Rino’s Place
Dan Andelman: “This is real Italian food from a real Italian family, the DiCenso family. You gotta love these people hard-working, always with a smile, full of personality, and they really know how to cook.”
Anna DiCenso – Rino’s Place: “We are a family owned restaurant. All of our employees basically have been here 10 years. Our food, the quality and the portions. Price wise you cannot beat it.”
Tony DiCenso – Rino’s Place: “Like living back in Italy. Everything’s made to order, pasta and rolled out fresh every day. This and that. Like to order like fettuccine, spaghetti, linguine… I go shopping in the morning. See what they have good like in the market, whatever. That’s how I create my dishes my specials.”
Dan Andelman: “There’s a reason why Rino’s is such a legendary restaurant. Actually there are multiple reasons. But let’s start with just the quality. Every single dish on the menu here is made from scratch. There are Michelin star restaurants in Paris that don’t have sauces as good as the ones they serve right here with Rino’s.”
Anna DiCenso – Rino’s Place: “Everything is made to order. There is not one ounce of food in here that is frozen and we don’t even have a microwave.”
Dan Andelman: “My biggest takeaway here is usually just the size and the enormity of the dishes here. Portions are universally insane. So you are guaranteed to end up with one of the best dinners of your life tonight. And one of the best lunches of your life tomorrow.”
Anna DiCenso – Rino’s Place: “Our portions are gigantic. What I say that people is the only thing that small about us is the inside…. 98% of people leave here with doggie bags. So our portions are huge.”
Tony DiCenso – Rino’s Place: “Honestly I love leftovers the next day, I love it. Always tastes better to me that’s what I think.”
Dan Andelman: “The atmosphere here is totally unique. And this is a small place only seats like 30 or 40 people so it’s small, and the kitchen is tiny. The fact that they are pounding out so much food every night and such gigantic portions all made from scratch out of this little kitchen is almost a miracle. Let me tell you right now. Nobody does chicken parm like they do it at Rino’s it’s over the top. It’s insane. It’s outrageous. It’s irresistible. It’s that good.”
Anna DiCenso – Rino’s Place: “A mouthful of scrumptiousness that’s how I describe our chicken parm.”
Dan Andelman: “Pan Fried golden brown crispy. And this thing literally takes up the entire plate. That’s how big it is. Add in some pasta. Add in that sauce. Add in that melted mozzarella cheese. I’ll have have a lot of respect for you if you can finish that. You’ll want to finish the whole thing, but you won’t.
Tony DiCenso – Rino’s Place: “They go are you serious? Really? Are you okay? I go yeah, that’s how it is.”
Dan Andelman: “Now let’s talk about the dish that really made Rino’s famous. The lobster ravioli. It’s the marriage of Italian food and New England seafood and nobody does it as well as they do right here.”
Tony DiCenso – Rino’s Place: “It’s my recipe and I just wish I never did it. It’s just a pain in the a#@. Excuse me for saying it.. It’s lobster meat. I don’t grind it up fine. The lobster meat we leave chunks. We saute the lobster meat with garlic, shallots. And then we mix it up with ricotta salt, pepper, parsley, grated cheese, and then we’ve let it chill. Then we roll it out the pasta sheets and then fill them.”
Dan Andelman: “Perfect thickness, cooked al dente. There’s big old hunks in there. I’m talking about claw meat,, knuckle meat, big chunks of this stuff. Each ravioli is basically the size of my fist and it comes with eight of them. It’s buttery, it’s sweet, it’s memorable. It’s unlike any other Italian seafood dish you’ve ever had in your life. You literally can only get it here and people fly here from all over the country to eat these lobster ravs.
You want to pasta it that will satisfy absolutely anyone anytime? Get the Bolognese these guys know how to do Italian meat sauce right. It has the beef, the pork, and the veal and you can taste each one of those proteins, distinctly the earthiness of the veal, a little bit of sweetness from the pork, all that savory beef perfectly seasoned. One of the best bologneses you’ll have outside of Bologna.
You a garlic lover like I am? Go for the shrimp scampi…. each one of these beautifully plump, super fresh shrimp pan fried just the right way with so much garlic in it. It is almost overwhelming, but not to a guy like me. It has this toasted kind of garlic flavor to it so it has real depth of flavor. Each spoonful better than the next.”
Anna DiCenso – Rino’s Place: “I don’t know what Chef Hyman does, but he does it well. Definitely a lot of garlic, of course extra virgin olive oil. Oh my god That sauce is unbelievable. We have had customers literally all around the world…. But I’d like to tell people if you never came in and dined with us please do. Our staff is wonderful. Our kitchen crew is top notch… But we’d love to have you come on and we want to treat you like family.”
Dan Andelman: “The food is fresh, the portions are insane, and it is definitely worth the wait for a table at Rino’s.”