A trip to Rabia’s is an experiment in excess. The ceiling is adorned in lavish (and dare I say lush?) faux-grape vines and other artificial vegetation. The food arrives at your table in large serving vessels (“plate” is too humble a term) that are barely able to contain flavors. The food served at this North End eatery does not fit the concept of typical Italian fare in the sense that the pastas, though good, can hardly be considered the highlights of the menu. Opt for a meatier dish instead.

Eating at Rabia’s, you get the feeling that the chef just can’t help himself when creating dishes – think little kid on a sugar high making a sundae – and this joyful exuberance is passed along through the food.

Take, for example, a recent beef special: a char-grilled 8 oz. fillet mignon topped with figs, sun-dried tomatoes and sauteed shitake mushrooms, with a port wine demi-glace served with home-made gnocchi in a gorgonzola cream sauce over garlic sauteed spinach. See what I mean? The chunk of meat was bitter and charred on the outside (that’s a good thing) while obscenely tasty and medium-rare inside (also a good thing). The gorgonzola was sharp enough to cut through the cream, which in turn muted some of the cheese’s pungency, and the gnocchi was just gosh-darn swell. These tiny dumplings stood their potato-y ground against the more intense flavors in the dish and had nothing in common with their often bloated, mushy brethren that give gnocchi a bad name.

The “Seafood Extravaganza” consists of two homemade lobster ravioli topped with everything that swims (cooked to perfection might I add) in a light tomato sauce. There’s so much seafood in this thing that I do believe the chef found a new species or two. Oh, and in case that wasn’t enough, it’s served on a bed of pasta.

At first you’re ashamed of the outlandish food placed before you, as though you were wearing a gold-plated Gucci suit while driving around in a Ferrari Enzo – but then you realize that everyone has acquired the same wealth and dig in.

My only complaint is that the stereo spins some of the oddest, most obtrusive Euro-pop you’ve never heard. My advice? Bring earplugs – or even better, a witty conversationalist – along with your appetite.

A typical Boston winter’s night would be well spent here, since the dishes are quite the rustic comfort. Surrounded by the North End’s cobblestone streets, Rabia’s is the perfect stop on a Dickensian Christmastime stroll. At some point after awakening from your diabetic coma, you can wander out of the restaurant back onto Prince Street and, for a moment, forget where you are.

“When was the last time I had duck with a Grand Marnier sauce and sauteed figs, apples and apricots in the North End?” you may ask yourself, and as you pass by the menus in other joints’ windows, it takes longer than it should to recognize the strangely alien letter formation p-a-s-t-a. Of course, a good pasta dinner has its place, but it seems a shame to trade in good but ubiquitous starch for such extravagance.