Went to Carlisi last night for dinner with Kelly and Danielle for the start of my birthday celebrations. Most definitely going to be dragging it out and milking it.
I went to Carlisi with Danielle nearly 3 weeks ago for lunch and really enjoyed it and the dinner menu looked good so thought we would come back. I'd booked a table for 7pm and good job I did because all the tables were full, it was so busy and we were sat upstairs.
We couldn't decide what to get so we got a few different things and just shared it between the 3 of us.
Busiate Carlisi - Traditional Sicilian pasta with garlic, king prawns, white wine, home-made pistachio sauce, topped with burrata cheese & pistachio crumb - Small £9
I think this was my favourite one of the pasta dishes - the sauce was really nice.
Orecchiette Veggie - Fresh Orecchiette pasta with sautéed broccoli, garlic, chilli, cherry tomato, pecorino & parmesan sauce - Small £8
This had A LOT of garlic in and couldn't taste the chilli. Forgot it actually had chilli in it. This was Kelly and Danielle's favourite.
Ravioli Pomodoro - Classic home-made ravioli langoustine, prawns, mussels, filled with calamari with a white wine sauce - £15
The ravioli is different and you have to ask what they have in. At first they told us they had a lobster one and the other was ricotta and spinach but he came back and said it was langoustine seafood rather than lobster. We opted for the seafood option but weird that the veggie one is the same price as that's definitely a lot cheaper filling.
This was nice I enjoyed it and was a decent sized portion for ravioli. Was expecting it to come in a thicker creamy white wine sort of sauce but it didn't but it was alright and didn't feel dry.
Focaccia Pistacchiosa - Fresh pistachio pesto from Sicily, pistachio Mortadella ham, grilled aubergines, burrata cheese & pistachio sauce - £8
When me and Danielle went for lunch we did order this but they didn't have any focaccia so they did it with sourdough instead but didn't realise it was going to come as a sandwich. We though it would be a flatbread style focaccia as it was a bit weird having a sandwich as part of dinner and too filling.
I love the pistachio sauce that's drizzled on top. I could eat that with everything and anything!
Bruschetta Carlisi - Toasted local sourdough bread with mushrooms, four slices of belly pork, burrata cheese & pistachio nuts - £7.95
We really didn't need to order this as it was just too much food. I didn't think anything of this and forgot the meat was belly pork just thought it was ham when it came.
Cannoli - Our authentic Sicilian cannolo are tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet and creamy ricotta cheese, finished with pistachio nuts and a cherry! - £3.50
Pistachio sauce - + £1.50
Hazelnut sauce - +£1.50
The cannoli took ages to come so we thought it would come out warm as the pastry was going to be freshly fried but nope it was cold. I was disappointed with them considering that they say this is what they're famous for. I didn't like the ricotta filling and thought the filling tasted different in each one even though they're suppose to be the same. I did prefer the pistachio sauce over the hazelnut.
We were SO full as we ordered too much food. We should have just had the pasta and not the bread bits as I didn't really enjoy them but the pasta was good. We go the small portions and they were well enough couldn't have eaten the large!
I got a Fantastic Berry Mocktail - Fresh mix of cranberry, orange and pineapple juice blended with passionfruit, grenadine, and lime juice - £4.95
Service was slow - took ages for the dessert to come out and when we asked for the bill they just didn't come back to us to let us pay. They had enough staff to cover just weren't that attentive. Food took a while to come out but we said for it all to come out together, should really have just said for it to come when it was ready.
I would come back again as there are other pastas on the menu that I want to try.
Thanks for dinner Kelly!
