Pasta Party at Portobello

It seems I am on a journey to work my way through the restaurants at Downtown Disney. As it is undergoing a HUGE renovation to turn it into Disney Springs, things are a bit crazy around there right now. Throw in tourists and horribly hot Florida weather and it isn’t the ideal situation for this gal. But I’m trying to make an effort to learn about ALL the wonderful things around Orlando, even the things by the mouse house.

Pasta Party at Portobello

Last week the Central Florida Lady Bloggers were invited to enjoy an evening of food and fun at Portobello. According to their website “The menu at Portobello was born in the bounty and harvest of the Italian countryside. Celebrating the simplest flavors of Italy; crusty breads, sun-ripened tomatoes, house-cured meats, freshly caught fish, fruity olive oils and sharp, pungent cheeses.” They were not kidding!

Pasta Party at Portobello

As we walked in we were handed a glass of their delicious honey lemonade. Its a refreshing variation of lemonade enhanced with Winter Park Orange Blossom Honey. Hooray for local ingredients! I love honey but would never have thought of putting it in my lemonade. I’m definitely going to try it!

Pasta Party at Portobello

During our event we were able to try a lot of different things. One of my favorite things we got to try was their Chef’s Antipasti Platter which included Prosciutto, Soppressata, Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Toscano, Bocconcini, Olives, and House Made Farmer’s Market Pickled Vegetables. It was amazing! If I didn’t already know that we had lots of other tasty things to try I totally could have made a meal out of that alone.

Pasta Party at Portobello

We were also able to try some of their woodburning oven pizzas, along with some appetizers like eggplant fries and radicchio and goat cheese crostini. The eggplant fries were a HUGE hit (they were so crispy and you could barely tell they were eggplant), followed closely by the pizzas.

Pasta Party at Portobello

The main entree was the Rigatoni Calabrese with housemade sausage. It was so tasty! The housemade sausage was killer and brought an amazing flavor to the dish. One of my friends isn’t a big pasta eater but went back for a second helping just because of all the great things IN the pasta.

Pasta Party at Portobello

And last, but certainly not least, was dessert. We had three options to chose from and thankfully they were sample sizes or I may not have been able to try them at all. We had panna cotta, cannoli, and biramisu. What is biramisu you ask? It is their version of tiramisu made with Orlando Brewing organic porter, ladyfingers and mascarpone cream – talk about some Local Love. I have to admit that the biramisu was my favorite dessert of the evening.

Pasta Party at Portobello

Thank you so much to Levy Restaurants and Portobello for an amazing evening!

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