Finding the Ideal Restaurant

super happy bday sharon <:D

Nothing is more stressful than planning a group dinner in a neighborhood you aren't familiar with. For my bday, the plan was to hit up a North Beach club. Should be easy to find a place to eat, right?? NO! Despite the thousands of Italian places in the 6 block radius, picking the food took me forever. I really wanted to find the perfect place that: was swanky, took reservations, had unique food choices, and had a menu where people could get away with not spending too much money. Thus I ended up with Ristorante Ideale.

Pumpkin Pasta!

The place is small, but has a nice ambiance. Very dark lighting, but it looked like there were cute blue tiles on the walls. There was a bit more Italian on the menu than I like, but it was still readable. For starters they brought out some very yummy bread and oil. It was warm and soft :) 

Tortellini

I had already decided what to order in advance as their specialty was "pumpkin ravioli"... and I'm incapable of not getting pumpkin dishes. Other dishes included some type of tortellni filled with cheese and veal, pasta w/ egg, and gnocchi. I'm bad at describing pasta, but my dish was pretty awesome :). The pumpkin flavor was subtle and not overdone with excessive spicing. The noodles were soft and creamy... mmm. Everyone (besides Ken :p) really enjoyed theirs as well. James said something like "one of the best noodle dishes of his life," crazy!!

Sadly, all of the desserts looked kinda nasty to me. I don't like chocolate or coffee or lemon, and that was it. Everyone tried to get some specialty cake that was gone, so instead the restaurant comped us some free desserts and gave us a sampler platter of the rest :).





There was tiramisu, chocolate ice cream cream ball things, and some profiteroles. Not my stuff, but everyone else enjoyed.

I really liked the waiter. He was a friendly Italian dude who seemed to genuinely care that we enjoyed our meal. I also liked that he gave us the free desserts. Good meal!! I'd check this place out again :)