According to the menu at BB’s restaurant in Leitchfield, the Italian translation for panini is hot sandwich, the Kentucky translation is dog gone good, and the luck of finding a one-of-a-kind mix of country cooking and Italian cuisine is not luck at all, but a hot restaurant tip from a good friend – a friend who knew I’d seen Tony Bennett in concert recently and was still on a high from his humble Italian presence.

Even the décor at BB’s mixed both country and Italian, with lightly colored country wall paper and ivy vines across the ceiling. The aroma of Italian spices wafted through as we entered and the tables were full of country families by the time we left, despite the fact it was a wet, rainy weeknight.

Our first Italian/country cuisine was an order of deep-fried cheese ravioli with a homemade marinara sauce for dipping. For me this was a lighter alternative to cheese sticks that require breading because the ravioli pasta had a crispy thin outside with seasoned melted cheese on the inside.

With 15 to choose from, I was tempted to order another unique appetizer called Bosco – deep-fried Italian breadsticks stuffed with mozzarella and topped with parmesan. I decided I’ll go back another time and order this appetizer with one of their many salads – perhaps one of their two spinach salads, Caesar salad or a feta cheese and portabella mushroom salad with romaine lettuce, sun-dried tomatoes, rotini pasta and sunflower seeds – wow!

My dining companions and I opted for pasta, for the most part, and one Italian steak hoagie. This was a flame-broiled steak, mozzarella cheese and homemade pizza sauce on a toasted kaiser roll dressed with lettuce, tomato and red onion.

One of the chosen pasta dinners that was strictly Italian was the DaVinci’s chicken pasta Florentine. It combined a creamy spinach sauce, grilled chicken, artichokes and parmesan over a bed of fettuccine noodles.

You can add a little country to this dish, if you’d like, by ordering the &#8220bluegrass” baked pasta bowl called the Big City Spinach. This is what I ordered, while another dining companion ordered the country carbonara pasta bowl with grilled chicken, bacon and fettuccine in a cream sauce. For me the name of this dish alone summed up the country/Italian combination of these pastas served in a bread bowl.

Finally, the only child at our country family table had arrived home from school asking for spaghetti and was pleased to find this very dish on the little bambino menu at BB’s.

I purposefully have not offered a lot of specific feedback about the food to this point because the ingredients speak for themselves. The combinations were unique, well-thought out, flavorful and well-balanced in every dish.

Overall, though, the food is heavy – very heavy. The cream sauces are extremely thick and the added pieces of bread that come off in the bread bowls made it even heavier for my palate and stomach to take in. Most of the food is fried, has a heavy sauce or contains high fat meats like salami, pastrami, ham, pepperoni – or all of them combined. I did mention the salads, if you want something light, but even most of them have bacon and/or pasta. I would suggest you arrive hungry.

Possibly contributing to the heaviness was the fact that three of the four pasta dishes were lukewarm by the time they were served. The spaghetti sauce that was served with buttered garlic bread when we sat down, with the ravioli appetizer and on the hoagie, was an appetizing blend of tomato sauce and Italian spices, but there wasn’t enough of it on the slightly warm bambino spaghetti, making it dry.

The prices at BB’s are the most reasonable I’ve seen, but be careful – adding a dinner salad will cost an additional $3.99. It is well worth it, with baby greens and fine-tasting dressings, but can easily be split and enjoyed by two, or even three.

The overall dining experience at BB’s was satisfying and delectable. The service was a little slow, but friendly, and even though we had not complained, our waitress apologized while letting us know she would not be charging us for our drinks and dessert as compensation. This was a perfect end to a pleasurable meal offering a final blend of country charm, European style.

BB’s Italian

706 S. Main St.

Leitchfield, KY 42754

(270) 259-0725

Hours: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Cuisine: Italian

Specialties: Pasta, steaks, seafood and pizza

Price range for meals: $5.99 to $12.99

Smoking: No

Libation situation: None