Driven By It 1,000 Times; Finally Stopped In.

I'm referring to a restaurant named  Frito Misto, 316 Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach.  Visit their menu at fritomistoitalianecafe.com 

Pier Avenue is one of three ways to get to the Hermosa Beach Pier.  The other two are via Hermosa Avenue and pulling your yacht in as close as it can get and hoping the dinghy to shore you ordered, will show up.  We don't have a yacht (snort!) so we drove.

In the wake of the most recent mass shooting, I was relieved to note that the minute you walk in the front door, you are facing a very large arc of booth seating with a table sized to them and a wooden barrier behind it,  stretching to nearly the ceiling.  Ushered around it by our server (very perky and funny Wendy) we were given a nice table at the back and bigger portion of the room, now visible because we've cleared the barrier.

As always (except for breakfast out - unless it's brunch and then, of course, one has champagne) ) we ordered a drink to sip while perusing their menu.  Richie had a Stella $3.75 and I a glass of the rose $5.25 for a healthy pour.  The fresh bread in a basket came with real butter (!) so I very politely asked that if they had the olive oil and balsamic dipping sauce and if so, may we have some?  Two seconds later, she was back with the tall, slim glass bottles of them plus a small dish filled with chopped garlic.  Del-icious!   Bonus points:  the cats didn't want any part of us when we got home.

To start, I ordered the side portion of Caesar salad for us to split.  If that's a "side" by God I don't want to see the entrée-size salad.  At any rate it was $6.  I don't know what's up with restaurants these days, but to a place they are using the dark green top of the lettuce leaf which looks tired even while it's back in the kitchen I don't doubt.  The dressing was inoffensive (translation:  could use a little pepping up) with a generous dust of chunk Parmesan tossed over it in  devil-may-care style.

Richie ordered the Chicken Marsala - two chicken breasts seared with sautéed mushrooms and Marsala sauce on a bed of linguini.  He said later that the linguini was a little too al dente for him; the chicken was headed toward "Tough" but the sauce was "okay."  Asked if he would go back, he nodded, "Yes."  $18.

I can rarely ignore pancetta, the Italian bacon so I ordered the Pasta Pancetta, composed of that, sun-dried tomatoes, caramelized onions and a garlic cream sauce to which I will add  little chopped garlic for dinner tonight.  $15, and another glass of rose.

The grand total was $53.25 for four servings (leftovers for dinner tonight) which is a very affordable dinner out.  

And now we'll stop in from time to time!