Restaurant Challenge #001: Tutto Bene

Veggie-Bacon Restaurant Challenge #001:
Tutto Bene, Arlington, VA

As part of our mission to make vegetarian food easier to eat, this is the first in our series of local restaurant reviews. Rather than just reviewing how good the food, service, price, etc. is, we’re going to let you know how easy it was for us to find delicious vegetarian options.

One of the first questions that you get asked as a vegetarian is, “how hard is it for you to go out to eat?” We don’t know about you, but going out to eat is one of our favorite things, and we totally weren’t about to give it up when we gave up eating meat. But we were both pleasantly surprised to find that it’s very rare to go to a restaurant and not find anything on the menu that we can eat. Sometimes we have to be a little bit creative (we often eat an assortment of appetizers or sides for a meal, rather than ordering an actual entrée), but we’ve found that often these meals are our favorite ones.

We love going out to eat, but it can be really hard to convince non-vegetarian friends and family to come with us to vegetarian restaurants. This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t go out to regular restaurants with them and find plenty of veggie options! To make this a little easier, we’re going to try out some local places and let you know whether we think you should try them out or skip them.

Last Friday, Katie and I went to Tutto Bene in Arlington, VA (http://www.tuttobeneitalian.com/ABOUT_US/about_us.html) for the rehearsal dinner before our friend Carla’s wedding. Tutto Bene, we discovered, is a small hole-in-the-wall type Italian restaurant in the middle of Arlington, near Ballston mall. For a Friday night, the place was practically empty, which left the bartender and our server free to be extra attentive to our party. That being said, the service wasn’t fabulous, but it wasn’t awful either.

Tutto Bene offered the following vegetarian entrees:
Eggplant Parmigiana
Grilled Vegetables
A Risotto of the Day, which happened to be Vegetable
Spaghetti with Marinara
Cheese Ravioli
Gnocchi with Marinara
Manicotti
Ravioli Alla Panna (Ravioli with cream and cheese)
Fettucine Alfredo
Capellini with tomatoes, garlic, basil and olive oil

They also offered a margherita, veggie, and white pizza, as well as several meat-free soups, salads, and appetizers.

All in all, we were impressed with the vegetarian options available. Italian restaurants, though, are often pretty veggie-friendly. There are usually several meat-free pasta and pizza dishes to choose from. This one offered most of your typical vegetarian options that you’re going to find at the neighborhood Italian place (spaghetti with marinara, cheese pizza, eggplant parmigiana, fettucine alfredo). We were pleased to see some options that were a little less conventional, however, in addition to these classics.

For an appetizer, we split the fried zucchini. It wasn’t the best we’d ever had, but it wasn’t the worst either. It came French-fry style (cut into sticks), and was a bit greasy. The breading was good, though, and so was the marinara that came with it as a dipping sauce. There was a ton of it, too, which made us happy (we hate small portions!).

For our entrée, we ordered the Grilled Vegetables. We thought this dish sounded a little weird, so we had to try it. Once again, we were pleasantly surprised! We had visions of a pile of soggy vegetables on a plate, but this was far from the truth. It was a beautiful dish of perfectly grilled vegetables arranged on a bed of linguine, topped with a generous dollop of goat cheese and covered in the same great marinara that came with the fried zucchini. When Katie cut up the vegetables and stirred them into the goat cheese and marinara, a chunky, rich sauce was created which was delicious with the linguine. She ate every bite! This dish was definitely a hit.


The Veggie-Bacon verdict: Tutto Bene was a success! There were plenty of options for vegetarians and for carnivores, and the old stand-by veggie options were supplemented with some creative and tasty meat-free dishes. We’d definitely go back.