Grassa review -- Cheap Eats 2015


Pasta for the people

1205 S.W. Washington St.

Depending on how much effort you're willing to expend, there are a few different ways to get primo pasta on the cheap--watch a YouTube tutorial then commence cracking eggs into an anthill of flour, persuade an Italian friend to invite you to dinner or just queue up at this high-energy downtown pastaria. Order at the register, take your number, then make your way to a communal table in the boisterous industrial-chic dining room, or, to pick up a few pasta-making pointers, sit at the counter beside the rolling rack stacked with trays of radiatore and rigatoni and watch the well-oiled (literally) kitchen machine churn through tickets. Spanking fresh handmade noodles are the draw here, so sample the rich fried-egg-capped carbonara, decadent pork belly mac and cheese and delicate veal agnolotti in brodo freely, but if you've got a noodle abstainer in your midst, one of the simplest and most satisfying $10 meals around is Grassa's warm, chewy-crunchy garlic bread paired with a side of chef Rick Gencarelli's much-loved house meatballs.

Order: Garlic bread, meatballs (or the adult-sized spaghetti and meatballs), pork belly mac and cheese, carbonara, veal agnolotti in brodo.

-- Jen Stevenson