Modo Mio, a very good reason to own maternity pants

Its been a week since we ventured to Girard Ave for dinner at Modo Mio. Outstanding, fabulous, awesome..none of these words do justice to the meal we ate. Sitting at our table after two hours of eating, I was reminded of a scene from a Friends thanksgiving episode. Joey shows up to dinner wearing maternity pants and everyone scoffs at him. Well, at 10:30 last Friday night I would've given my right leg for a pair of those pants. Food baby is an understatement. Food triplets is more accurate.

To preface this post, I'll say that we've had good italian food on many occasions. A good plate of spaghetti and meatballs is not hard to come by in this city. If you're in the mood for traditional american italian head to Maggiano's, Buca di Beppo or Mama Yolanda's in South Philly. But, if you're in the mood for a modern italian adventure, head to Modo Mio.

It all began with a serving of the chef's house bruschetta, crusty italian bread with pureed pumpkin and some kind of delicious cheese. I think I was too distracted by the task of choosing my 4 course meal to fully absorb what our server explained as he set the plate on the table. In typical italian restaurant fashion we also had bread for the table. But instead of the butter in the gold wrapper, we were served with a dish of italian olive oil floating around a dollop of creamy ricotta cheese. If I had to leave dinner right then, I would have been quite satisfied. But this was only the beginning.

For the first official course of the four course meal, the antipasti, we were able to sample mussels, bruschetta topped with snails, and a deep fried risotto gorgonzola cheese ball. All three were deliciously prepared and served piping hot. We had two different types of hollow spaghetti for our pasta course, one with a creamy white pepper sauce and the other with a spicy red pepper sauce. Both equally tasty. It was during this course that I noticed something that our server mentioned when we first sat down. He explained that chef Peter McAndrews does not use any actual salt in his dishes. If he needs a dish to have a more salty taste he will use other ingrediants, such as capers or a naturally salty cheese. The capers in the red pepper sauce did just the trick.

After the pasta dish we were stuffed. We really should have just saved the chef some time and asked him to put the main entree's in a doggy bag. But alas, thats kind of rude, so instead as the server placed our meat dishes on the table we all just stared at them for a couple of minutes. Finally, after a few deep breaths, we dug in. All of the dishes were perfect and to be honest I was angry with myself that I hadn't saved more room for the deliciously tender pulled lamb. I ate two or three bites and gave up. Steve fared a little better with his eggplant meatloaf, but also have enough to bring home.

We'd been hearing about the delicious desserts all night and at this point in the meal we were happy that our server was hustling around to other tables. We really needed some time to digest before another stare down, this time with the dessert tray. I know this cliche for an italian restaurant but we all voted that the tiramisu was the most wonderful we've ever tasted and three of the four in our party had actually been to Italy, so thats saying something. I'm ashamed to say we couldn't finish the other desserts, even though they included a wonderful flourless chocolate cherry cake and a season appropriate apple tart.

We've decided that the next time we venture to this adorable italian eatery we'll either need a specific strategy or some really stretchy maternity pants.