Starchy, Starchy

Last night, after poking around the bookstore, my Beloved finally got her desire to have dinner at Buca di Beppo. She's been talking about it since we moved up here, but we hadn't made it there yet. Under serious protest from grumpola Pie, we dragged the kids there instead of feeding them at home. Pie remained grumpy through the meal, but Boot really liked it there. The fun, kitschy atmosphere appealed to him. In fact, he asked tonight if we can go there again soon. Last night, when J said something about getting it to go sometime, he said, "No, no, the whole fun of it is eating here." The food was fine, but not spectacular. I expected, based on our previous Buca di Beppo experience, nothing more than what we got: Italian the way people's white bread moms used to make it in the 1970s when I was a kid. Boot loved his cheese pizza, which he shared with Pie. Pie ordered lasagna & we all nibbed some, since he had enough for 48 people. J & I had the penne cardinale, which has chicken, cream sauce, artichokes and crushed red pepper for some bite. We had garlic bread with cheese for our appetizer and chocolate Vesuvio for dessert. I found the cake-brownie thing in the dessert to be incredibly dry and the caramel sauce to be sadly sparse, but Pie devoured it. Tonight, there was plenty left for us each to have big portions again for our dinner. The boys shared the remains of the lasagna & we had the penne, with a nice Caesar salad & some Italian bread with olive oil dipping sauce.