Our anniversary dinner

Sarasota - Lisa and I chose Bologna Cafe for our anniversary dinner last night (a unanimous choice) and had a great meal again thanks to our hosts, Claudio and Barbara, the husband and wife team that own and operate the restaurant.


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Lisa stayed with her favorite wine in the restaurant--Montepulciano d'Abruzzo--and I went with a Peroni beer. Since it was the middle of the week and we're middle aged and are fighting against our expanding middles, we decided to pass on the antipasto this time, which is by far our favorite treat at this restaurant.

Instead, we had the insalata caprese made with Claudio's own mozzarella, then transitioned to my favorite entree, the Lasagna Bolognese, something you'll never see at Carrabba's. Multiple thin layers of perfectly cooked pasta with great cheese and sauce--Barbara's mother's recipe that seems to have lost nothing in the translation to her daughter. Not to be missed on your first trip to this great restaurant.

Since she had been to Bologna Cafe last Saturday to celebrate our friend Therese's birthday, Lisa opted for the special, a great ravioli with cheese, pancetta, and a rich creamy white sauce. Very rich, very flavorful, and made with great fresh pasta. And she has learned a new word in Italian -- "eccellente."

And since we're not dessert eaters (the whole "middle" thing) or after-dinner coffee drinkers (my bedtime is 9 pm on weeknights), we went with a limoncello, a strong, sweet citrus drink served as an after-dinner digestivo made, in this case by Barbara, from Florida lemons. It is a perfect choice for that one last thing to extend the evening just a little further, especially after one of Claudio's and Barbara's pasta dinners. You can make your own if you want to -- it's easy but takes a month or more of sitting around before it's ready.

And it wasn't until I posted this that I realized that "Italia" is another place that ends with the letter "A."

[tip: order the antipasto for two and split a lasagna if you want to do it all in one night]

Eating Sarasota

Eating and cooking are hobbies that my wife and I share with our friends. My wife and I have other hobbies that we don't share with our friends, but that's a subject for a whole other blog.

Sarasota just happens to be a great place to eat. From the warm hospitality of a place like Bologna Cafe tucked away in a very nondescript strip mall to the downtown sophistication of local celebrity chef restaurants like Darwin Santa Maria's Selva Grill (which used to be tucked away in a nondescript strip mall), we enjoy them all.

As we eat Sarasota, we stumble across the sublime and the bland, the "do overs" and the "never agains." And because the best aren't always the best known, I hope we can help support the "do overs" and keep Sarasota tasty.