Richmond Restaurant Rave: Edo's Squid

Like I said, I didn't skimp on the treats this weekend. I only went to Richmond for Saturday night and ended up with two postable stories. It didn't matter that the Superbowl was on Sunday and I'd probably be eating massive amounts of treats.

Basil's been talking about Edo's Squid for a while and decided this weekend was finally the time to pull the trigger and make a res. By the time we got there at 8 p.m. (late dinner for Richmond), the place was packed. Even though we had a reservation, we still waited about 15 minutes because it was just that busy. It was very dimly lit with simple decor like a paper menu on the wall announcing the specials. Nothing trendy about it, which I liked.

My only real problem of the night was that they were out of all of the fish specials. Maybe that's because we got there on the "later" side of dinner? No rockfish, branzino, monkfish or snapper. Lame. I wasn't really in the mood for a heavy pasta, but you don't have to twist my arm too hard to cave.

I settled on the sausage, ricotta and broccoli rabe with spaghetti. Even though this is the opposite of what I was leaning towards with the fish, it was awesome. The cheesy and spicy tomato sauce worked great with the perfectly cooked pasta. And my portion was HUGE.

No frills. Just carbs.

Basil got the more adventurous squid genovese spaghetti, which seemed appropriate at a place with squid in the name. It was much prettier and lighter than my dish (no surprise), but definitely tasty. The calamari tasted very fresh and the caramelized onions, garlic, pine nuts and white wine broth worked really well together. Basically, I'm a sucker for anything with caramelized onions.

"Simple but delectable."

All-in-all, this is a great simple spot for dinner in Richmond. Very filling and extremely reasonably priced especially considering the portion sizes - to-go boxes were necessary. I need to try its sister restaurant Mamma Zu and see how they compare, but I'd definitely come back here if I was craving Italian.

They are so simple they don't even have a website. But check out Yelp for pictures and other reviews.