Fort Lauderdale

D'Angelo with Gregoletto

It was the Pompano Beach show on the Dream Theater support tour (Paolo and Nick's hometown), Paolo had his truck like usual at a hometown show… so I said to him "let's get some good food duuuuude."

Paolo knows some killer spots in So-Flo - he swears by Michael's Genuine (a spot I haven't been able to get in to yet - but I have recently even seen on Bourdain's The Layover(!)), has taken me to Johnny V's and a couple nice Greek diners. Today's plan was to hit D'Angelo, a new Italian restaurant by Paolo's house.

Yes, sometimes I nitpick a restaurants aesthetics - hell, I am married to an Art Director - so yeah. Mandated valet parking in non-downtown-Miami Florida? Unnecessary. I have a problem with valet overall unless it's impossible to park your car. It sucks to see "free valet service" when you know you gotta pay… and you watch the valet guy simply drive your far 5-7 feet from where you were just standing just because you have to. It sends an odd-message.

Anywho. The restaurant is very new according to P, sort of your normal lounge-ier/ new Italian bistro-style place. We decide to share everything, we get: Roasted Sweet Italian Sausage over Escarole and Beans; Veal and Pecorino Cheese Meatballs, Tomato-Braised; and Prosciutto, Mozzarella, Basil, Pecorino Pizza.

All of it was simple and well-made. It was quite impressive to see an Italian place doing dishes like these versus the standard red-sauce drenched pasta dishes you see claiming the "Italian" name all about the States. This place did nice rustic tapas-serving-sized dishes. I was certainly impressed to see this in Pompano Beach of all places.

Just as I am an insider of the flourishing food-world of Orlando, Paolo has South Florida's layout down as far as food and drink go. We grabbed coffees elsewhere and headed back to the gig. D'Angelos was definitely decent.