Piccolo's Offers Romantic Setting for Delicious Meal

Not all date nights need to be as thrilling as the one depicted in last year's Steve Carrell and Tina Fey movie, Date Night.

If you've never seen the movie, what is originally intended to be a quiet night away from the kids turns into a thrilling New York City adventure. The quiet dinner-for-two model, however, is not only appealing to me, but my husband as well.

As we debated every local restaurant for our date night last Friday, I recommended Piccolo's Restaurant, in Kinnelon. He had never been there and I, a native, had not been to the Italian restaurant since it was called Lotsa Pasta. Going into the restaurant unsure of what to expect, I can say we had not only a fabulous meal, but we will definitely be back, making Piccolo's perfect for this week's Bites Nearby.

Each week, Patch picks a great restaurant either in town or nearby that is worth checking out. Here's this week's choice:

-Perhaps Smoke Rise residents have it best when it comes to Piccolo's, as the restaurant is located immediately outside the East Gate on Kinnelon Road. Inside, the restaurant is fairly small, with tables so close together, you can almost hear others' conversations on a busy night (true story: a lady at a table next to us was talking about reading Tri-Boro Patch while we were there). Depending on what you're into, this could be a good or bad thing.

Atmosphere aside, the food was phenomenal. My husband ordered a pasta dish with seafood that was the perfect-sized portion and I ordered the cannelloni. Cannelloni is a tube-like pasta that envelopes a cheese filling inside. At Piccolo's, the cannelloni is also filled with chicken and spinach and is served in a pink cream sauce. It is incredibly flavorful, but not too rich.

Our meals came piping hot and fairly quickly, considering we also ordered an appetizer of fried calamari. Also of note is that each entree comes with a salad with a dressing of your choice. The salad is small enough so that by the time your meal comes, you're not ready to burst. Before our meal, we were also served a basket of steamy bread and one bruschetta cracker each.

We were pretty full at the end of our meals, but still in the mood for a sweet treat. It was a tough decision to make after taking a peek at the dessert tray, but we settled on sharing a Tiramisu. Sharing was a bad idea. The dessert was so delicious, we ended up fighting over it.