Italy- Food and Wine

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Started out with an Italian wine seminar at Total Wine. Interesting and informative. Then off to Buon Gusto for dinner. www.buongustohb.com,   18 people so it was a long table. Sat outside and the weather did cooperate. Buon Gusto has an extensive menu almost too extensive.  I pick out a combination of penne pasta with pink cream  sauce, artichokes, asparagus, mushrooms and added shrimp and scallops. Along with a house salad which is a meal by itself. Ate the salad and about 1 cup of the pasta. Leftovers for the next day. Buon Gusto's portions are huge. Everyone takes home a "doggy container". The restaurant keeps various sizes of containers at each station because it is a given that you will take food home.

There were 20 wines on the table. None of them really stood out as great. A few good ones but most were average or below. I was disappointed in both wines I brought. Especially the Italian red. But it was on par with several I tasted. Someone kept shoving their red wine my way. They thought is was fantastic and my thought was who would drink this crap. Then I remembered who brought it.

Felt sorry for the waitress. Had to handle this large group herself. The restaurant was packed along with our large table and so some dishes were slow to get out especially if they were not a pasta dish. There was no automatic gratuity on the bill which would be normal for a large group. We all got our own individual checks so I just added another $20 to the normal tip. She worked her buns off and did not loose her cool. I would have told couple of people in the group to go ____ themselves.

A  nice day, good wines and good food and mostly pleasant people.