eating Italian

Time ran away with us a bit last night, and before we knew where we were, it was time to leave for Morris practice before we’d managed to eat supper; and, of course, it was a night that not only could we not be late, we had to be early, as I had the hall keys. So we each consumed a mini pork pie on the run as we left, and decided to grab something on Princes Ave when we got home.

We have more eateries than you can shake a stick at at the top of our road – Malaysian, Morroccan, Chinese (although it looks as though the Giant Panda has shut down), Thai, Indian, Italian, another Indian, plus an assortment of cafe bars; of the top of my head, The Laundry, Garbutts, Mustard, Pave, Lounge, Fudge and a new one whose name I can’t remember*. Oh, and a chippy and a (very poor) kebab house.  The latter keeps going until god knows when, but having tried it once, never again [shudder]. However, it seems that pretty much all of them stop taking orders at 9, which is a bit anti social when it’s 9.20 p.m. and I want something to eat. All except Da Gianni, who were happy to seat us.

Their menu, together with their Specials board, offered many different dishes, but almost all of them were in a “tomato and basil sauce”.  As we feared, my salmon pasta and Pete’s Italian sausage pasta were pretty much identical except for the last minute addition of – yes, salmon and Italian sausage to the relevant plate; and, when the waiter brought the bowl of parmesan, he actually wouldn’t let me have some as it would “spoil the dish”. There was olive oil on the table, but no bread offered.

So, adequate but hardly inspiring – we shan’t bother again.  Good Morris practice though – coming together nicely!

*Interestingly, while Googling for it, I came across restaurants.co.uk, whose Google entry claims “If it can’t be found on Restaurants.co.uk it’s not there”. Interestingly, they don’t find a single entry for our postcode, which seems a bit of a fail given the above 🙂