WHO LIKES MEATABALLS MORE THAN I DO?

"Here is bread, which strengthens man's heart, and therefore is called the staff of life." - Matthew Henry

La Piazza
4990 Kipling St, 303/421-3311

WHEN MAN MAKES MEATABALLS it's a wonderful event. But when he makes the bread to make a meataball sangie with, it's Heaven. La Piazza is pure Heaven.

I luv meataballs. Big ones, little ones, Swedish, Italian, French and Hungarian. Any size and any shape. When they're good, they're great eating. At La Piazza they're maaavelous.

After 18 years working for his uncle in a then tiny fishing village in Mazara Del Vallo in Sicily, Massimo, Crimi came to America and spent six years baking for the Pasquini family on South Broadway. Last year he decided he needed a new career path.

Nevin (Nevinello) Rudloff studied the fine art of restaurant cooking under three (he sez) world-renowned chefs. He also did a five-year stint as a manager with a national restaurant chain whose name we would not disclose for fear my wife, G, would immediately defecate. Last year he found himself needing a change.

Ok, you guessed it. But how did they get together, you ask. Well, Nevin is married to Jeannie who happens to be a well-known cake baker. She has a sister, Lynn. And Lynn happens to be married to a native-born Italian fella by the name of... Massimo Crimi. Voila! La Piazza was born.

But you wanna hear about the grub. The daily menu includes a dozen panini sangies, five great salads, and meataball and sausage sangies on house made subs, cannolis and calzones, and possibly the best pizza in all of metro Denver. Most panini are $5.99; salads $3.50 - $4.95; sangies and calzones, $4.50 - $6.25; pizza comes in 9 inch individual size ($5.00 - $7.75) and 14 inch family size ($9.50 - $14.95). In a dozen visits now I haven't found anyone that can eat an entire individual pizza without help.

There are also six (after 5 p.m.) dinner specials that include a choice of Caesar or Mediterranean salad and house made garlic bread. They are: chicken parmigiana, $10.95; linguine with puttanesca sauce, $10.95; chicken rigatoni, $8.95; cheese ravioli with meat sauce, $10.95; shrimp and broccoli fettuccine Alfredo, $10.95; and spinach and cheese ravioli with sun-dried tomato pesto and Alfredo sauce, $10.95. Whew, They also offer a spaghetti and meatball or sausage dinner ($8.95) all day long.

All the breads and pastries are made here. The wondrous meataballs are made here. The yummy sausage is made outside but to their recipe. All the sauces are made here. Even the croutons are house-made. The prosciutto and cappicolla are the real thing straight from Italy and they serve the best Genoa salami this side of Genoa.

Did I mention pastries? Oh yeah. From the small sesame anise-flavored biscuits (G's absolute fav) to the large portions of tiramisu, and everything Italian in between including my fav, the rainbow cookies. There are Napoleons, profiterols, cream puffs, eclairs and cannolis. And there's cheesecake and a large selection of cookies. And muffins, twists, Danish, croissants. and more.

On my first visit with Salubrious Steve the Squabbish last June, just days after they had opened, the food was superb. I had a meataball sangie on a super toasted hoagie roll with the marinara sauce on the side. The bread was sooo good and the meat had the perfect amount of spice; I never touched the sauce. SSS had an individual Romana pizza and pronounced it to be the best pizza he's ever had. It was sooo good that he brought his wife there the next day for lunch and they live in south Littleton!

Of course I brought the office staff there later that week and G two days after that. And muh bud Dapper Dave, and Big Bad John and a whole host of friends since. Even took five pizzas, three sangies and several salads home for family dinner one Tuesday nite and there weren't nothing left for moi the next day. G had me bring home a loaf of the house made focaccia bread just last nite and called em to tell me how good it was. I of course was not invited to partake. I've eaten most everything on the menu including a plain ol' roast beef panini and even that was outstanding.

Since I am No More Mr. Nice Guy Dining Guy, I gotta say something bad. Yeah, one nite shortly after they opened for business, I took home a pizza that was rather heavy on the oregano. Of course this was the third La Piazza pizza G had in two weeks. G didn't care for it. But of course a week later she suggested (told me) we go there for dinner. I figure Nevinello tossed on the oregano, put on a bunch of other great stuff, and in an SPD (Selective Part-timers Disease) moment, put more oregano on. It never happened again. But at every other visit and every take home order, all the grub has been really good. So maybe you need to go. Be sure to tell 'em The Fox sentcha.

ON A SAD NOTE. Several titans of the restaurant industry passed away very recently and one other major chef owner has major financial problems.

Bobby Rifkin, the man who was recognized as a genius in developing eating and drinking emporiums, died at his home in Florida after a long bout with prostrate cancer. Bobby was best known for his strip clubs and nightclubs, but he always served the (pardon the pun) the finest beef available. I guess some would say both kinds of beef. Bobby also owned and operated, at one time or another, many restaurants that featured food and booze only including Panama Red's, the Boiler Room, The Fresh Fish Company, Pacific Star and Mama Mia!. Of course his most notable establishments were the Diamond Cabaret and Shotgun Willies. Most of the above had been sold the last several years while Bobby retired to Florida for health reasons.

Larry Wright, another restaurateur of local fame, operator of the famed Manhattan Cafe as well as a hand-full of other fine eateries also passed away from the same prostrate cancer.

And the industry is still shocked from the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Kevin Taylor of two of his well-known eateries, Restaurant Kevin Taylor and Jou Jou, both great eateries located in the Hotel Teatro. He also recently closed Dandelion, a Boulder eatery that he operated for almost seven years. and Nicois, a downtown Denver upscale eatery that struggled from its inception barely more than a year ago. Kevin also operates Palettes Restaurant at the Art Museum, which apparently is not affected by the bankruptcy filing. But that's what makes the world go round. I know Kevin will come out of it with flying colors, and Denver will again be dining on the grub that only he can bring to the table.

Cya.