I had the pleasure of joining my co-worker John and his wife Sara for dinner on Friday night in downtown La Jolla. Being that it was a hoppin' Friday night and we neglected to make reservations, we had to visit a couple of places before finding a spot where we could get in with less than an hour's wait.
This is how we ended up at this quaint Italian place. John and Sara had been there before and noted that the food was pretty good. However, when we walked in, the place had live Italian singing, which I thought was marginal (at best). We took a quick seat and enjoyed some bread with this phenomenal tomato-basil/olive oil dip. This dip was probably worth visiting the restaurant in and of itself.
However, as we continued to chat and wait to place our order, I noticed that the singing continued, with varied singers getting up to make their contribution. Some were notably worse than others (translation - some were tolerable and some were outright horrible). Our table wondered if we would get kicked out for turning off the speaker that was (unfortunately) facing our table, blaring the hideous music in our ears...
So overall the restaurant was pretty good - outdoor seating, righteous tomato-basil dip and quality entrees. I did, however, make one critical ordering mistake - including calamari steak in my order. Sara tried to forewarn me that calamari steak was not as tasty as the calamari you get as an appetizer. Despite this warning, I proceeded to order it as part of my seafood meal. I found out that Sara was being too nice - the calamari steak reminded me of the smell of cat poop.
Please, take this advice: never order calamari steak. Also - take note of any live singing that is going on before you commit yourself to spend a meal near a large speaker! Fortunately, I had great company...
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