An excessive carbonara lunch

I’m so stuffed! It’s my own fault as usual though. The one thing that sticks in my memory about Pappagallos in Aberdeen is that the portions are massive. So why did I choose lunchtime to forget about it?

Sitting in the office, looking out the window at a blue sky I decided I had to get out at lunchtime and I started planning my takeaway. What I should have done was go for that good old lunchtime favourite, a panini. The chicken with mozzarella and sun dried tomato was pretty good last time I had it. Instead I started reasoning with myself that spaghetti was a good idea; I’d had a tough sparring class last night at training and deserved a bit of gluttony and I’ll run it off tonight after work anyway. The usual things we tell ourselves to try and kid on we deserve something we know we probably shouldn’t be eating for lunch.

The order was phoned in and 10 minutes later I picked it up from the restaurant. When I got it back to the office and opened the box I was a very happy man. A massive portion of creamy spaghetti with bacon and lots of chopped parsley was staring at me, unfortunately at this point it was a bit hot after steaming itself in the box for the walk from the restaurant so all I could do was stare back in return. What I should have done at this point is transfer the whole lot onto a plate, rather than leave it in the box. But I didn’t. I’d pay for this later…

So once it cooled a little I dived in and it was delicious. The spaghetti was perfect and the sauce was rich and creamy, with the salty bacon pieces doing a great job of adding some little flavour bombs into the mix. Unfortunately it was still a bit hot so it was taking me ages to eat and the longer it took to eat the more chance the sauce had to seperate. Leaving an unpleasant looking dish which features an awful lot of olive oil in the bottom of the box. Oh well, by this point I was too far into it to care much and it still tasted good. I wolfed down the last big mouthfuls of spaghetti, dug out the remaining pieces of bacon and left the oily excess in the bottom before sitting back with a happy smile on my face.

An hour or two later and I’m at that sleepy stage of over-eating which I’m sure will be familiar to most people. It does not make for a productive afternoon in the office, however it was definitely worth the discomfort and the plus side is it’ll force me to get out for some exercise tonight to try and burn off all that oil! Pappagallos is great value for the quality of the food and portion size, if you’re in or around Holburn Street and stuck for lunch you should pop in or make the trip in an evening. All their restaurant menus (breakfast, lunch and dinner) are available for takeaway and while I might not leave the spaghetti in the takeaway box to eat it next time I’ll definitely be back to stuff my face for lunch again soon.