Sometimes you just want a big bowl of pasta, preferably the kind with cream or butter in the sauce along with some form of pig meat. You don't like sitting by the pool or beach all that much anyway.

In an image- and health-obsessed world, rich pasta seems to have gone out of fashion. Backers of Italian eateries need not worry, however, because it's still being consumed with gusto. Except now everyone says, "I shouldn't," wincing a bit, before they roll up another forkful of fettuccine against an oversize spoon.

A well-made bowl of pasta can be a complex or simple affair. Either is fine, as long as it falls under $20. We went on a coma-inducing, waist-stretching odyssey to find five of the best.