Old Spaghetti Factory – Minneapolis, MN

We took the Delivery Boy to the Old Spaghetti Factory while he was visiting. We were showing him the downtown area and we all had a hankerin for Italian food. We drove by and saw the parking lot was relatively open, so we dropped in.

Brianna, our waitress, was one of those ultra-cute and ultra-bubbly (without being a valley girl) girls who was really attentive. No complaints about Brianna, right Nephew? She suggested a couple of items on the menu and didn’t even mock too much when I ordered a girly drink. In reality, I ordered a manly drink, called Pirate’s Punch, and it was really tasty and fruity, so shut it.

We forewent the appetizer, since we knew we’d be eating a serious amount of food. Gerd got the Manager’s Special (which will make Al crack up), which was a bunch of pasta with two different sauces. She went with the marinara sauce and the Mizithra Cheese sauce. Perfect combination of heavy and light, red and white, and awesome and awesome. It came with a salad and dessert, so she was thrilled. The Delivery Boy and I both got the Spinach Tortellini with Alfredo sauce. It was top notch stuff. Not the best I’ve ever had, but up near the top. The portion was exactly what I expected, though my nephew was a tad disappointed. He sweet-talked Brianna into bringing him another tortellini entrée (for which she gave an employee discount). She was shocked, but impressed. He thought about going for a third to see what would happen, but he had decided on dessert, so he declined. The tortellini was awesome though. Really rich and heavy cream sauce and the pasta was the perfect consistency.

Dessert was a scoop of spumoni ice cream for Gerd and a scoop of vanilla ice cream for the Delivery Boy. Although the spumoni was good, the vanilla was a whole lot better. Not sure why that is – maybe I’m turning into my father faster than expected, but it was really tasty. Might have been French vanilla, but I’m not up on my desserts, so I couldn’t even tell you.

Gerd and I will go here again, most likely. We’ve been kind of hit or miss on Italian food, so it’s good to know we’ve got this one in our hip pocket for when we get the urge.

Top 5 things about The Old Spaghetti Factory
1. Awesome Tortellini dish
2. Pirate’s Punch
3. Décor inside is really cool
4. “Complete Meal” is a pretty good deal
5. Designated parking lot ($2.00)

Bottom 5 things
1. Small portion size (can upcharge for $1.95 though)
2. Spumoni ice cream was a let down
3. Mizithra cheese has a weird straw-like texture
4. Scary guy popped out of nowhere when I was paying for parking
5. Wanted to try like 16 things on the menu (not a bad thing, I guess)

http://www.osf.com/locations/minnesota.html