North Italia

This is a new restaurant that opened recently at The Point in El Segundo; a new plaza with a variety of eateries and shops. My friend Mary took me there to celebrate my birthday last night. We got there at 6 p.m when it was not that busy yet. The place had that certain vibe.

I tried to open my purse to get my reading glasses out. As I moved the knob, it went airborne and landed on the floor. The problem now was how do I get my glasses, my phone, my car and house keys out if I could not open the purse. Our server Atziri, a young attractive lady tried her hand at it. She and I tried to pry it open with the cork screw. I was impressed on how long she tried. I was ready to give up when she asked another server if he had a screwdriver. They both disappeared and came back with one and so she tried again. Lo and behold, we heard a snap and she was able to open it. Halleluja! I will have to go to a Ted Baker store and see if they can repair my purse which was a gift from my son 2 years ago.

Now we were able to concentrate on the menu. Mary thought it would be good to order 2 appetizers and skip the salad. I agreed wholeheartedly. The first one was a Grilled Artichoke with sea salt, truffle, grana padano cheese and lemon aioli. These were the best artichokes we have ever had aside from the fried whole artichokes I have had in Italy. The aioli sauce was wonderful.

The other appetizer we had was the Truffle Garlic Bread with homemade ricotta, grana padano cheese and herbs. I can assure you  that you won't find anything like it. They should have a patent on this recipe. Mary and I looked at each other as our eye balls almost fell out of their sockets! They were so light and fluffy yet crusty on the outside and creamy from the ricotta. It was amazing.

For our entrees, we split 2 orders. One was their Bolognese (pronounced Bolon-nye-seh; the E at the end is not silent) and the other one was the Chicken Parmesan. The tagliatelle was cooked aldente and was delicious. The chicken was good with the rigatoni, also cooked aldente. In my opinion, an Italian restaurant that doesn't serve their pasta aldente is not worth being called an "Italian" restaurant.

We ordered the Salted Caramel Budino for dessert. Creme fraiche with Maldon sea salt. It was perfetto. You could taste chunks of the sea salt as the pudding melted in your mouth. The manager, Michael came to our table to take the 2 extra chairs but first asked our permission and because we said it was o.k., he comped our desserts. I took the opportunity to tell him how impressed we were with the service, particularly with Atziri for helping me open my purse. He said: " Oh, you're the screwdriver"........guilty as charged.

The evening turned out to be a great celebration. We did enjoy the bottle of Pinot Noir Mary brought. Their corkage fee is $15. North Italia is open from 11:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m everyday, till 10:30 on Friday and Saturday. Their address is 840 S Sepulveda Blvd. #110 in El Segundo, California.