If you like Italian food, and if you are in Bellevue, the you should try Carmine's. It's more grown up than most restaurants I go to, but we went for my birthday and it was perfect.
Carmine's is a fancy Italian restaurant where the waiters were so nice. The food was good for sharing, and also for people who don't want to share. It was all delicious and best of all they give you a free biscotti when you leave. A biscotti is basically an Italian cookie that usually comes with coffee, but they gave one to all of us.
Now let's talk about what we had:
We started with some Antipasti that we all shared. It was this huge plate with lots of colors like a rainbow of food 🍅🌶️🥦🌾! It had everything zucchini, cauliflower, roasted red peppers, mushrooms, beets and prosciutto. We couldn't eat all of it, but it was so good to keep on the table that I just kept snacking on this stuff through the whole meal. And everything was marinated and tasted delicious, so even if your kid doesn't like to eat vegetables, after one bite they will love this. My favorite combination was go have the red pepper and the prosciutto in the same bite.
After that, I had a clam pasta, my brother had a pizza and my dad had the Osso Buco.
Let's start by talking about the pasta.
Here we go! This super awesome clam pasta was like a splash of the ocean landed on spaghetti! 🍝
It looks beautiful doesn't it. But even if its beautiful, it isn't the cleanest and easiest pasta to eat so my parents helped get all the shells out, but once that was done it was easy and tasty. And so many clams. I felt so lucky. Anyways, the pasta was delicious. - I think it was homemade, and it had yummy sauce. This was such a fancy dish, but really nice to eat. 🐚 Every bite was like a mini adventure to Italy in my mouth, with flavors that remind me of the ocean. 🕵️♀️🌊
But like I said, this place is also good for sharing. So I got to try my brothers Egg & Prosciutto Pizza:
I didn't expect him to order this because he normally just likes peperoni 🍕, but this was delicious. I hadn't had egg on Pizza before. It was like a breakfast dream come true, but for dinner! The crust was all golden and puffy, and really nice and chewy too. Then there was the prosciutto that was laying on the top pizza. It was nice. Hot pizza, cold prosciutto. Yum.
I didn't love arugula and nor did my brother, but it's green and made it pretty! 🌿
But I loved the eggs? They were right in the middle, with their yolks all delicious. Some were runny, some were not, but they were all delicious. 🍳
This isn't just a pizza, it's a whole adventure on a plate and everyone is going to love it! 🌟
My dad had Ossobuco which is made from the leg of a cow.
I only tasted a little bit of this, but the meat was super soft. It just fell off the bone. That said, I thought the dish was a little weird. Pasta, vegetables, and meat all on one plate. And the pasta wasn't very good because it was really plain. But if you just focus on the meat it was perfect.
And for dessert they brought me a cake. My mom loves telling the restaurant that it's my birthday. Thankfully this place only brought cake and didn't sing. It's so cringe when they sing. But anyways, I think this was a sort of Tiramisu Cake and it was totally delicious - and it had no alcohol or coffee because that is gross. On top of the cakey bit was a yummy creamy vanilla layer that was so good. And it had nuts on top. The nuts and icing helped give the cake a really nice soft crunchy texture which is AWESOME!
Ratings summary:
So my rating of Carmine's is that it's a great place for birthday, but it's not a regular place for a kid. There were a lot of people there, and it was fun, but it felt like it was only for a special night out. But great for a birthday. 🎂 🎉
Big menu with lots of choice 📖
Great things to share or to have for yourself 🎉
Yummy starters, lots of pasta's and big pizza's so almost everyone can be happy 🍝 🍕
Big kitchen that you can see into 👨🍳
Nice service, but not very fast 💁♂️
The score:
🇮🇹 🇮🇹 🇮🇹 🇮🇹 - Four Flags for Food
🇮🇹 🇮🇹 🇮🇹 - Three Flags for Service