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| - The hubs and I ate at Vivace last night for dinner. Kitchen renovations are ongoing so we continue to cut a swath through the culinary scene of CLT. I had completely forgotten that I had a gift card for this place and it had been quite some time since I'd been there. I do always love the patio, though, and given that this was the first super gorgeous spring day that we've had, it was a no-brainer that we needed to make this happen. Stat.
I made a reservation for 5:30 since we both work uptown and it's easy to get to Vivace from work. I also wanted to make sure to reserve a patio table in case the entire city decided to converge on this beautiful patio just like I planned to. In my experience, this town loves nothing quite so much as a warm, sunny day and you'll be hard pressed to find a seat on a patio on those days. Apparently my patio-day ideas aren't actually that unique.
I arrived before the hubs and sat enjoying the combination of a cool glass of wine, the warm sunshine and the striking view of Charlotte's skyline. I was a little Zen-ed out by the time he showed up, I'm not going to lie. After much deliberation over the menu (more than one or two things sounded good), I ordered a caesar salad and the four cheese ravioli. Hubs ordered the caesar salad and the corzetti with wild boar. I had almost ordered this myself as I'd never heard of corzetti before. I checked the menu earlier in the day and googled it. (I like to be prepared!) It's a flat round pasta shaped like a large coin.
The salads came out and were okay. They were very lightly dressed so many of the pieces of romaine just tasted like bare romaine. Is it uncouth to wish for more dressing on one's caesar? I'm not talking a metric ton of it, but just enough that it doesn't seem like I'm just eating plain lettuce. However, the lettuce was crisp and the flavor was good. It was definitely edible and not something I was upset enough about to send it back. Also I was really hungry.
The entrees came and were both quite pleasing to look at. My ravioli had a light tomato sauce that was complementary instead of overpowering. The garlic crèma was delicious. The pasta was topped with wilted spinach, which I don't normally eat, but I included in my bites so I could say I have a vegetable with dinner. It was good with the pasta. Hubs really liked his pasta and he doesn't ever like restaurant pasta. I had to talk him into the dish so I was relieved that he enjoyed it. The wild boar ragout was the perfect complement to the corzetti and the cheese.
Both pastas were the epitome of what I look for in restaurant pasta - unique in some way, fresh and certainly nowhere near just a mess of soggy noodles drowned in a tasteless red sauce. I feel like so many places still serve pasta that way and both hubs and I always steer clear. This was different and delicious.
The service was good, but got a little harried toward the end. I got a fresh glass of wine, which I had almost finished by the time the waiter came back to see what drink hubs wanted next. But looking around, it seemed like he was covering all the patio tables and it was pretty full by this time. I think he should've had some help as he looked like he was spread pretty thin so I'm not blaming him for the snafu. He was very friendly, though, and knowledgable about the food.
In all it was a very positive experience. I got to sit in the sunshine and enjoy some good food and good wine. And I'll almost definitely be back, probably to try the brunch I keep hearing so much about. Bottomless mimosas? I'm in!
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