Buca di Beppo : 4 of 5

As soon as I walked in Buca di Beppo and saw the menus hung on the walls, I remembered I had eaten at one in Los Angeles about a year ago, not knowing it was a chain. Austin's version is very cool, with 2,000 hilarious photos on the walls, special tables (such as the kitchen table and the Pope's table - complete with a cheesy bust of John Paul in the middle of a lazy susan!), and huge, huge portions. Everything is family style - you must eat with a group, unless you want to bring home pounds of food. My friends and I had good ol' spaghetti and meat balls with chicken parmesan, along with a side of amazing mashed potatoes, then a huge tiramisu that we could barely touch - all of it entirely tasty. Buca is definitely a place for pigging out and having fun (too boisterous for a date, if I had one).