Last weekend, my "Uncle" John stopped over in LA to visit on his way to Sydney from Toronto. I say "Uncle" in quotes because although he is my mom's cousin, he is much closer to my age.
Anyhow, a bunch of us went out to eat at Terroni on Beverly Blvd to see him off. Terroni is a Southern Italian eatery that originated in Toronto but now has a feisty location by The Grove. It has only been there for 2 months but it is already spilling over with West Hollywood types, boasting a 1.5-2 hour wait for a table. We went with a fairly large party (Me, Steve, Vina, John, Rosanna and Graham) so we were able to sample a lot of different dishes.
The salads there were great... they are extra tasty. We had the Ricchia which was probably my favorite dish of the night. It was a bed of arugola in a zesty lemon and olive oil dressing with mushrooms and parmigiano shavings. We also had the Giuggiolosa salad which ended up being just a mixed green salad. We also had the Calamari alla Griglia which was grilled whole calamari on a bed of mixed greens with a sweet tomato salsa -- very good.
I wasn't too impressed with the pizzas, although with the number of choices on the menu the pizza seemed to be their specialty. We had a Smendozzata which was fresh italian sausage, onions and gorgonzola which I liked. We also had the Natalina which had hot calabrese salami and garlic... I was surprised at how much kick this salami had. It was good, but the thin pizza crust was left in the oven a little too long so the burnt taste of the crust overpowered the pizza.
On to the pastas... can you imagine how full we were at this point? Vina had a variation of Spaghetti Bolognese... the sauce was too sweet for my taste. I like my tomato sauces meaty and cheesy. I had the wild boar lasagna which was interesting because it had a very light creamy sauce and was fairly dry. We also tried some Bucatini All'Amatriciana which was Bucatini pasta with pancetta in a light and cheesy tomato sauce.
I think what finally won us over though was the dessert. We had the flourless chocolate cake which had warm chocolate filling that spilled out into the bed of white chocolate ganache. Yum. On a lighter note, their Panna Cotta was heavenly -- perfect blend of light milk and sweet cheese in a chilled gelatin form.
I'm getting hungry again.
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