Jason’s Take

This week, it was my turn to pick a restaurant for date night.  Don’t tell Linda, but I only made our reservations to Ciao Bella about 20 minutes before we left for our dance lesson.  Love Yelp and OpenTable for finding a restaurant and making reservations.

Love. It.

So Ciao Bella is a nice Italian restaurant that happens to have some sushi options, which is weird.  But, being an Italian joint, you’ll find lots of the expected pizza, pasta, and seafood.

As you walk in, you definitely notice the smell of fish, but that fades as soon as you get past the bar area.  Once into the restaurant proper, it starts smelling good.  They’ve got an open–and sprawling–floor plan, so the place is noisy.  It’s not great for quiet, intimate conversations.

The drinks were reasonably priced, but not cheap.   My cocktails ran $7.75 each, while Linda’s wine cost $10 per glass.

The food was good.  The unlimited stream of bread that’s the staple of Italian restaurants everywhere in the Midwest was excellent.

We followed that up with seared wasabi scallops.  Totally reccomend.  I could have left happy after filling up on scallops and bread.

For our main course, I had the seafood linguini, which was done very well.  Good food.  Linda had the halibut special.  Her fish was kind of dry, but was an otherwise excellent dish.

Dessert was the budino, which is a molten chocolate cake with vanilla gelato.  It’s good, but very rich.  We didn’t finish it.

All in all, a good place to get a bite, especially if you want to impress a date without worrying about making up deep conversation.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Linda’s Take

I had no idea where we were going to go to dinner this evening. I asked Jason to surprise me and pick a place, while I tried to look very nice for him. We walked into Ciao Bella, it looked really fancy. I was pleased with Jason’s choice.

I tried a wine that I liked (Moscato). I’m not a wine drinker at all, but thought what the hell. Not bad but a little pricey at $10.00 a glass. But then again, I don’t know what a good price is for wine.

We ordered some wasabi scallops, they were oh-so-good.

Jason ordered a sea food pasta, and I tried halibut for the first time. Kind of a dry dish, but I guess it’s supposed to be. Still tasted great.

This was a really nice place, the staff is really kind, and they always fill your water glass prompt and give you really good fresh bread.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off

 Total Score: 4 out of 5 pants off!