Hostaria da’ Vittorio serves solid Italian favorites with contemporary flair. I’ve had the pleasure of dining here several times over the past couple of years and each experience has been a good one. This time I started with the minestrone, which was homemade and came with a stick of fried polenta. Check it out:
The portion size of the soup was perfect, leaving me plenty of room for other things. I always order too much at this restaurant, simply because I want to enjoy all the flavors. There was a brushetta and caprese salad as you see in the next photo:
And the table bread, which is at the top of the photo above came as a sort of pizza-crust like option. Tasty with olive oil and fresh pepper and something a little different than the usual rolls. Moving on to the entrees. One was an osso buco, seen below and requiring no knife.
Finally, there was a pasta dish, this time a fusilli with crumbled sausage/red sauce. Again, the right size portion and very flavorful which almost rises out of the next image:
Of course, no room for dessert, which was probably a mistake. You have to stop somewhere, and after all this, I hit the wall. Full to the top. Service, as always, was attentive and professional, keeping my water glass topped up the way I like it. I drink gallons of water in Aruba, which thanks to the desalinization plant has one of the best tasting tap waters in the world. But I digress. You’ll enjoy your meal at Hostaria da’ Vittorio, where you can dine inside or out, go for a big meal or something more manageable. Take a group, get some wine, and make a night of it.
The Bent Page 
No books?
Well, there were some books, but quite a few less, as in less than half. I’m talking about a visit to my local, big-box bookstore. Less than six months ago I was in there, perusing the shelves, looking for something to read and there was an entire floor of shelves stacked edge to edge with reading material. Now? Let’s just say there are games and toys and other bric a brace and precious fewer tomes to tickle the fancy. Disappointed? Yes, I am. The bookstore has always been an adventure, a sort of treasure hunt. Sure, it’s possible to comb through the world wide web but it’s tons more fun to touch the pages, maybe bump into someone who has read something good, or even be told what to avoid. I know, I know, all the reviews are online. Sterile they are because you can’t look into someone’s eyes and ask questions.
At any rate, the days of the bookstore in the big-box form are numbered. There will be the specialty shops out there, operated by book lovers. And I’ll go looking for them because books are still relevant in whatever form they take. The people involved with them offer some interesting insight, too. Happy reading!
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on January 18, 2012 at 1:37 pm Leave a CommentTags: Books, comment, politics, reading