Quick write up on Cucina Venti, an Italian restaurant my almost-monthly dinner club group tried out last month. It’s in a somewhat weird location, not only in a strip mall but in a strip mall surrounded by business parks. Meaning there’s not much else going on in that area other than office space.
There was some sort of large group gathering or party inside the restaurant so my friends and I opted to eat outside and had almost the entire patio area to ourselves. Which was kinda nice as we’re not known for quiet murmurings as we caught up on everyone’s news and freely exchanged (strong) opinions and (pithy) observations about mutual acquaintances. Okay, okay, we gossiped. And we weren’t that quiet about it, ha.
We carb’d up first with bread – a round, scone-like serving cut into triangles. Nothing scone-like about it though, just garlicky bready goodness. For a little protein, we had an appetizer of meatballs in a crust served with marinara sauce. In other words, totally bad for you and totally good. Isn’t that how it always is?
My memory fails me on what everyone got but at least I took a picture of each entrée to document for posterity. I can’t even remember what my own order was called but I do remember it was pretty good. The broth wasn’t as rich as an alfredo sauce (which I didn’t want) but was tangy with tomatoes and quite flavorful. While nothing quite sticks out in my memory, I did think Cucina Venti was a solid place to go for good Italian-American food. Service was great and we had very nice wait staff who wisely left us alone to our gossip, er, pithy observations and exchange of dialog.
The only disappointment I would have to log is I didn’t think their dessert choices were that compelling. I’m unmoved by tiramisu as a dessert since I’m not fond of most custard-based desserts and I thought the chocolate cake we got needed some more chocolate flavor. It was appealingly presented though so points for the creativity on the starbursts. Or “spider webs” as one of my friends called them.
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