Mirko Pasta: Lots of Good Food for Families

There’s more than just music, bubbles, chalk drawings and good cheer to enjoy Friday night during Ansonborough Alive. There's good food as well. 

Ansonborough is a mixed-use complex on Gaines School Road near Cedar Shoals Drive. Sure, you can hear music by Mr. Jordan and Mr. Tonks, but you can also eat free ice cream supplied by The Little Ice Cream Dude, get free hair care products from Revive 2 Salon, get your face painted and buy food and beverages from the various restaurants in the complex. The festivities and music are from 6 to 8pm.

When the dust settles, you should return sometime to Mirko Pasta. It offers a lot of different Italian dishes, but pasta, as the name implies, is the main focus. The place has more kinds of pasta than you can shake a chunk of Parmesan at. 

The drill is that you visit the front desk, where you place your order (a server brings it to you), choosing your pasta—short, long or filled—and then picking a sauce. Add a salad and maybe an appetizer or two and you’ve got a meal for a family.

Or maybe two meals. Especially if the hungry children who eat only whole wheat bread at home inhale the “squishy” rolls and fill up on them before the food arrives.

One of my daughters had ravioli filled with various cheeses, with an Alfredo sauce. Her sister chose egg tagliatelle with pomodoro, a “classic” tomato and basil sauce. Both girls ate almost half of a large order. I tasted both, and they were yummy.

I had an insalata gloriosa. We were eating outside, and it was so dim that I couldn’t really see what I was eating, but it all tasted good. The greens and the vegetables were crisp, much preferable to the limp, defeated, in-the-bowl-for-hours vegetables sometimes afflicting salads.

My husband had ravioli filled with eggplant and herbs, with a Norma sauce—tomato, eggplant, Sicilian fresh ricotta and mozzarella. If you like eggplant, you’d agree that his plate was the most delicious of all. To every dish, you can add chicken, shrimp, sausage, salmon or meatballs, if you fear you won't be filled.

The restaurant has a children’s menu, which offers good, affordable Italian food, but no, fortunately, chicken nuggets. The four of us paid about $30, with tip, and had food left over for lunch the next day.