Parma 8200

Parma 8200
5600 West 83rd Street, Suite 100
Bloomington, MN 55437
952.896.8888

Last Saturday night, my husband and I made a last minute decision to check out Parma 8200, the new D’Amico restaurant near Normandale Lake in Bloomington.  We live just down the road so I’m happy there’s something new and exciting in our neighborhood.  That doesn’t happen very often.  To have Parma 8200 and Grand Szechuan open so near to us within the last year is almost more excitment than we can stand.

Because it was Saturday night, we knew we’d have to eat in the bar.  When we arrived the hostess let us know that the full menu was available at the bar.  The place was hopping and the bar was loud, but it’s the price we paid for a rare moment of spontaneity.  Captain and Diet seems to be the drink of the moment.  Really?

As I am always the designated driver, I started with a vanilla bean Dry Soda, which was lovely. 

Complimentary cheese bread is served, although we only received one small plate.  I’ve heard from a friend that when she dined there the cheese bread just kept coming to their table.  It was tasty, but mostly gone by the time our antipasti arrived, a grievous mistake on our part as you’ll soon read.

We decided to share a couple of antipasti and then decide whether we wanted to have anything else.

I have to say that the Blue prawns baked with tomato, feta, garlic and Calabrian chile oil ($13.50) landed with a thud.  Four very small “shrimp”  were beyond overcooked in a parchment paper package.  The sauce was drinkably good, tangy with fresh cherry tomates, feta, garlic and tarragon.  I didn’t pick up any heat from the chile oil.  It was served with some crostini, but I would have prefered some hunks of Italian bread to sop up all that bright tasting sauce.  I kicked myself for not sending it back.

We liked the Asparagus, burrata, hazelnuts and brown butter ($12.50) much better, but again, I could have cried for lack of bread to sop up brown butter.

We split the Meatball sandwich with provolone and marinara ($14.00). Fresh tasting, moist meatballs on a nice chewy roll (which would have been great for sopping up antipasti sauces) with a side dish of a deliciously chunky marinara sauce.  You can tell meatballs have been made with care when they’re almost fluffy, not dense.  We loved it.

I didn’t have room but still managed to polish off the Milk Chocolate cremosa, coffee semifreddo, hazelnut croquant ($7.00).  The cremosa was silky and smooth, more like buttercream than mousse.  The semifreddo was as light as air and the hazelnut croquant struck the perfect balance of sweet and salty to cut the richness of the other components.  The only thing that was off was a paper thin slice of toasted ciabatta stuck into the cremosa.  I decided to ignore it and set it aside.

So, all-in-all, it’s a welcome addition to the neighborhood. The service was friendly.  I’m looking forward to occasionally stopping in, even if it’s just to order dessert.