The Rinaldi Cafe has a small dining room and a large bar, both rooms with lots of booths and a few tables. The bar is large and square and dominates the room. The Christmas lights were still up – I think they might be up all year round. This is a middle-class Italian restaurant in an Italian town, ready to serve lots of people. The wait-staff is friendly and helpful. There are small, unobtrusive TVs and music (Dean Martin-type stuff, not too loud). The customers are older, white-collar folks, and it was mid-week, so not too many folks.
You have a choice of pasta with your meatballs – spaghetti was not a choice, so I chose linguini. It was fine – not too hard, not too soft. The most interesting thing was the plate. It was large, with about a 2” lip all around, with little, tiny specks everywhere, presumably basil. I assumed they are for looks only. Anyhow, even though the sauce looked like ketchup, it actually had a good, strong tomato taste. The meatballs – two large ones – were good. They were nice and firm, not too bready, slightly tasty and consistent all the way through.
The salad was a garden salad, cold and crisp with a cherry tomato cut in half and one slice of onion – all in the house dressing, a creamy balsamic. Actually, it was very good.
The glass of Chianti was ok, but nothing that my mother would be interested in (except the quantity was great - a big glass, filled full).
The price was $11.00 for the pasta, $5.00 for the wine, plus tip.
Style/ambience ***
Food ***
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