Trattoria Ponte Vecchio

I think it's safe to say that Brandon and I are creatures of habit -- at least in the way of food. Monday - Friday we frequent the same handful of restaurants and rarely venture outside of our tasty bubble. We're a little more adventurous on the weekends ;-)

Quite a ways back I bought a couple of gift certificates on restaurant.com (which, by the way, has AMAZING deals). They were running an 80% off special - so I got $25 gift certificates for TWO DOLLARS. I bought two for Gregorio's in Carlsbad because I love that place, and then I got a third gift certificate to a restaurant in Del Mar that I had never even heard of, Trattoria Ponte Vecchio. Side note: the way it works is that your bill has to be a minimum of $35 to get the $25 off - so you could only end up spending $10 plus drinks.

So Brandon and I decided that we should have a Wednesday night date and that Trattoria Ponte Vecchio would be the place. What an amazing restaurant. I was going to Yelp my review (and I still might) but I figured I should share with my closest friends too. You must try it. It's a small restaurant (probably ten tables inside, 5 tables outside) and the ambiance was especially cozy for us because it was pouring rain outside. Our tables were lit by a single candle and we got to watch the rain run down the windows.

I ordered the RIGATONI SALSICCIA which is described as "large tubes of pasta stuffed with sausages in a zesty marinara sauce." Mmmm, my mouth is watering all over again just thinking about it. It was so similar to the pasta that I had every night while we were in Venice, Italy. The sauce isn't as thick as American Italian food, and it is saltier (in a good way). The sausages were prepared so that it looked just like a meat sauce and they were perfectly spiced. The portion was enormous but somehow I was able to finish it (with a little help from Brandon at the end).

Brandon chose the RAVIOLI D'ARAGOSTA which is "ravioli stuffed with lobster meat in brandy pink sauce and topped with shrimp." Since I'm not really a seafood eater, I didn't try it, but took his word for it that it was delicious. He commented that it tasted like legitimate Italian food as well.

My one and only very tiny complaint would be that they had canned soda. Which surprised me for such a nice restaurant. So they brought out my cold can of diet coke, opened it for me and poured it over ice. But what that means to me is that there are no refills. I had to savor each sip and conserve throughout the meal. I'm
sure most people order wine when they have Italian, so this wouldn't even be a consideration, but I was bummed. Not to mention my can of soda was $3 dollars haha.

For dessert we ordered the cannolis and devoured them! They came on a plate of three, drizzled in chocolate with sliced strawberries. See for yourself...

mmmm, right?

When we got in the car we couldn't stop talking about how much we enjoyed dinner, and how we couldn't wait to return. I guess good things can happen when you step outside of your bubble.