Restaurant: Caffe Delfini
Location: 147 West Channel Road, Santa Monica, CA 90402. tel (310) 459-8823
Date: February 6, 2011
Cuisine: Italian
Rating: Good Italian, great value!
Caffe Delfini is one of our regular “sunday night” places. LA has a lot of neighborhood Italians, and so it’s only necessary to go to the one’s with a good kitchen. Delfini consistently delivers very good fare at reasonable places, and they are extremely friendly too, and very accommodating of our messy toddler.
The official Menu is here.
I got a glass of Amarone. I like the grapiness of this very traditional wine from outside of Verona.
“CAESAR SALAD. Hearts of Romaine lettuce, shaved Reggiano cheese, tossed with light Caesar dressing, and served with homemade garlic croutons. (contains pasteurized eggs).”
“MISTA SALAD. Chopped butter lettuce, radicchio, shaved carrots and sliced tomatoes dressed with extra virgin olive oil and aceto balsamico.”
“INSALATA SPECIALE. Combination of rugola e radicchio, caprese and prosciutto e melone.” My favorite salad, a bit of everything.
“RIGATONI ALLA NORMA. Tubular pasta with eggplant, plum tomatoes, scamorza cheese, onion, garlic, basil, thyme and a touch of red chili flakes.”
“PENNE AL POMODORO E BASILICO. Penne pasta with basil and tomato sauce.”
“LINGUINE MARE (white wine sauce). Linguine pasta with Manila clams, N.Z. mussels, shrimp, calamari, snow crab claw, garlic, parsley and a touch of red chili flakes.”
These aren’t the incredible fresh pastas of a place like Drago, but they are nicely done classics, fresh out of the pot/pan, served searing hot. You could also walk across the street to Il Ristorante di Giorgio Baldi and get them too, but you’d also pay 2-3 times as much, and get a dose of celebrity attitude too.
