We went to an old favorite restaurant tonight, an Italian place we were recommended to several years ago, My Cousin Vinny's. (There really is a Vinny cooking.) We hadn't been to the new restaurant since they moved last year.

Vinny's used to be a smallish, but nice little place. They had a bar area, a waiting space, and a long narrow dining room. When it was warm you could eat on the "terrace," and on certain nights they had live music. You would have thought if they moved, they would go somewhere larger.

Instead, they are basically in a small storefront and, although they still have the same great food, the menu is now only two pages and they seem to be specializing in pizza instead of Italian food in general. The pizza "bar" is in the same small dining room, which only holds half a dozen tables. It was a little chilly, but we had jackets on and sat out on the "terrace" (which is basically just the sidewalk in front of the building) which was walled in with plastic.

Plus the dining room used to be lined with photos of Italy (I used to like sitting under the one of the Palio in Siena) and now it only has a few generic black-and-white shots. The music playing used to be all the old Italian favorites I grew up with--Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Al Martino, Lou Monte, Jerry Vale--now it's just modern pop.

Good meal, but ultimately disappointing.

We stopped at Barnes & Noble afterwards and as a treat, James bought me a dark chocolate Godiva bar. I shared a bit with him. As expensive as these things are, I can't imagine why people go so crazy over them--or why they pay so much for Godiva! We both found it inferior to the Lindt bittersweet chocolate bars we have gotten at Harry's Farmer's Market and Publix for years. It was slightly dry, crumbly, and, at least I thought, had an unpleasant aftertaste. The Lindt chocolate is sweetish but not too sweet, creamy, and leaves a nice taste in your mouth afterwards. Even the Ritter Sports bars that Harry's used to stock were better than the Godiva we had tonight.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:45:00 PM

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