My wife and I chose to have dinner here again on our last evening in San Jose. It was our first and only choice as our first dinner here a month ago was sensational. I made a reservation early in the day for 6pm and after picking up my wife from her workplace a few miles away we arrived on time. And it was so sweet that Ingrid the wonderful server who spoiled us rotten on our previous visit was here to look after us again. It was already quite packed out so we chose to sit at a cocktail table near the bar.
Ingrid immediately came to our rescue with glasses of ice cold water and a tall glass of sparkling Prosecco for me. I don’t normally drink wine but lately have decided to ease back on my beer intake at restaurants. Ingrid brought a couple of menus for us to peruse including the Dinner Specials insert sheet. Ingrid also explained that the dinner specials were dishes that their Head Chef was preparing specially this evening. A serve of complimentary warm Artisan Bread was brought to our table by a helper. My tall elegant glass of sweet Prosecco tasted very nice. We were both a little hungry but wary of indulging in their delicious appetizers because we both craved for a really nice dessert . . and they have great desserts here !
My wife was eyeing the Fiocchetti Pasta at the very top of Dinner Specials . . the description was simply irresistible to my wife’s taste. I had my eye on the Wild Alaskan Halibut on the same list but also saw another one ( Pappardelle Alexandra ) on the incredible regular dinner menu which looked very tempting. In the end I asked Ingrid to help me decide and the Pappardelle Alexandra won on the day. The restaurant was getting filled to the brim with diners at barely 6.30pm.
This place obviously has a lot of loyal and appreciative regular customers plus Out-of-Towners like us who have a nose for real good Italian food. We had eaten almost all of our warm fresh bread when our incredibly presented dinner dishes arrived together. Soon after I tasted my superb tasting Pappardelle Alexandra dish the restaurant owner Pino was nearby and I told him my meal was fantastic. He shared with us that he himself had created the dish at home and named it for his daughter Alexandra. How cool ! My wife was in love with her Fiocchetti Pasta but did share a sample with me . . it was heavenly ! However we wanted some dessert and my wife simply wouldn’t finish her delicious meal for that reason.
We asked our super server Ingrid to bring us the dessert tray to view. They have a wonderful and unique dessert menu model here . . frozen examples of what is available on the day presented on a tray. Of course even though there were some beauties on there I checked with Pino the owner to see if the Sicilian Cassata Ice Cream ( I had it last time and I had to have it again ) was available this evening. I started reminiscing about when I last had Cassata back in Brisbane, Australia when I was a young.
Pino replied he definitely had some imported Sicilian Cassata out the back for me. My wife selected the Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Cake after Ingrid guaranteed it had fairly heavy Dark Chocolate content. My wife demolished her fabulously decadent dessert and I wiped out my amazing Sicilian Cassata Ice Cream within a few minutes. We thanked our host Pino and lovely Ingrid for our totally enjoyable evening. This classy Italian restaurant would hold it’s own anywhere in the world !
