Castelli's Palm Desert

Still in Palm Desert -- actually, I'm back and reminiscing.  We visited Castelli's Italian Restaurant in Palm Desert, CA.  This is a fantastic restaurant.  The service is personable, the wine list is extensive, and the food is wonderful.

Since we had been overextending with appetizers, we went for the entrees early.  I wish I'd tried one, but when you are eating out all the time, you don't want to ruin the meal with too much.  I had the Godfather's Dinner: PRANZO DEL PADRINO.  Described as "The Best of 3 Worlds! Tenderloin Beef Spiedini, Shrimp Scampi and Vitello alla Piccatina."  Hey, this really was the best of the three.  This way I could try a selection of their Italian fare.  It was a great choice.  The meal comes with a pasta dish.  The basic pasta offered was with a marina sauce.  I chose the Fettuccine Alfredo.  It's supposed to be their signature pasta. 

The Fettuccine Alfredo was stupendous.  I'm a fan of white sauce (Northern Italian cuisine) and this was excellent.  The pasta was homemade and the sauce tasted very rich and buttery--perfect.  The focus of the restaurant was more Southern Italian, but I was pleased with the choices and the meal.

The presentation of the meal was excellent.  The three meats were placed artfully on the plate.  The scampi was like a lobster and very good.  The veal was slightly over spiced, but authentic.  The tenderloin was cooked properly and a great cut.  I took the leftovers back for lunch and a very pleasant lunch it was.  I can't remember what everyone else ate, but I was very pleased with my meal.

We ordered a bottle of their house Italian Chianti--it was a great choice.  We also had the after dinner Cappuccino Roma.  It was pleasant, but I liked the dinner best.

I was also pleased with the service.  You can't go wrong at Castelli's--I want to go again.

Ciao - 11 Nov 2011

We made a visit to the new Italian restaurant on the east side of Wichita--Ciao.  The place was filled when we went there on Friday night at about 7:20 and were told there was a 45 minute wait.  We went to the bar--of course.  The bar was filled but we got seats pretty quickly.  We ordered a gin dirty martini with blue cheese olives and a dry vodka martini with blue olives.  Both were shaken.  The martinis were excellent.  They were shaken correctly and very nicely done.  The blue cheese olives were freshly packed.

We needed some basis for our drinking so we ordered the combo appetizer.  Wow.  There was calamari, chicken fingers, fried provolone, fried Spanish ravioli, fried zucchini, artichoke dip and they gave us fresh bread and dipping oil.  The bread and oil was great.  The appetizers were all fried, but the food was good--and lots.  We decided that was all we needed and went home.  We didn't get to try anything else.  We put it on the list again, and we recommend it.  Go try out Ciao.