Before the Green Scrubs & Short Wellies

I have eaten at Firenze Ristorante Italiano several times.  OK, many times.  And yet I’ve only eaten 2 things there, and one of those only once.  That once I had Spaghetti Carbonara, which was lovely.  Every other time I have eaten Pollo Boscaiola.  I don’t care if that seems boring.  This dish is fantastic and I *love* to eat it.  It isn’t on the menu, it’s a special, but every time I have been to Firenze, it’s happened to be on the specials list.  Until tonight.  So I smiled a very wide smile, batted my eyelashes a little & pleaded in my {apparently} very cute British accent.  They made it for me anyway.  My request even made Francesco smile.  I don’t think I have ever seen that happen before.  Francesco, in my experience, has always been rather surly, like having to serve customers was a real effort & if only all the customers would stop bugging him, life would be good.  I am not sure if that’s what is really going through Francesco’s mind, but I have never got the feeling that he loves his job.  Still, for this particular plate of food I can overlook even the surliest of servers.  Yep, to me, it’s that good, this Pollo Boscaiola.

Miss Connie was with me for this mid-week impromptu italian moment.  However, since it was before that nice man at Swedish Hospital wearing green scrubs, short wellies & a funny hat dispensed a large amount of general anesthetic into my veins, the details of Miss Connie’s dinner now completely elude me.  (I am, I hate to say it, a little behind in the blog posting department.  Having body parts removed can throw a serious spanner in the works.)

Pollo Boscaiola @ Firenze gives me Super-happy-mouth Syndrome

Pollo Boscaiola – it’s the juiciest of white chicken meat, barely-sauteed mushrooms & tender artichoke hearts all swathed in a glorious creamy white sauce.  I can’t even tell you what the sauce is.  I don’t even care.  It just tastes spectacular: every time.  And those veggies on the side – crisp, bright, fresh & perfectly cooked.

I admit, it was a tad spendy for a not-entirely-enormous plate of sauteed chicken.  I’ve read lots of whining & complaining online about Firenze’s propensity to change prices on a whim or just make up the check, so I suspect that since this wasn’t really on the menu, I got to pay, how shall we say it, a premium for this particular plate of pollo.  And really, I was OK with that this time.  I had a fabulous plate of food with the ever-convivial Miss Connie & that made it all worth while.

Miss Connie, however, did have other plans for our dessert & since she can be a little, um, forthright at times, after the pollo was polished off we toddled into the night.

Ciao e grazie.  To you too, Firenze, to you too.

 Then followed a rather extraordinary tour of the Crossroads Mall Food Court, hosted by my lovely friend.  She felt quite strongly that as I had never experienced it, tonight was the night that I should.  I was not at all disappointed when the tour ended up outside Coldstone Creamery.  I am {very} partial to Coldstone’s Ice Cream.  I also really dig their customer service.  Forget the ice cream, just their people make me want to eat ice cream there.  Since I delved into the world of making-my-own, I haven’t crossed Coldstone’s threshold, but not because I no longer like their ice cream.  Simply because I’ve been a bit ice-creamed-out.  And while Coldstone isn’t my very favoritest ice cream in the world (that would be Mövenpick) they are indeed my favoritest stateside ice cream.  So far.

 I usually have some variation of Cheesecake Ice Cream with fresh berries in.  Tonight was no exception.  Strawberries, raspberries & black cherries.  It was, as always, exceptionally good.  Quite put my mouth in orbit.

The service was also exceptional.  Our super-smiley fresh-faced college-attending server got a nice tip.  He deserved it.  (BTW they had these adorable little ice cream cupcakes in their freezer…so cute.  Must try some.)

Dear Coldstone, I know I don’t come often anymore, but I do still love you.