Chicago (Italian) - Rosal's

Rosal’s
1154 West Taylor Street, Chicago, Illinois; Phone 312-243-2357
Date of Review: May, 2008

Rosal’s is on a nice stretch of Taylor that has homes interspersed with restaurants and other businesses and this helps to give the restaurant a neighborhood feel. Rosal’s is a no frills spot and doesn’t have the imposing feel of the larger restaurants in the area (Tuscany, Rosebud) but offers a homey, simplistic alternative. This is the kind of place where they occasionally play Dean Martin or the theme from the move the Godfather as you enjoy your meal. It is the kind of place you take someone special. It is old school and you feel it as soon as you walk through the door and look to the right and see the 10-12 tables amid 2 walls covered with pictures of the owner’s childhood friends. You will feel it even more when you make your first trip to the bathroom walking across the uneven wooden floor and get to peak into the kitchen to see their wonderful home cooked food being prepared.

As is customary at many Italian restaurants, a basket of warm crusty bread is placed on your table with a little plate of olive oil and fresh parmesan. For some, this is more than enough of an appetizer as the pasta dishes are fairly large. Speaking of appetizers, the massive portion of bruschetta is outstanding and features a heaping file of fresh tomato “relish” piled on top of that same wonderful bread. The portion is so large I saw one woman eating it as her dinner. For a lighter option, the special salad is $4.95 per person and features quartered tomatoes, olives, peppers and onions served over assorted lettuce in a nice, slightly sweet Italian dressing. There are bits and pieces of pepperoni and cheese in the salad, but they are few and far in between.

Since I almost always focus on the pasta here (the other dishes are also good), I will focus on the dishes that I have particularly enjoyed. The Broccoli & Shrimp Olio e Aglio consists of Gulf shrimp, shells & broccoli tossed with fresh peeled garlic and extra virgin olive oil. This dish had just the right mix of each ingredient and the home made shell pasta was perfect. The Scallops & Sweet Roasted Red Peppers features 6 gigantic bay scallops and roasted red peppers over pasta in a sauce of garlic & extra virgin olive oil. The scallops were sweet and tender and the roasted red peppers were plentiful as they were threaded through the perfectly cooked home made linguini. The only area of concern I had regarding the dish is that there was a bit too much olive oil in the sauce for my taste. Usually, I would be taking an extra piece of bread and sopping up the left over sauce on the bottom of my dish. However, on this evening, I looked down at my plate and decided I had enough. The Rigatoni Diablo features wonderful flavored sautéed shrimp (but only 3) with a generous portion of juicy chicken amid fresh rigatoni in a spicy, chopped tomato plum sauce. The portion was large (their portions are large but not obnoxiously large like at Maggiano’s) but I finished everything on my plate. My girlfriend's favorite Italian dish is seafood pasta as she tries some variation of this dish religiously (despite my objections) at every Italian restaurant we visit. Naturally, she chose the Linguine Ai Frutti di Mare which features sautéed Shrimp, Scallops, Mussels & Clams in marinara. She found the fresh tomato sauce to be a touch creamier than what she is used to having, but really enjoyed the thickness and richness of the sauce which was a nice compliment to the seafood. The only thing that was a bit disappointing to her was the pasta noodles. She found the home-made linguini to be a touch soggy, (not al dente) although I found it to be to my liking. Ivy claims that, “with linguini cooked al dente, this would have been the best seafood pasta I have ever had in Chicago.”

The price of the entrees is about what you would expect. On one occasion, we had two $18 pastas entrees, 2 beers and 2 glasses of wine and the total bill was $75 including tax and tip. On another occasion, we had the special salad for 3, 3 pasta entrees and 3 glasses of wine for $99 not including tip.

On the last Tuesday of each month, Rosal’s has an 11 course Big Night meal for $65. This meal features some of the dishes prepared in the movie Big Night and is a tribute to that film which shows 2 Italian brothers in the run up to opening their own restaurant.

The pictures on the wall in the dining room are of the owner’s childhood friends and of other important events in their lives. There is a beautiful picture of the Dolomite region of Italy (which my family hails from) hanging in the bathroom.