Sadath A.
Yelp
Two quick tips about not getting shafted into a tourist trap when travelling through Italy:
-step inside. If all you hear is Italian, you're good.
-look at the menu. If it's a small concentrated menu of items rather than a giant mess with tons and tons of options, you're good.
I say this because this restaurant was in an area surrounded by tourist traps, advertising things like spaghetti and meatballs (nobody actually eats that in Italy). But when I took a quick step in here, not a soul was speaking English, and their entire menu consisted of a few items on a chalkboard in the middle of the room. Not to mention the beautiful fresh pasta bar at the front where people were picking up pasta by the pound to take home, but I digress.
Bologna is known for two main dishes: Tortellini in Brodo and Tagliatelle al Ragu. Going by the old saying "When in Bologna" (hmm that sounds a bit off for some reason), I ordered both those dishes.
The tortellini was very good, but just not to my taste. It's filled with prosciutto, which is a particularly salty cut of meat. It was more my fault for not asking what was supposed to be inside the tortellini, but if I was craving something salty, I definitely would've liked it better. The Broth that the tortellini came in though was delicious. It was a very light broth, but somehow still very flavorful. I ended up finishing all the broth but only a quarter of the tortellini.
The star was definitely the Tagliatelle al Ragu. All throughout my trip in Italy, I've been hearing how Bologna has the best Ragu. Well even though I was expecting something delicious, I was still amazed at how good it was. There isn't really a good way to describe how the Ragu tasted, just know that it was worth far more than I paid for it.
While we're on the subject, here's a third quick tip for navigating tourist traps in Italy. If the place is expensive, it's probably a tourist trap. Italians go out to eat far more than Americans do, so restaurants don't have to worry about getting customers as much, and keep their prices low to make up for it. My entire meal, which included the two large dishes (each of them is enough to feed one person), some charcuterie on the side, and a glass of wine, all came out to less than 20 euros. I would've gladly paid more