A Night out at Pags

Today, instead of going straight home after work, I took a trek into Boston to meet my father and my uncle Russell, visiting from Pennsylvania, to go out to dinner. Whenever my family gets together, we always go to the same restaurant in the North End (the Italian section) of Boston. My father, my sisters, and I have tried many of the restaurants in the North End, and suffice it to say none of them come even close to measuring up.

Ig you're ever in Boston and you have the opportunity, I strongly recommend Pagliuca's Ristorante Italiano, located at 14 Parmenter Street. The ambiance is of a (very) small Italian restaurant with a traditional old-world flare. They just recently added a private dining area to the basement floor of their small building, a building which my family has been going to for around 15 years. This tells you how successful this small family owned restaurant is. Even on a Tuesday night, such as tonight, the place is so busy that we had to wait for a table.

This restaurant is one of the few in the North End which still sells tripe. My father and uncles almost always get the tripe, and they tell me that you'd be hard pressed to find a better tasting dish of tripe, anywhere.

On this trip, however, both my father and uncle tried something they don't often try. My father got the veal verdiccio, which was a tasty, tender dish flambeed in Verdiccio wine. My uncle Russell got the veal cacciatore, a dish of the most tender veal I've ever tasted in a rich cacciatore sauce. It was delicious.

The highlight of my dining experience, however, was my regular order of Chicken, Vinegar, Peppers, and Potatoes. If you like vinegar, this is by far the best thing on the menu. The whole dish is cooked in vinegar. The potatoes are good, with a slight ting of vinegar. The chicken is more acidic, with a stronger vinegar flavor. The highlight of the dish, however, is the red peppers. They soak up the vinegar to such an extend that that is pretty much all you can taste, leading to an explosion of vinegary goodness in your mouth.If you like pork, they also have a dish called Pork, Vinegar, Peppers and Potatoes. The pork holds the vinegar flavor slightly more than the chicken, so this is a slightly more flavorful dish, but i prefer chicken, so i order this whenever I'm there.

I strongly recommend this restaurant to anyone planning on dining in Boston, and have recommended this restaurant to people in the past, everyone of them giving it raving reviews.

5 starts out of 5