Casa D'Angelo New York — Restaurant in New York

Although it was not my first time in New York City, it was my very first time WITH my fiancee in it. Furthermore, in one of my favorite areas of the Big Apple like Little Italy is. This is where some of the most touristic Italian restaurants are located at. One of them is Casa D'Angelo. Despite this is a great eatery for tourists like us, it is one of the BEST restaurants in the Italian section of Mulberry Street. At least in my opinion.

Deciding to eat in there with my fiancée was not easy; however. Furthermore, when you have plenty of options to choose from in this part of the neighborhood. What made us decide to choose this specific restaurant is the fact that you can actually see the pasta artisans in their kitchen with your own two eyes prep each pasta noodle with love and care from their outside window. That was the moment when I suggested this restaurant to my fiancée after touring the neighborhood for at least an hour. Which I recommend you doing as well.

I really wanted my fiancee to eat with me in their outdoor dining area because I wanted to enjoy my meal observing the street where many of my ancestors lived in when they first arrived in America. Therefore, we chose an outside table. Little did we know our server would be somebody who had just arrived from the old country like Vincent is. Although he was still learning the menu himself, he had no problem going back and forth asking his more knowledgeable colleagues for help. The first thing I ordered to start eating was a Mozzarella in Carrozza, or Fried Mozzarella. We enjoyed it with a side of some of their delicious Marinana sauce. We later ordered Calamari Fritti which we really enjoyed with some lemon on top of them. That is what we ordered to start our food journey in this restaurant which I still do not regret choosing.

Vincenzo later recommended us some of his favorites as someone who was still getting used to eating Americanized version of his own food like he was. He recommended my fiancee to choose the Creste di Gallo after he learned how much she loves pesto sauce on her pasta. After she told him she did not want to eat the Creste di Gallo pasta, he offered to ask the kitchen to replace it for Spaghetti like she has eaten it before in other trattorias. She also ordered shrimp as an extra on her dish. He really made her night with the satisfaction she knew she was going to be enjoying in her plate. When it came to my turn, he recommended me to order the Tagliatelle alla Bolognese after I told him I was in the mood for some pasta with red sauce on it. However, I added extra meatballs on it because my favorite Italian dish is pasta with meatballs. I was beyond satisfied but I felt I had too much meat.

Of course, my fiancee and I know about wine pairing so we paired our respective dishes with the wines we had to match the, with. She ordered two glasses of white Italian Pinot Grigio with for both her appetizers and pasta. I ordered a Peroni beer first to enjoy my first meal and the I drank red Chianti wine with my pasta. We are the type of people who enjoy taking photos in some of the best restaurants where we eat, so we asked Vincenzo to take a few pictures of us getting ready to eat. He actually photo bombed a couple of our pictures on purpose, so I'm gonna post it here for him and his teammates to see them. He is a very an amazing young man with a significant amount of potential to become a great one in his industry working in one of the best restaurants in Little Italy. We will definitely be back in our next...

An exceptional experience! We had dinner during the Feist of San Gennaro and created a forever memory.

It all went down like this. First we did a lap of the festival to get our bearings straight. Walking end to end and seeing what is up. We took it all in. Once we got to one end we decided to skip the street food and go for a sit down meal. So we stopped to do a little research of the best spots in little Italy to have pasta and this place ranked pretty high. Well we found out why. We were sat right away and took a table outside. Felt like we were in the middle of the feast. There were crowds on the street and sidewalk. Plenty of people watching to be done but instead we were lazer focused on our conversation and just having a good time. In the background a couple of store fronts down the block, there was a felllah on a mic belting Frank Sinatra and other tunes you would hear at an Italian American wedding. It was great. Live entertainment. The restaurant was very busy but they had enough staff to be attentive to the guest. We were lucky to get the corner table on the street. I felt like I had a little alcove. The table was small but they made it work. Plastic cups for water which under the circumstances makes plenty sense. For dinner we started off with the baked clams. We had seen a few food vendors on the street selling baked clams and I know bae had her heart set on them. Well Let me tell you those clams are the best I have had in a while, maybe ever. They came in their own dish. Soaking in that salty juice. Bonus we got 7 not a half dozen. They threw in an extra small one. The plate had a hard bread just soaking up the juices. They were baked to perfection. I highly recommend this dish. I went with the manicotti. The cheese was so very delicious. Everything tasted so fresh like it was just made within the last hour. Bae went with the pesto gnocchi. Great choice, good for her. That dish was the highlight. Even though my dish was so delicious. I haven’t had a creamy pesto like that in forever. It was so good I licked the plate clean. No shame. Finished off with a coffee. Ended the dinner with a marching band walking by our table. As if...

Very quickly, I had the Cannelloni ripieni all' Amalfitana, way too cheesy. And trust me I love cheese but it was too much and over powering to the dish, grossed me out a bit. Had the Bellini, it was way too sweet, I kept having to sip water in between. Service was fine until the check dropped. What makes me give this place 1 star is the way the manager acted when I pointed out that they are charging a convenience fee when I am paying with a debit card. In NY you can only charge this fee for credit card transactions, this fee does not apply to cash and debit card payments. It is illegal to impose this on non credit card payments. I first pointed this out to the server and he said it applies to all cards (in my head I knew this was wrong but I paid anyway). Did a quick Google search to confirm that I was correct and I asked for the manager since this is definitely not the servers fault in my opinion. Manager also states that the fee applies to all cards including debit, and I doubled down and said no it only applies to credit. The manager then looks to the server and blames the server for charging me the fee. This clearly is not the servers fault and is the managers responsibility to be aware of these laws, also Im sure the server just does whatever the manager tells him to do. Blaming the server for this was silly on the managers behalf and clearly not wanting to take responsibility for it. The server brought out a new check without the fee but did not provide me with a voided/ refund receipt. I asked for the refund receipt for confirmation that the original transaction was voided but the server refused and told me I have to check my bank statement. At this point I was not blaming the server for anything but now im being brought with hostility even though they are the ones illegally charging a convenience fee. So be aware if you eat here that they don't over chage you if you pay with a debit...