[Pasadena] [Italian] Il Fornaio

Il Fornaio
24 West Union Street
Pasadena, CA 91103
(626) 683-9797
http://www.ilfornaio.com

很久以前到過Il Fornaio吃過一次晚餐，但是好不好吃卻一點都想不起來，收到他們寄來的本月特別菜單，看起來好像還不錯，而且前去用餐就有小禮物還可以集印章抽獎，星期五晚上就和公園先生一起去吃晚餐，公園先生覺得他們沙拉不錯，我覺得甜點不錯，但是主菜我們兩個人都有點小失望，而且剛好被分派到一位不太聰明笨手笨腳忘東忘西的服務生，所以對這家餐廳的印象又扣了些分數，本來計畫每個月來換獎品集印章，但經過這次用餐經驗，還要想想到底下個月還要不要來....

I had dinner once at Il Fornaio a long long time ago.  Honestly, I don't remember anything about the food here.  I receive their regional special menu in the mail every month, but never gone back.  Just received a new "regional passport" from them.  If you go to the restaurant every month to try the special menu, you get a free gift and a stamp on your passport.  Once you collect 6 stamps, you get another gift and can be entered into a trip for 2 to Italy sweepstakes.  For these reasons, Dr. Park and I had a dinner date at Il Fornaio last Friday night.



We arrived at our 7:30pm reservation time.  The restaurant was full with people waiting for seats.  We requested for patio seating and was told there would be a 10 minutes wait.





Sat at the bar area while waiting for our table.  NasCar racing was on thee flat screen TV.  In exactly 10 minutes, a hostess came and took us to a table on the patio.



The weather was perfect for an outdoor dinner.  But the patio was way too crowded.  Not only talbes and chairs were too closely placed together, there was no room for the wait staffs to move around.  So they kept on bumping into our chairs, which was really annoying.



Besides their regualr menu, every month there is a special regional menu.  In the month of July, the featured region is Sardegna.  "It's all about the seafood in Sardegna.  Sardinian cooking is deeply rooted in tradition and is very rustic and simple in tyle.  This regional menu has a nice balance of ingredients; from seafood to lamb to pasta and risotto."  The menu did offered many different choices, and everything looked good.



Four wines from Sardegna were also featured on the menu.  Two whites and two reds.


Bread

We started out with a basket of fresh bread and olive oil + balsamic vinegar for dipping. 


Focaccia Sarda

Focaccia Sarda is the special Sardegna bread offered in July.  Potato focaccia topped with tomato sauce, onion and oregano.  The flavor was great.  But this bread was cold.  I think it would taste much better if it was served warm.



At this point, we heard the song Moon River playing and noticed there was a screen on the wall.  The waiter informed us it was a Pasadena Film Festival event and a movie would be shown.  Dinner and a movie.... nice! 


Insalata di Mare Tiepida ($10.50)

For appetizer, we ordered a seafood salad to share.  Warm seafood salad tossed with fresh lemon juice, extra-virgion olive oil and Pane Carasatu.  Pane Carasatu is a traditional Sardinian thin, crisp bread which is excellent with cured meats, cheese & fish hors d'oevres or in various, local-style recipes.  There were mussels, clams, shrimp and scallop tossed with potato cubes and celery.  Dr. Park liked the flavor.  I thought it was just alright.  The portion was too small and not too much seafood.


Malloreddus al Sugo di Cinghiale ($14.95)

For our main entrees, we ordered one meat and one seafood dishes to share.  I had thin shell pasta with wild boar ragu and Sardinian pecorino.  This was a very rich dish.  We only ate half.  The sauce was rich and I love the pecorino cheese.  But I couldn't really look at the pasta when I ate it because it looked like.... worms.  The shape was just so gross looking.  Doesn't it look like a plate of worms in the picture?  Yuck!  But my mom had the leftover and she liked it.


Spigola allo Zsfferano ($27.95)

Dr. Park had whole Mediterranean seabass poached in court boullion.  This dish was suppsed to be served tableside, but I am not sure what does that mean.  A waitress brought a whole fish on a plate to show us.  "As you can see, this is a whole fish.  Would you like me to de-boned it for you?" she asked Dr. Park.  She then took the plate away, and brought it back with all the extra stuffs on it.  So showing the whole fish was what they meant by "serving tableside"?  I thought they would do everything by your table so you can see, but I guess I thought wrong.

The seabass was very tender, but lacked flavor.  I have learnt that a good restaurant will serve hot food on hot plate and cold food on cold plate to maintain the temperture.  But Il Fornaio didn't do that.  The plate was cold.  And we were seating outside.  So the food got cold really fast.  We weren't too happy with this entree.


Vermentino, Guinco, Mesa 2006 ($13.50)
Cannonau Riserva, Sella e Mosca, 2005 ($8.75)

They were supposed to bring our wines before the entrees.  But 10 minutes after we got our entrees, still no wine.  We asked our waiter (who put his hands on Dr. Park's shoulder everytime he talked to us) about it.  He came back with the wine 5 minutes later, but no wine glasses.  "Oh I didn't bring the wine glasses?"  So he was gone another 5 minutes.  >_<

The Vermentino white wine was paired with the seabass.  "Dry and refreshing with delicate floral and citrus aromas and flavors, this lovely white wine has a lingering finish, makin git a great match for the seafood dishes."  I like the white a lot.

Cannonau red was paired with the meat pasta.  "This medium-bodied dry red wine is produced from 100% Cannonau grapes grown in the Northwest corner of the region.  It has intense aromas and flavors of rich, ripe berry fruit and goes well with the Malloreddus."  This red wine was spicy.  Dr. Park likes it a lot.



Around 8:30pm, the sky just turned dark in about 5 minutes.  Then the movie started.  They were showing "Breakfast at Tiffany's".  We tried to watch the movie, but it was hard to hear the dialogue.



So I rather look at my own movie star.  Awwww.... isn't he cute?  haha.... @^_^@


Pardula cun Saba ($7.95)

We were disappointed with their food.  So at this point, we were deciding if we should have dessert here or just go to 21 Choices for ice cream.  I'm glad we deicded to give Il Fornaio's dessert a chance.  We had saffron ricotta cake with golden raisins and served with vanilla ice cream.  This cake was so delicious.  It tasted like rum and raisin.  The cake had a texture between custard, cheesecake and cake.  It was so good with the ice cream. 

The waiter took our leftover pasta to pack before we ordered dessert.  After we finished the dessert, we still didn't get the pasta back.  When we asked him, he said "Oh I didn't give it back to you guys?  Are you sure?  I thought I did...."  Yes, we were sure.  He finally brought it back to us and said it was sitting at the packing station the whole time.  Ok.... and? 

Our waiter was friendly and nice, but we just didn't think he was a very good waiter.  He kept on forgetting things.  And he didn't check up on us during the meal.  The one time he came to ask if everything is ok, he said "sorry I didn't come check up on your guys.  As you can see, I am so busy here today."  Hmmm.... that wasn't a good excuse though.  And he just kept on touching Dr. Park's shoulder for some reason.  Not only he put his hands on his shoulder when he talked to us, he even did it everytime he pass by Dr. Park and he would say "excuse me".  I think he was trying to be friendly, but it was just.... strange.



We couldn't help but kept on comparing this meal to our experience at Fraiche.  We also ordered 1 appetizer, 1 meat pasta, 1 seafood dish, 1 dessert and 2 glasses of wines (plus one more martini at Fraiche).  Nothing at Il Fornaio can compare with Fraiche.  And the cost was about the same!  So for the same amount of money, we much much rather go to Fraiche.



We did got our stamps on the "passport" and got 2 free eco bags.  I love these eco bags.  Perfect for grocery shopping. 

So I do like the free gift, and I want to continue to collect the stamps to enter the Italy trip giveaway.  Maybe in the future I'll just come here for dessert?



There was a giant statue of a little boy with a dog outside the door.  A little boy was climbing up the statue and I was wondering if that was allowed.  But his parents didn't seem to care.  So what is this statue for?

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