Austin Cook
Equinox Staff
Papagallos is an Italian restaurant on Monadnock Highway. From the college, you just cross Route 101 and go straight for about 5 minutes. You will see it on the right side of the road next to the waste management depot. It is a large brown building that stands by itself. There aren’t any distinguishing features except a restaurant sign by the street which has a large yellow and blue parrot in the middle.
The hostess greeted me as I walked in and she sat me in a booth by the front door. There are a parrots hanging from the ceiling throughout the restaurant. Other than the parrots, the restaurant had a true Mediterranean look and feel to it, with natural stone work on the walls, and dark wood trim. There was a full bar, and it looked amazing. It was built into an extremely large artificial tree. The tree acted as a support for the ceiling. The bar stools were full back bar chairs with a burnt wood finish.
The menu offered some traditional Italian dishes, pizza, sandwiches, and a set of limited seafood option. I was looking for a steamed mussels dish, such as mussels Italiano or mussels in a white wine sauce, but these were missing from the menu. They has several pizza options that ranged from traditional pizza, to pizza with pesto and shrimp topping. The menu seemed to be geared more as a family restaurant with Italian food mixed into it, than a true Italian menu.
I started with minestrone soup and bread. Soup and bread were included with the dinner entrees. This was a hearty and filling soup complete with kidney bean, pasta, tomatoes, celery, onions, and carrots. The bread was fresh and paired well with the soup. I was really impressed with the soup. It was simply delicious.
For my main dish, I ordered the veal boscaiola. This dish was made with ziti, sauteed veal served with mushrooms in a buttery garlic marsala wine sauce. The menu said this was a white wine sauce, but there was no mistake, that it was marsala wine. Overall the dish was OK, but the marsala wine overpowered the entree and some of the veal pieces were more gristle than meat. The pasta also seemed to be cooked inconsistently. Some pieces were too al dente and some were over cooked. The dinner was $20.99 excluding tax. This price is in line with higher end Italian restaurants.
The waitress was prompt, but she wasn’t very welcoming. I know I was just one person, but it seemed like I was more of an inconvenience to her than anything else. Also the manager came by several times asking if everything was ok, which really interrupted the dinner. This made the visit a bit awkward.
This is a good place for soup, and possibly pizza. The pizza that people ordered looked really good, but I was disappointed with my main dish and found it over-priced. The interior was very nice, but the waitress made the visit awkward. Maybe if I sat at the bar and had pizza I could recommend Papagallos, but based upon my meal, I don’t recommend this restaurant as a solo restaurant, it’s more of a date or family occasion restaurants.
Austin Cook
can be contacted at
acook@kscequinox.com
