| rev:text
| - FAMOUS FOR:
- Ravioli (5/10)
I ALSO TRIED
- Meatball (6/10)
- Side Salad (4/10)
I'm shocked! This has to be the lowest number of reviews I've ever seen for a Diners Drive-Ins and Dives joint! I mean, wow! The Ravioli Youtube video has been up for 5 years, and there are only 10 reviews?! Well, YouTube has done well in blocking out content, so the only thing that's still up there is a 2-3 minute video on their Ravioli. Something tells me that the segment went on longer, but I'll never know.
As I was heading toward the rental car return, I found out my flight was delayed for an extra hour. I'd been poring over the map and determining whether or not I can make a detour, and I got my answer. It was about 17 minutes from the airport. I walked in around 5pm or so on a Friday, and it was completely empty. It's a little early for dinner, so I guess that's the reason. It's a tiny place (as most DDD places are). There're about 8 booths and then a long table in the middle for about 16 maybe?
It's a dive. There isn't any ambient noise except for someone's radio playing country music in the kitchen. Apparently everyone likes it, because everyone kinda hums or sings along with it (I hate country music). Why country is playing in an Italian joint...who knows. Everything's cheap. The spoon looked like it's seen a few wars! Even my receipt at the end was a torn off piece (neatly at least) of notebook paper! CASH ONLY!
SIDE SALAD
I don't recall seeing that the ravioli comes with a salad - but I got one anyway. It looked like freshly torn off pieces of lettuce, a few slices of tomato, and you couldn't see that there was any dressing on there, but there was. It tasted like Italian but more of a vinaigrette. 4 seconds were spent on presentation. They threw lettuce on a plate, but then put a few slices of tomato on top and 4 rings of onion on top of that. Lettuce felt pretty fresh. The tomato was just functional - didn't really have any flavor. The dressing was ok - maybe a little bit too vinegary. It was a pretty barebones salad.
RAVIOLI
It looks exactly like it did in the youtube. The pasta dough itself is pretty thick. At times, I had bites that almost felt downright doughy. If you cut one in half and see the meat, you'll be astounded at how small it is! It's about the size of a piece of sausage on a Dominos sausage pizza - in other words, tiny! A small comes with 6 raviolis, and a large comes with 7.
The meet inside tastes, well, "ground beefy." I'm not really a ravioli expert by any means, but it was hard to glean any other flavors. I watched the video, so I know what's supposed to be in there, but there wasn't any real personality to the beef. So flavor-wise, not much going on. It was seasoned well, though. Strange as it may sound, because it had a solid beef flavor to it, it may have made a decent burger patty (I could be totally wrong about that). Put it this way, I really wouldn't mind having a spaghetti with these at meatballs.
The consistency of the sauce is pretty standard for ravioli. It's thin enough where you can scoop some and pour it on the ravioli, without really sticking to the spoon. It is NOT a marinara sauce, by any means. If there's basil in there, it's very very subdued. It's very tomato sauce-y. As in, I'm sure they added other things, but they didn't deviate that much from the tomato base.
All in all, not bad. I ordered it because it was featured, but it's not something I'm planning to have again.
MEATBALL
I ordered 1 meatball to accompany my ravioli. So, they put the meatball in the center of my ravioli plate, also swimming in the sauce. This one's easy. Remember the ravioli meat - just expand it now, to the size of a golf ball - maybe just a tad smaller. The meat is the same - very beefy. I was now able to taste a little more of what goes in it, but not by much. It's still very much ground beef flavored, but now there's a slight hint that there are other flavors in play (i.e. onion powder, garlic powder, parsley). I don't know that because I tasted them, I know that because I watched the video. Again, it's not bad, it's just nothing special.
So, I've had meatballs from other Italian places, and usually they're gigantic - like tennis ball sized. They also have much more fragrant flavors, specifically oregano, which sort of gives it a whole new face. Oregano is a strong flavor, and for me, I'd prefer to notice an "essence" instead of having something "tastes like" it. This meatball doesn't have any oregano, and since I do like the taste of well seasoned ground beef, this meatball is just all right with me.
But no, I'm not going out of my way to come here. Again, This meatball will probably do well in a spaghetti.
LOW BELLOWS
Ever since Pizza Palace in Knoxville, I have a new optimism for simple spaghetti (just noodles & meatsauce). Though I didn't have spaghetti here, I had all the ingredients. It may be worth a shot if I'm right in the area - but I'm not going out of the WayToComeBack.
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