Saturday evening, whilst continuing A's birthday celebrations, the group of us decided to go to C&O Trattoria, one of my favoritest Italian restaurants in the area. Before I continue, I should confess that I'm absolutely obsessed with garlic, particularly garlic bread. My obsession with garlic goes wayyy back to when I was 6 and would swallow cloves of garlic whole. I was a strange child, but nevertheless, my obsession continues to this day, and C&O Trattoria has the BEST garlic knots ever! They are slathered in garlic and olive oil and parsley and the waiter fills up your plate ever 5 minutes or so. I'm pretty sure I ate an entire week's worth of carbs in one sitting...oh well =], it was SO worth it. But the dangerous part of their unlimited garlic knots is that you barely touch your actual entree, unless you summon inordinate amounts of self-control and manage to stave off grabbing more than a few garlicky pieces of heaven.
Anyways, C&O Trattoria is located on the Venice Pier, and if you're heading there on the weekend, always remember to make a reservation because its usually pretty crowded and you'll probably be looking at a 20-30 minute wait time.
The ambiance of the restaurant is rather warm and comforting, with strands of Christmas lights twinkling all over the place, half the roof being open to the lovely ocean air, random parts of the ceiling being hand-painted, and the wait staff randomly bursting out into Italian songs.
Within a few minutes of being seated, we were handed song sheets of "That's Amore" and the entire restaurant started singing along, as the waiters all came around to clink their glasses with everyone else's. These little unique touches really added to the homely feel and wonderful experience we had.
With our mouths stuffed full of garlicky goodness, we contemplated the menu for quite a while before all selecting our dishes. I had the hardest time deciding between the Shrimp Ravioli with Lobster Sauce and the Spicy Penne Arrabiata with Smoked Mozzarella. In the end, I went with the Penne Arrabiata and it was absolutely delicious! The others went with the Ravioli ai Quattro Formaggi, Fettuccine Sun Dried Tomato, and Farfalle Genovese.
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| The infamous garlic knots |
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| Spicy Whole Wheat Penne Arrabiata with Smoked Mozzarella |
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| Fettuccine Sun Dried Tomato |
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| Ravioli ai Quattro Formaggi |
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| Farfalle Genovese |
By the time our actual food came out, we were pretty stuffed, but we still dug in nonetheless, because everything looked so delicious. We surfaced after a few bites, and everyone loved what they ordered!
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| The weirdos |
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| The cuties |
We had told our waiter that it was A's birthday, and so as we were finishing our meal, she brought us a slice of cheesecake topped with strawberry spread and all the waiters serenaded A with a verse of "Happy Birthday" in Italian. Needless to say, she was sufficiently embarrassed.
All in all, we had a wonderful time, and loved our experience at C&O Trattoria!
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