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| - I went here with my family before I met my wife and I remember enjoying the atmosphere, the service, and the food. I called the day before to confirm our reservation for two. Their dining room isn't huge, but every table is really comfortable. I'm glad we were seated in a booth as this is always our preference in restaurants. The table itself had padding on top with a white table cloth on top of that so when you rest your elbows on the table it's actually comfortable. We just had regular waters and luckily they didn't taste like nasty Arizona tap water. It tasted like filtered water to me which is a big plus because we have a reverse osmosis system in our house so we're very sensitive to tap water taste when eating out.
My wife ordered a Ravioli ai Funghi and I ordered Linguini with Pesto. After placing our order, they brought us two freshly baked bread rolls with a super tasty olive oil based dipping sauce containing garlic, Italian spices (just a few fresh leaves, it looked like it could have been rosemary), tomatoes, and capers. The olive oil wasn't a green color so I suspected it was an infused flavor like tomato basil. We often get inspiration from restaurants with really good food so you can bet we're going to try to replicate this dipping oil in the future.
Shortly after we finished eating our free bread rolls, they brought our main courses out to us. We were surprised our food came out so fast! My Linguini with Pesto was really tasty (I didn't ask for anything extras like chicken or shrimp), but my wife's ravioli was out of this world. Do you ever trade dishes with your wife and wish you didn't have to give your plate back? This was definitely one of those days! The restaurant menu lists the ravioli as containing button mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms in a very light sage sauce with some vegetables.
We weren't sure about the sauce so we requested two additional side sauces: mushroom marsala and marinara. I can safety say these two additional side sauces were not needed, but the mushroom marsala definitely complemented the flavor of this dish. We did try it with the marinara as well, but it's too over powering for such a delicate ravioli and totally hides the mushroom flavor (this might be an option if you have a picky eater or kids, but why waste such food on them?!).
Let me tell you about the first bite into this ravioli. If you love shiitake mushrooms like me (or mushroom in general) along with regular cheese ravioli, this will blow you away. The explosion of flavors: shiitake, the button mushrooms, followed by the texture of the pasta holding it all together and cheese. We went here for my wife's 30th birthday, but I'm already trying to make up an excuse for us to come back here so I can order this amazing dish and have it all to myself. It's been a while since I had a "food high" when eating in a restaurant. The first bite into this ravioli did it for me.
The ambiance of the restaurant was really romantic. The lighting is dim and apparently we ordered at the right time as the restaurant started filling up shortly after we placed our main course order. I thought the ceiling painted in a sky color was a nice touch (reminds me of The Venetian in Las Vegas) along with some stained glass window artwork near our table. The music playing in the restaurant sounded like a dance club mix (played at a low volume). This was fine with me since I'm a big fan of Tiesto and Oakenfold, but I also think that bossanova music would have been more suitable to the environment (think: Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), Tom Jobin & Elis Regina - Aguas De Março, etc). Our waiter Luiz was super friendly and very attentive to refilling our water and checking on the taste of our food. My wife usually has to drink my water in most restaurants, but she was topped off enough times as her glass ran dry.
Our meal total was a very reasonable $53 including more than 20% tip which I added separately.
From entry to leaving, our total time in the restaurant was only 45 minutes. Amazing. We will be back!!!
P.S. As I hadn't been here in a few years, we were a little nervous about some of the negative reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor. While I could see this largely depending on the dish you order, I think this place is perfect for foodies like us who appreciate a home cooked Italian meal. We're also curious about their squash ravioli, but I think we're both ordering the mushroom ravioli the next time we stop by. Service was perfect, food was amazing, ambiance was great...what else do you need? You can talk to each other without yelling unlike some popular restaurants in Kierland (which also have good food, but you can hardly hear each other).
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