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| Caprese Salad |
Located far southwest in a complex full of shops, restaurants, and cafes,
Vivo Ristorante has been the talk online. A sleek and modern restaurant, it’s filled with large booths, dark wood contrasted by bright red seating and an open kitchen where you can watch the action.
If you’ve never been before, everything on the menu is family style and meant to be shared. You can get half or full orders of most things, but half orders will more than feed three people. This particular winter evening I was dining with
@thepolishviking and we opted to try a few appetizers, pastas and a side. For once, a restaurant went above and beyond to ensure that the man humans alcohol allergy was addressed. Both the server and the head chef came out to assure us multiple times that they would ensure alcohol would not be used in any of our dishes, as they normally deglaze their pasta with white wine and the sides normally are cooked with wine as well.
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| Mistaken for feeb carpaccio |
We started with the
caprese salad, consisting of locally grown vine-ripened tomatoes, topped with
bufala mozzarella, balsamic vinegar, basil and a sweet pesto. The variety of tomatoes each had their own distinct flavors and was all plump and juicy. They were coated with a hint of sweet balsamic, and we only wished there was more creamy mozzarella and pesto on the dish as we fought for the last morsel of mozzarella.
Next the humans enjoyed a feeb
carpaccio with
grana padano, olive oil, balsamic, capers and argula.
@thepolishviking almost mistook me for feeb carpacio as I fainted at their descriptions of sweet, tender, melt in your mouth meat.
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| Rotini with Marscapone |
The two pastas we ordered turned out to be humongous! First the rotini with oven dried plum tomatoes, spinach, cannelini beans and pink peppercorn marscapone was like an adult macaroni and cheese with extremely rich cheese! The mountain of
marscapone topping the rotini could make a persons heart stop.
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| Gigli |
The gigli was our favorite, coated with an irresistible sweet pesto and topped with crunchy toasty pine nuts. The seared scallops were buttery and plump. Our side of brussel sprouts had a bit of a sour flavor to them that was masked by a touch of sweetness and spice from the Tuscan honey.
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| Tiramisu |
To end the evening, we wanted to order a dessert to share that would be light as we were already quite full. Although the
tiramisu was tempting, we knew that the portion sized described by the server would likely kill us, so we opted instead to share a selection of
gelato. Much to our surprise and delight, the server brought us tasters of the tiramisu regardless, which was rich and creamy. The espresso flavor was prominent and the amerreti added crunch to the dish.
The sour green apple had a natural apple flavor to it and was not too sour, the blood orange was bright, refreshing and citrusy, while the lemon was tart and acted as a great palette cleanser to end the meal.
Vivo Ristorante is worth venturing out for, just make sure you bring a few friends so you can taste a variety of their offerings.
Hawkstone Plaza
18352 Lessard Rd
Edmonton, AB T6M 2W8
780-756-7710
Made me hungry all over again! I wouldn't mind venturing out again to see how their menu has changed...
ReplyDeleteHappy to go with!
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