Walking into Palermo, I had little idea what I was in for. We had found it on my mom’s iPhone, using the Urban Spoon application, which I had never used before. Needless to say, we didn’t have the highest expectations.
When we got inside, there were quite a few people in the waiting area and they all were drinking wine. Asking one of them, we were told that they were selling wine for a dollar a glass. On a Saturday night! What a great way to start out our night. Despite the number of people, we actually only waited about 15 minutes. No sooner than we sat down, one of the staff came by and offered us a platter of pizza bread, explaining that it was “on the house.” The bread was a little tomato-ey, but it’s hard to complain when it’s free.
After these two pleasant surprises, we got down to ordering our real meal. 
Gazing at the menu, I was torn on what to order. So many things looked deliciously unvegan. Hoping I could find someone to split my meal with me, I ordered one of the only items on the menu without a smaller size, the Tortellini with Meat Filling. For some strange reason, I was compelled to get it with alfredo sauce.
When it came, it was even bigger than I expected. On top of that, everyone had been shocked by the gigantism of their own plates and couldn’t do a thing to help me with mine. I took a forkful of my cheesy-beefy concoction to my mouth and started eating. It was immediately apparent that I went with the wrong sauce. I can’t really blame Palermo for this, as the right choice almost certainly would have been meat sauce. For what it was, however, I have to say that both the tortellini and the alfredo sauce were really good, just not so much when they were combined. Everyone else, who had made more logical orders, loved the meals that they got. I’ll definitely have to go back and make a wiser decision.
As we were winding down, we got our third surprise of the meal. Our waitress came over to our table and asked us if we would like some home-made tiramisu…again, on the house. Never ones to turn down free dessert, we happily accepted the tiramisu. It was quite the way to round out a night of pleasant surprises.
