Ingredient Alert: Salsa di Noci; Also, Restaurant Mini-Review: Paciarino

It's Friday, you've been yelled at all week (ok, maybe you haven't), you're tired and you want to eat something marvelous at home, exerting the least amount of effort possible. What to do? I am now able to supply the answer to this question most emphatically: go to Paciarino. It's a little lunch spot that opened this week in the Old Port serving Italian pasta dishes and it's the real deal—the owners just came here from Milano.

"Lunch spot" is actually a huge disservice. Although they serve lunch from 11:30 to 2:20, they also offer take out from 2:30 to 6:00 p.m. as well as pasta cooking classes! For the classes you cook with the owners and then the class sits down to a meal together at the end. The menu rotates weekly and I was told to call in when you have a mind to and ask what is available that day.

I stopped by there this evening after work and the owners let me try various sauces and other treats that I immediately became addicted to. Like this (go buy this now):

Or this (get this too, it comes frozen and it's absolutely amazing):


I can't rave enough about this Salsa di Noci, but I'd like to try. I've tried to make a walnut sauce before but it didn't come out nearly as creamy and delicate as this.

After buying some frozen Salsa di Noci, some frozen Maqueroni and a loaf of crusty bread, I was ready for an easy dinner.

I'll be back for lunch next week and hopefully a class when I can get the chance.

Paciarino: very highly recommended.

N.B.: My nagging fear is that this Paciarino will suffer the same fate as Sophia's. Remember Sophia's? It was located in the Old Port in the little park and it's owner, Stephen I think, also an Italian import, baked all manner of really wonderful breads and offered amazing sandwiches and healthy foods for lunch. I remember a sad little note posted on the store front just after it closed shaming us all for not appreciating the fact that he served real, healthy food. (Sure, now he's baking at Micucci's, but no more fancy sandwiches in the Old Port and Micucci's is too far to walk from my office for lunch.) Don't let that happen to Paciarino!

UPDATE: See this profile in the Press Herald.