It's Been A While, Otto Ristorante!

The girlfriend booked us in for dinner at Otto Ristorante. I was quite thrilled. For many reasons, I hadn't stepped into Otto Ristorante for a loooooong time. Years. Gone out of my way to avoid it, through no fault of its kitchen, food, chefs, owners and servers. If not for the girlfriend's suggestion, I still wouldn't have stopped by. :P

The newly recovered tender stomach was wary of indigestion. I didn't want to overload it. Cautiously only ordered ONE food item for the evening. PASTA. Even so, the amuse bouche and the bread almost did me in. Of course the pasta had to be the Spaghetti ai Ricci di Mare e Bottarga di Cabras (spaghetti with sea urchin and Sardinia grey mullet bottarga). Or simply, uni and bottarga pasta. There could be no other love. Hahahaha. You know what, after all these years, that dish was still splendid. By golly, it might have been even better than I remember it to be, depending on quality of uni and bottarga used, and the brand of the pasta's flour.

It was a pleasure to step in and have the maître d' and servers still recognize me. Awww. It was hilarious when they brought out a birthday cake (tiramisu) replete with a candle. It was nobody's birthday! When asked earlier, we said it straight that we weren't celebrating any special occasion, and it was just the usual date. Hahaha. Oh well, we took nibbles of the tiramisu. I literally took two small bites and saved all the stomach space for the rather overpriced bottle of Corte Vaona Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2012 from Novaia.

I've truly missed Otto's rendition of this dish. All these years have trying out other restaurants' uni pasta, and Otto still presents truly the best version I've had.