Europa - What Do You Mean Funny? Like a Clown?

- By Brian Griffin

I don’t ever intend to be negative about the past of the restaurants and nightlife of the Tri-Cities. I think that sometimes it can come across that way when all that I am trying to do is express a feeling of hope about the future. I have been watching closely as the gaps in our culinary scene have been filled in over time. For years, we have had world class wineries, where aspiring professionals could rub elbows with the drunken establishment. At the other end of the spectrum, we have long had countless taco trucks for when you needed a bite, and all you had was the change in your cup holder. Until recently, the gaps between those two were far and wide, with several intervals left unexplored. A lot of that has changed over the last few years. We now have places to get excellent barbecue. We have a place to have a cocktail overlooking the city. Granted, it is just three stories up, but we are doing what we can. Have you ever seen the roof of Lowe’s? I have. And you can too.

One thing that we have not had until now is a great place to not only get some Italian food, but to have a meeting shrouded in secrecy, or to break it off with your mistress. Where were you going to go? The Olive Garden?

If you have some business you need to handle with the family back east, there is a new spot in town. Europa is ambitious. They have a menu of blended Spanish and Italian cuisine, executed exactly the way that you want them to be. These are family recipes handed down over generations. They didn’t tell me that they sliced the garlic so thin that it liquifies in a pan with a little bit of oil, but I can tell that this is the kind of place that does. It’s a good system.

We were having a shady meeting about family business, so we popped a couple of bottles of wine and did this family style.

The Europa Trio is a seven or eight pieces of flat bread served with an olive tapenade, mozzarella, and roasted red peppers. They recommend that it be paired with a salad for a light lunch. That is an excellent suggestion, but we went the other direction. We threw on some sausage and meatballs.

We also checked out the Papas Bravas. This is as essential as you can get, with  sliced red potatoes topped with paprika and a spicy aioli.

For the main dish, I had the Spicy Chipotle Pesto Trottole, and Ginger had the Fettuccine Alfredo. The Trottole was excellent. The one that you order would look a little bit different than mine, because I had to ask them to remove the pine nuts. Nature is actively trying to remove me from the gene pool by murdering me with nuts.  

The dish that really stood out to me was the alfredo. I don’t believe that I have ever been to another restaurant that made a fettuccine alfredo that didn’t have chicken breast. Sauces are an under appreciated facet of any dish. Sure, I appreciate shoveling ranch and curly fries into my face like anybody else, but there is a refined art to the selection of sauces and proteins. The sweetness of the sausage brings a volume to an alfredo that chicken can’t. And by sweetness, I think I mean calories.

But I don’t sit down to a plate of pasta and sausage and think too much about the calories. You only have this one life. You owe it to yourself to enjoy it.