Back in July when our credit card was violated, I double checked our other card and blew my surprise birthday gift. I saw a huge amount on the card. I had to ask Brad about it with a sneaking suspicion that it was for me. My "real" birthday present was Genesis concert tickets. Another couple whose husband also shares my birth date went along with us.
It was a Tuesday night and we all figured we would find a place to eat on the way down. Traffic on the Schuylkill (RT 76) had it's usual backup so we beelined down 476 to 95. Before we knew it, we were in South Philly and had no clue where to eat. We drove down Broad Street in the hopes of spotting a restaurant nearby. Wings and Things wasn't quite what we all wanted, especially with the other birthday person being a vegetarian. I spot an Italian sign so we make a couple lefts off of Broad Street and eventually found a tight parking spot near the restaurant. Every car had clubs and their side view mirrors flipped inward. Turns out that the sign was for a grocer/catering store. Another block down was a pizza place. Cindy and Brad spot a corner restaurant with the local priest coming out of it wearing a Dartmouth tee. There is no sign, just small writing on the door. Jeff and I go to look at the menu in the window as the priest comes over to us to get his cigar from the window ledge. Jeff teases him, we ask him about the restaurant and the priest sold us on eating there.
We walk in and the place was tight, with an open kitchen on the left with a beautiful display of most of their food prepped. The chef asked if we had reservations. "No". And she gives us the "no food for you" attitude. Yet she asked the manager if he would be able to seat us. He hesitated, Jeff told he we had a concert to go to, the manager said; "Can you be finished by 7:30?" We said in unison - Yes.
There are a handful of two-seater tables along the wall across from the open kitchen. We walked into a back room with the brick walls and arches painted sunny yellow with an Italian scenery on the back wall. There were about two more two-seater tables and eight 4 persons. We ordered everything off the menu.
I almost forgot to tell you the name of the BYOB restaurant - L'Angolo Ristorante Italiano It is a five-star restaurant with reasonable prices for awesome food. It is on the corner of Porter and Rosewood Streets, hours Tue-Thu, Sat 5pm-9:30pm, Fri 5pm-10:30pm, Sun 4pm-8:30pm.
We ordered three appetizers; a special - fresh mozzarella with roasted vegetables and two others off the menu - sauteed wild mushrooms with olive oil, rosemary and fontina cheese and calamari grigliati: grilled with herbed olive oil and lemon. The calamari was the best I ever had. No breading. Very tender and melted in my mouth. The wild mushrooms was the best out of the three. They were all to die for appetizers.
Cindy, Brad and I had the homemade fresh lobster ravioli (Ravioli Di Argosta). I think the dish cost $16 and I expected three large raviolis. They were ten small raviolis but packed with lobster. Another melt in your mouth meal. Jeff ordered spaghetti. We ordered some coffee and a light and fluffy tiramisu. You most likely need reservations as the place filled up after we sat down. We were in and out under an hour. We all floated on cloud nine with full bellies.
By the way, the concert was awesome.
Setlist:
Duke
Turn It On Again
No Son Of Mine
Confusion
Cage - Cinema - Travels-Afterglow
Hold On My Heart
Home By The Sea
Follow You - Firth- I Know
Mama
Ripples
Throwing It All Away
Domino
Drum Duet
Los Endos
Tonight, Tonight - Invisible Touch
I Can't Dance
Carpet Crawlers
