Growing up in an Italian family, all my family gatherings were centered around food. My grandmother taught me at a young age what a good sauce is supposed to taste like and how to properly salt a pot of water for pasta. 

Throughout the years, it has been a challenge to find great Italian food at restaurants that can rival my grandmother's cooking, so when I stumbled upon Ralph's, a restaurant in Philadelphia that claims to be the oldest Italian restaurant in the US, I was skeptical. By the end of the meal, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find a delicious, home-cooked meal in the heart of a big city.