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Feasting at La Parolaccia in Long Beach

Filth. Gutter language. Blasphemy.

You can hear it all at La Parolaccia in Long Beach — if you know Italian, that is.

In fact, La Parolaccia means "bad language' in Italian.

"We decided to call it La Parolaccia (pronounced La Parolacha) because when you work, especially in a restaurant today, you always say a lot of those," said Nick Bellazzi, who owns the restaurant with Stefano Procaccini and a silent partner. "Not to the customer, of course."

Another reason for the name is a restaurant with the same title in Rome. "It's been there for over 50 years," said Bellazzi. "It's where the Romans go to dine, not the tourists. There they really insult you. Basically, it's a joke, but they also insult the customers. And the customers can answer back in bad language."

It reminds me of those delicatessens in New York that offer rudeness and insults with their delicious mountains of corned beef.

At La Parolaccia in Long Beach, the staff may cuss up a storm at each other in their native Italian, but they won't insult you, the customer. "At least we try," said Bellazzi.

As bad as the language is, that's how good the food was when I ate there. Procaccini and Bellazzi's goal is to offer authentic food that you can't find at other Italian restaurants in the area, and they've succeeded in not just offering it but also making it delicious.

This is not only from Bellazzi's native Milan or Procaccini's native Rome. The menu "goes all over Italy," said Bellazzi. "We have dishes from northern Italy, from Tuscany, from Southern Italy. A few of them — like the penne arrabbiata, the capellini pomodoro, veal picata and veal marsala — are very popular at other restaurants, but most of the other recipes are mine or Stefano's."

I was disappointed with one of the dishes I had at La Parolaccia, not because it was bad, but because I expected more from it after reading the description on the menu. As for the rest, they were all outstanding. Here's what's worth tasting:

Salmon and fresh tomato with pine nuts. Like most of the entrees I tasted, this was a special. The regular menu has only five entrees, and while they sounded good, the most interesting items when I ate there were the specials.

"I don't use the (gas) grill," Bellazzi said about the salmon. "I don't believe in that either for fish or meat. We can make it, but I try not to, because it dries the meat and fish up.

"What I do is saute the fish in olive oil up and down and then in white wine. Then I put it in the oven. And when it's ready, I serve it with a sauce fresh tomato and pine nuts. The tomato sauce, used in many of the dishes, is made from fresh chopped tomatoes, basil, garlic and olive oil.

Dover sole with pesto sauce. Another special, this tasted good despite the fact that I knew Dover sole was too delicate a fish to serve with such an overpowering sauce. "Because our pesto sauce is made only from basil, pine nuts, very little garlic and Pecorino romano cheese," said Bellazzi. "We cook it with a little white wine, and it doesn't have a strong taste.

"The sole is not cooked in the oven because it takes a shorter time to cook it, and if you put it in the oven, it might break up. We just saute with olive oil and a little white wine, and then we add the pesto sauce."

Filet mignon with red wine and peppercorns. This special was sauteed in olive oil "up and down (meaning on both sides)," and then cabernet sauvignon wine was added and it was cooked in the oven until it was finished to the customer's order. Once it's ready, it's topped with butter and peppercorns.

Mushroom ravioli. An appetizer special, this is usually made at the restaurant, but Bellazzi said that sometimes they have to rely on a purveyor. They make a lasagna style dough sheet from eggs, flour and water and fill with sauteed button mushrooms that have been sauteed, ground up and mixed with garlic, salt and pepper, plus a little parmesan cheese.

The raviolis are boiled in water when ordered and served with a pink sauce made with pear tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic and a little cream. The sauce — like others at the restaurant — is made to order each time. "The only thing we make in advance is we grind up the tomatoes and keep them ready," said Bellazzi, "but we don't cook them."

Pasta fagioli. This traditional bean and pasta soup comes two ways. First the cannellini beans are sauteed with onions, olive oil, parsley and white wine. When the wine is evaporated, a little water is added, plus vegetable stock that's made with whatever fresh vegetables happen to be on hand — they might be carrots, celery, broccoli, onion or potatoes, Bellazzi said. The vegetables are cooked for 25 minutes, then strained out of the stock.

The soup is cooked for only 40 to 45 minutes. "We use the beans in the can because the dry beans would take three hours," Bellazzi said.

Sometimes the bean soup looks red. That's because the chefs sometimes add ground tomatoes to the saute at the beginning. It gives the soup a slight but not overwhelming tomato accent.

Mediterranean salad. "This is mostly served in Italy in the summertime," Bellazzi said. Thinly sliced red onions, sliced Roma tomatoes, Kalamata olives, gorgonzola cheese and fresh basil are tossed with olive oil, red vinegar, salt, pepper and oregano.

Mixed salad. Baby greens, tomatoes and olives are tossed with a dressing of blended balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper.

Capellini con gameri. Shrimp is sauteed in white wine, and then the fresh chopped tomato, garlic and basil are added. The capellini are boiled and added to the sauce. "At the end, we add a little olive oil on top to give it the extra flavor," said Bellazzi.

Gnocchi. This was my favorite, because I'm a gnocchi nut. As I've often mentioned, I haven't found a version of this potato-based mini dumpling in this area that comes anywhere near the gnocchi served at Pomodoro on Westwood Boulevard (not part of the chain of the same name).

Great gnocchi has to be hand made close to the time it's served, and the potato, water, parmesan cheese and flour have to be put together in such a way that after it's boiled, which is just before it's brought to the customer, it has a firm consistency in the mouth that within seconds dissolves into a soft, creamy texture. It literally melts in your mouth.

"We make it in the morning, because it takes a long time to do it," said Bellazzi. "Other times we buy them, because it saves a lot of time. Sometime it's hard to tell people we don't have it anymore."

Maybe what I ate was the gnocchi from a purveyor, but I doubt it. If this dish sounds good to you, I'd suggest finding out from the server whether what's available was made fresh that day or not. If not, skip it and wait another time.

I almost forgot the terrific sauce on top of the gnocchi. "You saute crumbs of gorgonzola with butter and white wine," Bellazzi said, "and then you add a little cream and green peas and then the gnocchi. This is not a dish to eat every night unless you want a heavenly meal that will send you straight to heaven.

Involtini di vitello all'Adriano. This tasty dish, named after Bellazzi's son, was the disappointment, only because of the menu description, which said that the veal scallopines were rolled around fresh mozzarella.

My dish had four rolled pieces. One had no cheese, two just a dab and the fourth a dab and a half. I expected, wrongly, a dish rich with melted cheese — another one to eat with caution. The rolled veal is sauteed in olive oil with white wine, Kalamata olives, capers and the fresh ground tomatoes. The flavor was great, but the cheese was skimpy..

Pear tart. This, and most of the outstanding desserts at La Parolaccia, are made by Pastry Chef Adrian Soto, who comes in during the afternoon after working at McKenna's on the Bay. "I gave him a couple of recipes, and he uses his own also," said Bellazzi. "Sometimes he doesn't even tell me."

The tart is butter crust filled with caramelized sliced pears and served warm with ice cream.

Tiramisu. "That's my mom's recipe," said Bellazzi. Mascarpone cheese, egg yolks, sugar and a little rum are creamed together and then mixed with egg white and whipping cream. Lady fingers are soaked in espresso coffee and put at the bottom of a dish and topped with the cream. Then comes another layer of lady fingers and another of cream, finally topped with a sprinkling of cocoa powder.

Chocolate cake. Soto makes several. What I devoured was a kind of fondant, which is served warm with glazed chocolate on top and a raspberry sauce.

Semi-frozen coffee mousse. "We buy this from an Italian company," said Bellazzi. "We don't have the machinery to make it."

Service was outstanding. The server was also Italian, although his accent seemed to be New York. He was personable and helpful, offering suggestions without being overbearing. His suggestion of a glass of 1999 Barolo wine was the clincher.

The atmosphere at La Parolaccia is cozy and inviting. The restaurant, which was designed by the partners, seemed larger to me than it actually was. Only when you walk through the kitchen to the single restroom do you realize this is a really small room.

Entrees on the menu are $14.50 to $15.75, and that's a la carte. A small salad will cost you $2.25 more.

Bellazzi was raised in Milan. He like to watch his mother cook and enjoyed visiting his grandmother and watching her running the kitchen and dining room of a small hotel on the Italian Riviera. When he was 15, he started three years of culinary school in Bergamo, and then went on to work in restaurants and hotels in Italy, England and Germany.

He came to California to work on the old S.S. Azure Seas cruises to the Mexican Riviera, and then began working at restaurants in Southern California, such as Cafe Rome in Beverly Hills, Il Forno in Santa Monica, Sapori in Newport Beach and Prego in Irvine (where he worked with Enrique Perez of Enrique's in Long Beach).

Between 1998 and 2003, he owned and ran La Fontana in Huntington Beach. Then he took a break in Italy and attended to family matters. When he came back, he and Procaccini began looking for a location in Long Beach "because it's a city where you meet a lot of different kinds of people, and we both thought they they were more open minded and willing to try new things."

Procaccini never went to culinary school. "I learned in the street," he said.

He was working as a life guard on the beach, had another job at American Express and was baking bread at night in a panificio when a friend approached him about opening up a pizzeria/restaurant in Ostia. Five years later, they sold, and he came to Calfornia, where he worked at such restaurants as Il Fornaio before joining Bellazzi at La Fontana.

His last job was working for the Patina Group as a sous chef at Naples in Downtown Disney. In fact, he continued working there for a while after La Parolaccia opened.

But I think he and his partner are going to have their hands full at their new restaurant. The word about their food is getting out, and the little room, which is not open for lunch, begins to fill up soon after it opens at 5:30.

Things get so hectic that maybe the owners or the employees exchange some words you wouldn't want your mother to hear. But don't worry. Unless she studied Italian, you can relax and savor your gnocchi.