Primi Piatti - Italian Restaurant - King and Park

[second_pancake]

Last night a group of us that helped Drew Johnson work on the new City Cycle, were treated to dinner at Primi Piatti on Park St. in Riverside.  In a word: Amazing!

There was a huge group of us so the dinner was planned in advance.  Everything was served family-style and in the true Italian tradition of many courses of food being shuffled on and off the table over a 2-hour period.

We started with brushetta served with 3 different toppings; pesto, garbanzo bean, and tomato.  All were fabulous but I was partial to the pesto.  I love herbs, what can I say.

Next on the list were steamed mussels in a white wine sauce, and calamari with marinara.  The mussels were cooked perfectly, not chewy at all, and the sauce was light and flavorful.  The calamari was lightly breaded and seasoned and like the mussels, cooked perfectly.  Now, on to the salads.

There were both Caesar salads and the house salad. The Caesar had a mild traditional caesar dressing and the salad was a nice mix of romaine hearts and leaves.  There were no croutons but tomatoes made an appearance,  which you don't typically see in a traditional caesar but herb-coated, they tasted delicious.

The house salad was a mix of greens including spinach, tossed in a herb-vinagrette.  The flavor of thyme was abundant and could've been toned down just a bit so as not to compete with the other greens, but all in all it was nice.

Before the main course was served, we were presented with two pasta dishes; bowtie pasta with a cream sauce and gnocchi with pesto.

I must say, though the flavor was very nice and the texture of the sauce was perfect (no seperation of the cream with the butter or lumps to speak of), the bowties were undercooked in the center which made what would've been a beautiful dish, a little hard to swallow.  The gnocchi on the other hand...WOW!

Like I said before, I'm a little partial to pestos. Something about pinenuts, basil, garlic and olive oil...so simple yet so complicated on the palatte.  It's like a little dance on your tongue.  Anyway, back to the gnocchi.  Cooked perfectly and completely absent of those heavy wheat-glutens that so often make gnocchi a heavy and overly filling dish.  Maybe it's because Mario (the owner and creator of the recipe) bakes the gnocchi rather than boiling it, but whatever the secret, it was fabulous!  Like little clouds of happiness

No, we're not done yet.  We're only just now getting to the main course.

First, we were given our side dishes.  Again, family style with all the sides served on one divided compartment platter.  There was parmesean polenta, grilled zucchini and yellow squash, sauteed onions and a variety of peppers, and rustic-style mashed potatoes.  All were great.  My favorites were the onions and peppers, and squash.

The main dishes were brought out in huge bowls for everyone to sample from.  There were roasted chicken quarters, sausages, and grilled salmon in cream sauce.

I'm of German descent so I lean towards the cured meats alot and know a good sausage from a mediocre one any day.  The sausage was the best Italian sausage I've ever eaten.  It was not typical in any way.  There wasn't that overpowering fennel flavor or the bits of grisel to contend with.  There wasn't the ubiquitous heat factor to mask the lack of flavor, nor were there chewy casings to contend with.  For lack of a better term, it was almost creamy....reminiscent of a good knockwurst in texture with flavors of sage and pork throughout.

The chicken was a bit on the salty side (a by-product of brining?), but the skin was uniformly browned and crisp, and the meat was juicy and tender.  Just a sprinkling of fresh thyme over the top was used since the flavor of the chicken was enough.

The salmon was a little more cooked than I prefer, but by no means was it overcooked or dry.  The sauce was a perfect complement to the simple grilled flavor of the fish.

And last but not least, dessert.

We each received a nice sized slice of cheesecake in a graham crust with a bittersweet chocolate ganache on top, served with a side of homemade ice-cream.  I'm not sure if the cake is made by the restaurant or not (I forgot to ask), regardless, it was the creamiest cheesecake I've had in a while.  And because of the light flavor, I'd even venture to say that some cream cheese may have been substituted with marscapone.  Very good.  I didn't care for the ganache as it was more on the bitter side and less on the sweet.  I don't think it was a very good quality chocolate, tasting more like baking chocolate you'd buy in the store in 4oz blocks, than one with a high cocoa-butter content.  I scraped my chocolate off the top and just ate the cheesecake part.

Unlike the chocolate, the ice cream was out of this world!  If that were packaged to be sold by the pint, I'd be another American obesity statistic.  There were so many flavors and textures.  Everything was subtle, but distinguishable (which is good because nothing sucks more than not knowing what the hell you're eating), and worked perfectly together.  When listing the ingredients, one might call it a tropical ice-cream, but while it made me feel warm inside, it didn't conjure images of hula-skirts, instead reminded me of a Christmas Panetone.  It was filled with dried apricots, pineapple, coconut, papaya, and candied almonds (which were reminiscent of pralines), all blanketed in a delicious vanilla ice-cream base.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being, get-your-stuff-and-call-the-health-department-immediately, and 10 being, if-I-were-rich-I'd-spend-every-waking-hour-in-the-chef's-presence-and-hire-my-own-fireman-with-the-jaws-of-life-at-the-ready-to-remove-my-1000-pound-body-from-the-kitchen; I give this place a strong 8.

Definitely a must-do-again kind of place.  I think if I had to pick one dish to recommend, it would be the salmon with a side of the zuchinni...no wait, the sausages with the peppers and onions...or the chicken and polenta....

[02roadking]

I do love a good sausage. Sounds great.Thanks for sharing.

[thelakelander]

How was the pricing?

[reednavy]

I went with 2 friends the week of or after they opened. For what I paid, the portion was small, I hope they've changed that, and I'll give it another shot. Its moderate, most averaging between 15 and 30 bucks.

[second_pancake]

I can't really comment on the portion sizes for the price because we have everything family style.  I can only assume that a portion of the chicken would be the quarter pieces that we were served, and that the sausages would be 2-3 per serving?

RN has the pricing about right (from what I saw on the menu posted), but I think one has to base pricing on more than just portion size.  It's about the quality of the food and the experience you have that are the largest factors.  If we based good restaurants only on portion size then Taco Bell would win hands-down every time.  So, that being said, even with small quantities, paying $14 for chicken with polenta, a salad and some bread, would be right on the mark.

[stephElf]

I took my mom here and we both loved it!

The portions are on the smaller side and I would say it is moderately priced ... not a place to go if you are looking for a bargain and mounds of food ...

[RiversideGator]

I really like Primi Piatti.  It is fairly priced and the food is good.  It blows Pizza Palace away but isnt as good as the much more expensive La Cena downtown.  So, IMO it is a good place for a nice dinner out in a nice setting.

[tashi]

I was told they make their own pasta. It was very good when I ate there.