Carmine's Italian Restaurant

My husband my best friend and myself are spending a week in Washington DC and this particular night we were in the mood for some pasta and happened on Carmine's Italian restaurant. What a treat! It couldn't have been more authentic even down to dishing up our pasta right at our table. I'm getting ahead of myself, it started with 3 different types of bread with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip it in. The bread was to die for I would have been happy with just that but we came for the pasta and pasta we had. The dishes are served Family Style. We ordered the Penne al la Vodka and it came in a big platter enough to feed four. All the dishes come that way. The pasta came with a beautiful rich creamy vodka sauce over perfectly cooked pasta. Moans were heard around the table with every bite. We also had the breaded veal cutlets. Krispy, well seasoned, and cut-with-a-fork tender. They also have traditional Italian desserts but we were too full to consider it tonight. The staff went ou

So much food. Serve many portions. The courses were a great variety, salads, muscles, shrimp, fish, pasta, lasagne, fresh fruit, dessert, beverage. All you could eat. Went as a group to celebrate graduation. Servers were awesome, attentive and made sure we had extra portions if we wanted. Would highly recommend even though price per person was $70. It was worth it. Vegetarian options: Were available. Pasta and salad, fresh fruit. Kid-friendliness: Family restaurant. Parking: Not that great. Located in downtown. Had to go to parking garage. Wheelchair accessibility: No. I was surprised. There were steps you had to walk down and very crowded space. Not wheelchair friendly.

We never heard about Carmine’s so we decided on a whim to visit the restaurant. Talk about lucky! The idea of the menu is that you share the meals with the people at your table. Normally we’re not really into that but sure: why not for a change? We were warned by our FANTASTIC waiter Kevin that the plates would be big. He was almost correct: they were HUGE! We had the lasagne and this could easily feed 3 people. The concept of sharing your meal was actually really nice and it helped set the mood for a nice family meal. Although we were quite full we were surprised by an equally huge dessert which was called the boat I think. It turned out there really is always room for ice cream. A lovely cake at the bottom with vanilla and chocolate ice on top of it, whipped cream on top of that and some strawberries and chocolate sauce. Mmmm!!! Absolutely delicious! Last but certainly not least I have to mention that the toilets were the first clean ones I encountered in DC. I highly recommend this