Briganti

We went to Briganti for dinner on Saturday, May 3, 2008 to celebrate “Parents’ Day” with my in-laws. We celebrated Mother’s Day since my sister-in-law would be out of town on the actual Mother’s Day and we celebrated Father’s day since our parents (my in-laws) would be out of town on the actual Father’s day. Briganti is on Mission Street just east of Fair Oaks Ave.

We arrived just before our reservation time of 5:30 pm and the restaurant wasn’t very crowded, a situation that would change completely within a half-hour. They seated us at a table in a kind of outdoor alleyway with a roof. It gave the place the feel of dining al fresco without being directly under the sun. The “walls” were the red brick exterior walls of the restaurant and the adjacent building and there was a bar at the back of the “alley.” The restaurant also had a fully indoor section. Our table was actually two smaller tables pushed together. Unfortunately the tables weren’t quite even and we had to be careful with the placement of our glasses. They took our drink orders and served us a small basket of bread and a small plate with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. There were two types of bread in the basket: long pieces of thin pita-like bread and smaller, thicker pieces of another kind. I only had the thin bread and it was pretty good.

They took our orders for entrees and first served mom her zucchini soup. Later all our entrees came at the same time. I had the Spaghetti Vongole or spaghetti with clams. The spaghetti was in the middle of the plate and the small claims in their open shells surrounded it. I had to shell all the claims and mix them into the spaghetti. This wasn’t too hard since the pasta was cooked al dente and therefore wasn’t sticky and it was also tossed with oil. Despite not being as colorful as the dishes with tomato sauce, the spaghetti had a lot of flavor. It tasted like they tossed it with the clams’ juices, some white wine, garlic, pepper, oil, and parsley. The claims were cooked but not the least bit chewy. The dish was surprising filling. It did not seem like a lot of food. My wife had the Risotto Contadino that consisted of rice with sausage, asparagus, and other vegetables. She didn’t like that the rice was cooked only to al dente but otherwise she liked it.

As I mentioned, the restaurant got very crowded. It’s a good thing with made a reservation. Our servers weren’t very responsive in refilling our drinks. Perhaps this was because the restaurant automatically charged us a 18% gratuity. Restaurants don’t usually do that for parties of six.

The menu stated that they had “house desserts” but didn’t state what they were. We settled the bill and walked around to find an ice cream place or other place to have dessert. We didn’t find anything open and after returning to the house we had some bananas and dark chocolate peanut butter from Peanut Butter Company. Overall, it was a good Parents’ Day.