Operacaffe in San Diego

My friend and I arrived at the Westin Hotel at the Gaslamp District in San Diego Thursday night to attend the Dancesport Championship. It was dinner time and we were starving. Rather than have dinner at the hotel, we decided to walk around and pick a place for dinner.  We ended up at the Opreracaffe on 4th Street.

Before we ordered our appetizer, they brought us a small basket of what looked like focaccia bread. This tasted better than it looked. It was salty and when we dipped it in olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar, the flavors seemed to mingle with delight.

We started out with an appetizer of fried ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and poblano peppers and fried olives stuffed with meat and cheese with a side of bell pepper sauce. The ravioli was just o.k. but the the stuffed olives were delicious.  I think they should eliminate the fried ravioli from the menu and just have the olives. We really enjoyed them.

For our entree, we ordered the special; which was a crab ravioli with a cream sauce, and the breaded veal scaloppini parmigiana served with spaghetti. The crab ravioli was edible and since we were hungry, we ate all 4 of them. (2 each) We split the scaloppini and the spaghetti.  The veal was terrible. It was tough and pretty tasteless in spite of the tomato and mozzarella on top. We both had 2 bites...that was all we could tolerate. The spaghetti was a lot better.

For dessert we had the free tiramisu. They handed us a card outside the restaurant: with  our  entree, we were entitled to a free appetizer or tiramisu. We opted for the tiramisu. Our server wanted to know how we liked the food. As she glanced at the left over veal, we both gave her our honest opinion on the veal. She apologized and the later came back to inform us to order another  dessert to compensate for the veal. We decided to go light and get the lemon gelato. That was very good and refreshing.

It was a good note to end this meal.