Me and some of the co-workers (including the one who retired) went out one summer evening to celebrate our friend's bday. He'd just returned from Croatia and regaled us with stories of his travels. I like to refer to him as my 'jet setting' friend. We also wanted one last shebang before most of us got bogged down with work, since the district adopted a new calendar, our first day back would be Wednesday, July 15th. Anyhow, he picked our dinner spot, Arrivederci on 4th in Hillcrest. See Yelp reviews here. Again, awesome face obscuring skillz by yours truly. Who needs Photoshop!
We were so lucky to find a parking spot! Even on a Monday night, it was crowded outside. Having reservations also helped immensely. Here's the interior - with wine bottles galore...
Our bread...
The menu - click to enlarge...I
I got the housemade ravioli - these were huge and had some sort of cheese filling...very creamy and delicious!
Another co-worker got the Penne Arrabbiate - which is Penne pasta with julienne chicken breast in spicy tomato sauce (description taken directly from online menu). It was quite a bit of food...I didn't have the chance to sample this but she seemed to like it. I sampled a few others but not this one.
Here's another entree - the Vitello Picatta Veal scaloppine, sauteed in white wine, lemon sauce and capers. The sauce was really good. That was also the first time I'd tasted veal, which I found tender.
This was the Lasagne del Giorno (the Lasagne of the day). Nothing tastes better than a piece of well made lasagna with oozing cheese drowning in sauce!
Okay, here's all of us in the faux rustic dining area (see the brick cracks?)...Birthday boy is to my left (I'm in the middle).
The service was a bit slow at times. We spent a good 2+ hours here just shooting the shit...It was completely packed when we got there around 7:30'ish. We left close to 10 pm and the crowds had thinned out by then. My co-worker (the birthday celebrant) even bumped into a former student and her mom here. We always joke that we always see at least one of our students whenever we go out. Sometimes, it helps like when we went to see "Little Ashes" at the Hillcrest Theatres. We got comped because a former student was working the booth that day. Nice! Our waiter was very patient with us since we vacillated so much while ordering from the menu. A bottle of wine (trefethen? I think that's what it was called, but not how it was spelled) was ordered but I only took a few sips. I don't really drink so much nowadays. I don't even remember having dessert. If we did have it, I didn't bother taking a photo of it.
In two more days, all of us (except the retired one) would be back at school/work!
No comments:
Post a Comment