Travel Journal: Prime Italian

Prime Italian

To celebrate my husband’s birthday, I made reservations at one of our favorite restaurants in Miami…Prime Italian.  Most of you are probably more familiar with it’s sister steak house across the street, Prime One Twelve…another favorite of ours. But usually we prefer Prime Italian as we are Italian (ok, well I am by marriage) and it’s a little bit calmer.

We had the feast a couple of weeks ago and I think I may still be digesting. You do have to prepare yourself a bit for the enormous portions they serve, especially the meatballs…and no Prime Italian dinner is complete without the meatballs.  I suggest fasting the day of your dinner reservation. Seriously, eat nothing.

To begin, they brought us their hearty loaf of Garlic bread (voted “Best Bread” by Miami New Times in 2010) and sauce…homemade, to-die-for, marinara sauce. Then we ordered:

Prime Italian Chopped Salad with romaine, spinach, artichokes, hearts of palm, chick peas, asparagus, grape tomatoes, portobello mushrooms, green beans, provolone, sopressata & house made italian dressing

Ricotta & Sausage stuffed brick oven meatball

Chilean Sea Bass over lobster mac n’ cheese with truffle oil

Rigatoni Alla Carbonara guanciale, pecorino & poached egg

Creamed Corn (smoked, spicy flavor)

Crispy Zucchini with lemon basil aioli

That was it, for 4 of us. Yes, four. Not enough, right?  Well, we’ve been to Prime Italian before and we knew better this time than to order too much. Ha! We walked out with a large shopping bag of leftovers. Not so upsetting when every dish is amazing. The dessert options included fried oreos and I’m not sure what else. I started laughing as soon as the waiter mentioned more food.

The Prime Italian experience is best described as sensory overload in the most perfect way. Stacks of unbelievably giant tomatoes match the red glam chairs & glass lamps on the bar. Sinatra plays over the speakers and Louboutins click on the dark hardwood floors. The scent of garlic and truffle oil surround you. The warm air from the front door is a reminder that you’re in a tropical paradise and each bite you take tastes richer (and better) than the last.

Prepare yourself though as your 9pm reservation really means 9-ish.  You’ll probably need a little more time to work up an appetite anyway for the spread that’s on the way. You didn’t really fast all day, did you?

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