Culinary Alchemy at Parasson's?

Sometimes what we crave defies all logic and dictates that we eat certain foods or at certain restaurants that we normally wouldn't otherwise entertain. As a child, my mother would occasionally make what I can only imagine came from a 1950's recipe, tuna biscuit bake casserole. Generously spray your casserole dish with a layer of Pam. Then, using a can of biscuits, a can of tuna, a can of Campbell's condensed cheddar cheese soup, a can of Campbell's cream of celery soup, and some milk, layer this unholy concoction in the pre-greased pan, place in a 350 degree oven and wait for all sorts of processed food goodness to come out. And as a child, I loved it.

Over the years, I've tried re-inventing it to be leaner, healthier, less processed, but in the end, when I crave this dish, it is with all of the same ingredients that my mother used in her version. It just doesn't taste the same otherwise (and I'm sure some would say for the better). That reluctance to let go of a wonderful childhood memory is what drives me to return to Parasson's restaurant again and again. Parasson's is a local Akron chain that serves up what I would consider to be "ok" basic Italian fare. Pizzas, pastas, and subs make up most of their menu. They have four locations and over the many decades I've been going there, the food has always tasted the same.

Every once in a while I'll get that craving. And when I do, there just isn't any way to resist it. Tonight's craving was fulfilled at the Waterloo Road location. All the locations have both sit-down and take-out service, but tonight I felt like eating in. Here is a shot of the front of the menu (addresses and phone numbers are shown for each of the four locations):


And a shot of the condiment station on each table:


Almost any meal you order (except for maybe pizza), comes with the griddled garlic bread. It's your basic mix of butter, salt, garlic powder, and dried parsley. It is neither the best nor worst example of garlic bread that I've ever had, but there is something about it that I crave. They will refill the basket as you eat it, but whenever I dine out by myself, I always feel guilty if I eat more than the two slices they bring me.


The meal that I choose for my dinner also came with a garden salad. Parasson's uses a moderate amount of shredded mozarella cheese to top their salads. In my opinion it is just the right amount. You get the cheesy richness without it predominating.


I always order the French dressing on the side, for two reasons. First, I like to dress my salad minimally with the dressing. Most restaurants overdress salads. Second, and this is where culinarily speaking I may have just lost some of my gentle readers out there, the combination of the French dressing and the garlic bread is ... how to put this? Magical.

I feel like I should be standing up in a self-help group right now. "Hi, my name is Tom and I like to dip my Parasson's garlic bread in my leftover French dressing."

I don't know when this practice started. Maybe my server had taken away my finished salad plate and accidentally left the remainder of the dressing. And maybe while I was waiting for my pasta to come out, bored and with nothing but time on my hands, I thought, "Aw, what the hell!" and dipped for the first time. I've been doing it ever since. I'm always furtively sneaking dips in the dressing because I feel like if someone working at the establishment ever caught me, they'd certainly point out my unnatural ways to the rest of the guests there and throw me out as quickly as they could.

Now, this is not unusual salad dressing. In fact, I confirmed with my server that it is Marzetti California French dressing. Curious to know what this ingredient list consisted of, I stopped at Giant Eagle afterward for a little investigative work. You can read the list of ingredients here:


Basically most of the flavor is coming from tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, and some various spices. Equally as mysterious, the garlic bread is exactly as I described it before. But when you put the two together, the sweetness from the dressing and the saltiness from the bread makes an amazing flavor combination in your mouth. And the even more amazing thing? I taste flavors that exist in neither product by themselves: I get notes of both cinnamon and nutmeg. Every time I go back and try this experiment over again, I get the same result. Without fail.

As much as I come for the garlic bread/French dressing combo, the other lifelong draw for me has been their meat sauce. Made with pork and beef, it has a nice balance of sweetness, fattiness, and seasoning. But I would in no way consider this to be remarkable. Tasty, sure, but not remarkable. I will occasionally order something else on the menu, but that is a rarity. Today I decided to go with rigatoni for my pasta:


The large, at $10.49, is a good value because you will easily get two meals out of this. The one very positive thing about this dish is that I have never come across a plate of watery pasta from Parasson's. And I've eaten at all four locations over the last three decades. It's not so much that the pasta is all that spectacular, it's just nice when I don't end up with a bowl of rigatoni meat sauce soup, like I seem to experience at other places. I always end up dosing my meat sauce with a hefty hit of red chili flakes and grated parmesan cheese (I'm using a little 'p' for parmesan because I'm fairly certain this stuff comes out of the green can).

Sadly, even though they were advertising dessert:


None of their desserts are homemade. And honestly, the tiramisu pictured on the table advert just didn't look all that enticing. I was half tempted to have a scoop of the spumoni, but realizing that I was already pretty full, I opted to skip dessert entirely.

With as much food knowledge that I've gathered over the years by reading, cooking, and most importantly, eating, it still amazes me that sometimes you just want the comfort food of your youth. And I think it is healthy to occasionally let your ever-vigilant set of culinary standards lay by the wayside so you can revel in an experience that just makes you feel good for a little while.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think it's time for another helping of that tuna biscuit bake casserole.

More To Barberton Than Just Chicken Joints

Barberton, OH has sort of traditionally been known for it's family style fried chicken restaurants. However, aimlessly meandering through the city, I discovered Angie's Italian Restaurant (located at 343 4th Street NW, Barberton, OH 44203, 330-745-6056) around 7 pm on Friday evening. Needless to say, the parking lot was packed. So, lacking a better option (and the fact that I was decidedly hungry by this point), I figured I would stop in and check it out.

Seating on Friday and Saturday night is first come, first serve, but surprisingly, it only took about ten minutes for a table to open up. I grabbed a take-out menu to study at the table while I waited for my server to show up.


They have a number of items on the menu, sandwiches, pastas, pizzas, and surprisingly much of it is homemade. After weighing my options, I decided to get the Italian Sampler, which consisted of rigatoni with homemade marinara sauce, a stuffed shell, and pork and ricotta filled cannelloni. The meal also came with a side and garlic bread. I choose the cottage cheese as my side. Because I could, I also got a side of the homemade meatballs.


Nothing really to write about here. It was typical cottage cheese. Although I will say the portion size was quite large.

Unfortunately my server had screwed up my order and brought out a plate of rigatoni and not the Italian Sampler I had ordered. She did bring my side order of meatballs, so I had her leave those and return to the kitchen to correct my order. Here are the meatballs:


These were quite good. Very juicy on the inside (sometimes you can dry them out if you simmer them too long in the sauce) and very flavorful. The tomato/meat sauce that accompanies the meatballs was also quite intense and delicious. By the way, if you order your pasta topped with the meat sauce, this is the sauce you get. I think I would've been quite happy with some spaghetti with this sauce and those meatballs on it.

An attempt at an picture of the inside of the meatball:


Finally, my Italian Sampler entree was brought to my table:


The stuffed shell is on the lower left side of the plate, the cannelloni is at the upper right side of the plate, and the rigatoni sort of occupies the rest of the plate. All is covered in their homemade marinara sauce.

First, a shot of the stuffed shell:


And a shot of the cannelloni:


Everything was pretty tasty, although as with most Italian places, there was plenty of water at the bottom of the bowl. Annoying, but not unforgivable. My favorite, I think, was the stuffed shell. The cheese filling had a very nice creamy and savory quality to it that I found most appealing. Second favorite was the cannelloni. The Italian sausage had just a little bit of capricious heat to it and the scent of fennel seed was unmistakable. The rigatoni was ... well, pretty much just rigatoni. Overall, I think I liked the meat sauce better than the marinara.

Finally, a shot of my leftovers sitting in the Styrofoam box. It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but the meat sauce is just such an intense dark red compared to the marinara. The leftover meatball is at the bottom right in the picture.


Not knowing when I would be getting back anytime soon, I decided to order a pizza to go. The menu declared that they make all of their own dough and sauce, so that is generally a good sign. When I also saw that they offered meatballs as a topping, my first thoughts turned to my good friend Nancy, who has talked in the past for her love of a good New York City pizza with sliced meatballs.

When I asked my server if the meatballs they use on their pizzas are the same as the ones I had for dinner, she replied that they were. Unfortunately, I didn't bother to confirm that the meatballs were sliced and placed on the pizza. What I got looked entirely different from what I was expecting.

The pizza box all ready to go home with me:


And finally a shot of the pie itself.


They crumbled the meatballs instead of slicing them. Needless to say I was kind of disappointed. But then again, I failed to ask the right questions. The pie was ... ok. Unfortunately, they kind of burnt the crust quite a bit. And burnt not in the good way. The ground meat was a tad bit dry, which detracted from the experience. I think had they actually sliced the meatballs, they might've survived the baking process with a little more integrity. When I manage to get back there, perhaps I'll have them do it properly.

Overall, I think it was an okay to better than average experience and definitely a place if you are trying to find a nice family restaurant that the kids will like, too. A few service and food guffaws aside, it was a pleasant experience.

Big Night at Lembo's?

I was feeling in the mood for Italian tonight and even more in the mood for something hearty and filling like lasagna. Considering my options between work and home, I remembered that there was a mom and pop style Italian restaurant close to where I live that I had never been to, Lembo's Italian Restaurant. After realizing that they also had an on-line presence, I decided to visit their website and was delighted to learn that they also had their menu on-line as well. I began looking through the menu and noticed that many of their menu items had the word "home made" in front of them: the sauce, the pizza dough, the lasagna.

And then it hit me. Right in the middle of the pasta section, Timpano was listed. I sat at my desk at work for a moment, stunned. I have only had timpano once in my life and it was never at a restaurant. Immediately my thoughts turned to Primo in the movie Big Night. This couldn't be the one and the same, could it? Seeing as the restaurant was on the way home, I figured I would find out for sure.

I was seated at a table just past the all-you-can-eat salad bar and by the entrance to the kitchen. When my waitress finally came over, I asked about the timpano and how it was constructed. The waitress explained that it was just rigatoni layered with cheese and marinara. I further questioned her as to what other layers were in the timpano and she kind of gave me that ok-what's-your-deal kind of look. I quickly apologized and pulled up the link to the timpano I made earlier in the post. I explained to her about Big Night and the true timpano that is layered and covered with a pasta sheet. She looked relieved that I actually wasn't some creepy stalker guy. She finally dashed any hope that I would be mind melding with Primo tonight with a "you know, the one you're showing me does look really good, but ours is definitely not that." Rats.

So, instead I went with my original inkling and ordered the cheese lasagna with meat sauce. Almost all of the meals come with the all-you-can-eat salad bar and I have to say, if you like choices on your salad bar, then this is the place for you. It was absolutely huge, two full-sized islands with greens, pasta salads, soups, desserts, and breads.

First up, I grabbed a couple of pieces of focaccia bread from one of the covered steam tables.


First the positives. It was nice and warm. It had a nice softness to it. The herb and olive oil on the crust added some nice flavor. Unfortunately some of the positives were also some of the negatives. Sitting on the steam table kept the bread soft, but ultimately robbed the bread of any of its integrity. There was no difference between the crust and the crumb. Secondly, a light dusting of kosher salt would've really elevated this bread. It lacked the fine tuning that just a little bit of salt could've brought out.

Next up, a trio of pasta salads:


On the left we had a farfalle pasta with carrots, red bell peppers, and a creamy Italian style dressing. In the middle are small shells with celery in a creamy sauce. On the right are a fettucine style noodle tossed in oil and dried parsley. All three were unremarkable. Clearly the "home made" aspect applied to the food on the menu, not these salads. And looking around at my other choices on the salad bar pretty much resulted in the same conclusion: if you're really into the standard salad bar, this is the place for you. If you're looking for something special, you aren't going to find it here.

Finally, my lasagna came out. It was freaking huge.


First, I tried the meat sauce surrounding the lasagna on the plate. It was ok, a good depth of tomato flavor, but a little sweeter than I would've normally liked it. I could also pick up a hint of anise, more than likely fennel seed. I then started in on the lasagna. The first thing I noticed was that overall, it was a nice cheese to sauce to noodle ratio. A lot of times places absolutely douse the top with mozzarella cheese and it becomes too much. This one was nice. It was nice and sliceable as well.

I sliced off a bite that had layers of the pasta and cheese and sauce and let the flavors roll around in my mouth. And suddenly it dawned on me as clear as day: nutmeg! I could taste nutmeg. Thinking back quickly to my cooking school courses, a bechamel is often finished with nutmeg. But then it dawned on me that most lasagnas don't use a bechamel sauce. I actually liked the nutmeg in this. It was present just oh-so-slightly, but wasn't too overpowering.

When the waitress came around to check on me, I asked her about both the fennel and the nutmeg. To the fennel question, she said that she wasn't entirely sure, but they do make the meat sauce from scratch in house. When I asked about the nutmeg, she got this stunned look on her face and admitted that yes, there is nutmeg in the ricotta cheese mixture layered between the noodles. She asked how I knew that and I simply answered that I could taste and smell it. She copped to the fact that only a handful of people have ever been able to identify the nutmeg. Who knew?


This is a shot of the side of my lasagna showing the layers of pasta, cheese, and sauce. The pasta had a lovely bite to it, not too soft, not too chewy.

Fortunately, I had more than enough left over at the end of my meal, so I brought it home and will have it tomorrow morning for a late breakfast before leaving for a small trip to Cleveland, OH to have a fabulous meal at L'Albatross.

While the salad and bread was eh, so-so, the lasagna was definitely a winner in my book and I'm definitely eager to get back and try some of the other homemade specialties, such as their gnocchi.

Identity Crisis

I was decidedly in an ethnic cuisine sort of mood today for lunch. As odd as it seems, right in the middle of downtown Massillon, OH is a restaurant that serves both Japanese food and Korean food. Having gone there on and off for lunch over the last year, I'm always surprised that they are still in business as I am often the only one eating there during lunch.

Apparently about 3 1/2 weeks ago, the space being occupied by Lee's Korean BBQ is now being shared with Colucci's Ristorante. Lee's is now open only for dinner, while Colucci's is open for lunch and dinner. They share the space in the evening. So now you can get Japanese, Korean, and Italian all at the same location.

Upon arriving at the restaurant, my first clue that something was up was this sign leaning against the building on the ground:


My server explained how the new arrangement will work. She didn't really go into any reasons why Colucci's agreed to this arrangement, but I have to assume it is beneficial to both businesses.

The lunch menu was pretty straightforward: pastas, salads, sandwiches, and soups. They also have a daily special, today's was Swiss Steak. I asked my server if the restaurant has any specialties. She pointed out that the chef makes his own meat sauce. Lucky for me there just happened to be a spaghetti with meat sauce for $4.99. I also ordered the optional side house salad.

The house salad came with home made Italian dressing on the side:


The salad itself was nothing really special, it's Italian heritage denoted by two slices of pepperoni on top. The dressing was, sadly, too oily and seasoned quite blandly. I will give a slight pass to this though because vinaigrettes are notoriously hard to keep emulsified and as such, the taste I got with my fork before dispensing on my salad may have been tainted by the (small) layer of oil floating on top.

The server also brought out a bread basket:


Italian style bread which was a bit dried out. Fortunately the accompanying pats of butter were softened enough to be easily spreadable.

Finally, the main event:


Now, I have to say that just looking at the plate there are already two strikes against it. Problem one, and this is all too common, is that the pasta is WAY oversauced. Problem two, which isn't so immediately obvious from the photo is the puddle of water underneath the pasta. I know Americans want the sauce on top, but honestly, if done the correct way, the whole oversaucing and additional water drainage issue would just go away.

To its credit, the pasta wasn't mushy and better yet, the sauce was quite good. It actually took the concept of a meat sauce and elevated it by incorporating shredded pork as well. It's probably closer to an Americanized meat sauce with shredded pork than a true Ragu alla Bolognese (too much tomato product), but it was decidedly good nonetheless. The pork gave it an extra layer of texture and flavor and the sauce wasn't overly sweet.

And to be honest, I didn't mind the extra sauce this time around as it gave me a chance to keep tasting the sauce by itself. The meat sauce was definitely the star of the show.

It would be awesome if the chef offered a truer Italian style version of the dish where the pasta was tossed in the condiment before plating, but I guess we can't get everything we want in life.

The server also mentioned they have a garlic and oil sauce that is very good as well. Guess that means I'll have to go back and give it another go.