian restaurant's closed recently. Rombi's in Huntington Beach was a very unique place because it was in the middle of a strip mall that you wouldn't expect to find great food in. Once you got past the door though it was a different world. All of their pasta's were homemade and the food was just amazing. We found out later that the owner/chef also had a daytime job and he was getting burned out. Can't blame him for wanting time off, yet this left a pretty big void for us because we didn't have a suitable replacement.

On a hunch, Jenn decided she wanted to drive by another Italian place that she noticed one day. It was called Mangia Mangia and was also in an unusual location. As we were driving by we noticed it was packed and that is about all the recommendation I need to stop at a place.

The first time we stopped we waited awhile for a table and noticed that the kitchen was right next to the serving area. I was able to watch the cooks for awhile and got a good feeling that this was a good place to eat. They were hand cooking everything and I saw that they were using a lot of fresh ingredients. Our first dinner there I had ravioli's and Jenn had gnocchi. She really enjoyed her's and I thought mine was good. The problem I had with the ravioli's was that I was comparing them to Rombi's and that is just not fair.

We went back another week and this time I had the gnocchi and Jenn tried their cannelloni. I enjoyed the gnocchi a lot and the only thing I would have done differently was to order it with meat sauce. The marinara sauce they used was basically crushed tomatoes and I prefer a thick sauce on my pasta.

So I think we found our new Italian haunt. It's not far from our place and the prices are reasonable. Good stuff.