‘Pasta’
Often when I eat Italian food out, I am left thinking I could have just made the same dish at home. That’s why I usually go for gnocchi, which seems harder to duplicate at home. Nonetheless, When the wife found a little hole in the wall spot called Luciano’s in Pasadena, I wasn’t expecting anything amazing simply because there was too much on the menu. Not only that, the menu made it seem like everything (pizza, pasta, sandwiches) would be wonderful and that is often a bad sign.
Off to the side of Shayside’s Walnut Street is an Italian cafe that goes by the name of Girasole. From the looks of it, you’d expect it to be a little bit dingy and perhaps a little bit pretentious. It turns out it is neither of these things, being both airy and friendly. Yet, I wasn’t looking to make friends, I was looking for some grub.
Sometimes it’s hard to decide where to eat. Sure, I have a list of places, but they aren’t always in convenient locations. That’s when I turn to things like Groupon, because if I’m going out to eat somewhere I’m unfamiliar with, I’ll be damned if I pay full price. On this particular eve, I found a discount for an Italian place in West LA called Campagnola Trattoria.
Near Century City there is a building that only houses restaurants with five letter names that have two of the same letters in a row. It is there that my friends and I dined at Sotto, which finds itself below Picca. ‘Twas a night of the first ever Summer Restaurant Week by DineLA, but these plans had been made without Restaurant Week in mind, so that kind of just turned out to be a bonus…for some people, because I decided to stick to the real menu.
While in San Diego with a couple of runners the night before the Rock and Roll Marathon, we needed some carbs. I wasn’t running, but I am never one to turn down a carbo-load. Knowing nothing of Italian food in San Diego and not really wanting to go to Olive Garden (no offense to the Garden, but we wanted to support something local), we turned to Urban Spoon. Yes, there’s an app for that. This directed us to Volare, a sort of whole in the wall in a sort of sketchy part of town. It looked perfect.
In Santa Monica, there is a little Italian restaurant called Fritto Misto. It’s way to small to handle the people that want to eat there and there are always people wanting to eat there. Why? First off, they only charge 2 bucks corkage fee if you bring your own wine. But more important than that is their actual food.
Yes, you read that right: A First Time for Olive Garden. Somehow this Italian chain restaurant, which finds itself in every big or small city in the country, has evaded me for my whole life. But on Friday that all changed. I found myself at Olive Garden for the first time and I was eager to find out what all the fuss was about. It all started with bread sticks.
On our way out of town via the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, we were in need of a convenient place for a bite to eat. Across the street from the airport, we found the Daily Grill, an mid-level restaurant chain for American food that can found throughout California and a little beyond. As we needed to catch a flight, there was little time to dilly dally and I quickly scanned the menu and found their Penne Pasta with Chicken.
A long long time ago, the girlfriend and I went on a binge of buying up restaurant gift certificates. They would have specials like $20 for $10 and other such things that seemed like no-brainers. Fast forward to six months later and loads of these gift certificates are sitting around collecting dust. We could take it no more and decided to use one at a restaurant called Food Fair by Diego. It is in the strange area that is sort of West Hollywood or Beverly Hills or Melrose or something like that, so even though the name sounded like it would be a pretentious joint (how many typical restaurants put the chef’s name in the restaurant name, it actually turned out to be in a one of those corner strips and was kind of a hole in the wall.
For a quick lunch idea to please a few people, the girlfriend and I decided to pick up food from Corner Bakery. Although the place is pretty well-known for its sandwiches, I was in no mood for such food. Instead, I found that they had a little selection of pasta dishes that looked like a good lunch to me. Of these, the Pesto Cavatappi looked best to me.