A Taste of Italy: Vivoli

I went over to little Italy on College street early Friday arriving around 10:40. Many Italian restaurants were already filling up with Italian fans including Vivoli.  I claimed a table for three on the patio and patiently waited for my friends to arrive.  The street beside Vivoli was closed down and had been taken over by the restaurant on the other side.  Their patio extended into the street and a DJ was already set up and cranking out music.  As I waited, every so often I could smell basil on someone's food and it started to make me hungry. 

30 minutes prior to the game starting the hostess was getting antsy.  My friends hadn’t arrived and she started to threaten to take the chairs even though I knew they were on their way.  A little more time went by and she started to threaten to take the table.  So I called the waitress over and ordered our food and drinks.  Perhaps that is what the hostess was hoping for but either way I wasn’t giving up the table.  One of my friends arrived a few minutes later and the hostess didn’t give us any grief about the table after that.  My second friend arrived after the game had started and then spent the first half on the wrong side of the patio fence.  Apparently they were at capacity and couldn’t let her in until someone left so her chair sat empty until she could enter.

Back to the good stuff.  I ordered the classic caprese salad.  After smelling the basil earlier I had to order something with basil in it.  There was also a buffala caprese salad but I figured there would be enough cheese on the classic for my liking as it used bocconcini.  The salad was good and I made sure I enjoyed the basil.

I also ordered the sanremo pizza.  The pizza was classic thin crust pizza, just the way I like it.  As we ate it, I noticed my Italian friend using the balsamic and oil dipping sauce for the bread to dip her pizza crust in.  I never thought to do that but that is a brilliant idea.  I bet all Italians do this, I just never noticed before.  The next time I don’t feel like eating my pizza crust I will implement this trick. ;)

My Italian friend ordered a red sangria to drink.  She generally drinks red wine and sangria and Vivoli’s sangria is her favourite.  After seeing the drink and knowing this was her favourite place to get it, I decided to order one too.  I don’t drink much red wine or sangria but I really enjoyed it.

Aside for the difficulties with the table (which I’m not overly surprised by as this sort of thing happens a lot everywhere for events like this) the rest of my experience, i.e the food and drink, was good.