the rosebud.

the summer of italian continues ... 

there's a very well known italian restaurant group in chicago known as rosebud. each of their restaurants (except one) are called rosebud. there's rosebud prime, rosebud trattoria, rosebud express ...

but the original restaurant is the rosebud, located in chicago's little italy neighborhood (also known as university village nowadays), right on taylor street.

we recently visited the rosebud for a birthday celebration (happy birthday, katie!) ... and were hungry and excited for some authentic italian cuisine. the rosebud did not disappoint. here's what i had ...

tomato & onion salad + fresh basil :

wow. for something so incredibly simple, this was so incredibly delicious.

all super fresh and crisp ... just very flavorful. i saved a few bites of tomato to add to my ...

vegan & gluten-free pasta with garlic white wine sauce :

very light pasta & very light sauce.

the only vegan pasta they had was also gluten-free. so not really an option there, but that's okay. this was my first time with gf pasta and i must say, i was very pleasantly surprised! it was much less dense than i expected it to be. and really, quite tasty. (even josh liked it! which is saying a lot.) the sauce was also very good. the kitchen modified it to cut out the dairy and it turned out perfect. i mean, you can't really go wrong when a dish includes white wine, garlic and olive oil.

remember how my only complaint with rpm italian was that the portion size was too small? this is absolutely not the case at the rosebud. their servings are huge, almost ridiculous. i've got plenty of leftovers (a.k.a. meals for the next two nights) ... which i couldn't be more pleased about. yum. 

so if you're really hungry for italian ... the rosebud is a great place to try. especially for all you gluten-free vegans!