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| - Four of us went to Cenacolo this past weekend and I have to say that I have been hesitant on writing a review because I don't want this place to become so popular that I can't get a reservation. This is by far the best restaurant in the area and perhaps in the entire Pittsburgh area.
We started with a sample cheese plate that include all 5 cheeses they offered. If you don't like strong cheeses, such as Asiago, then you might not like this appetizer, but since I do, I really enjoyed them and they give you quite a lot of each type of cheese. The bread and butter (I believe it was a honey butter) was very good as well. The butter was sweet, but not over sweet. The salad that comes with the meal was a very good size and the sweet balsamic dressing was one of the best balsalmic dressings that I've had.
We also tried the meatballs. The problem with the meatballs is that I could eat an entire plate of them myself and then not have any room for the entree. The meatballs were fantastic...possibly the best I ever had (sorry Mom). They weren't drowning in sauce, but the there was enough sauce on the plate to complement the meatballs perfectly. I could go back daily just for the meatballs!
It was tough deciding on which main course to eat. I ended up having the Linguine with lump crabmeat. It was delicious and I even ate the whole thing. My wife had one of the specials...lobster ravioli. Fortunately for me, she couldn't finish them because of all the food we had already eaten and she was kind enough to share the leftovers the next day. My dinner was excellent, but her lobster ravioli were out of this world.
We were too full for dessert, but they brought us out a plate of small almond cookies with a small shot of limoncello. That was such a perfect ending to such a delicious meal and it really hit the spot.
Usually there is a down side to a meal, such as the service was slow or one part of the meal wasn't up to standard, but I have to say that each and every part of this meal exceeded my expectations. Our waiter was on top of everything. Our food came out timely and we never felt rushed through our meal. Our water glasses were always being filled. Although you can BYOB, we chose not to this dinner, but the next time, I can see me having a nice bottle of Chianti with me to make my meal even more perfect...if that is even possible.
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