Vesuvio

Let us take a break from all the Asian food I've been posting so far and look at some Italian food! The first time I had heard of Vesuvio was when I went to Amadio's Pizza. While waiting for the freshly made Hawaiian pizza my boyfriend ordered, my eyes scoured around the walls, scanning numerous awards and newspaper clips. It was on one of the newspaper clippings that I saw that Vesuvio was ranked number one in the GTA when it came to pizza, so I quickly jotted down the name before carrying on with my night...

My first impression of Vesuvio was that it was a very comfortable space. It had its fancy metal wine racks that had flourishes reminiscent of the Victiorian era; it had its fancy lighting on the way down to the washroom, and it had those clean white drapes near the back. The comfortable and cozy part comes from the fact that it has exposed brick tiling for its wall, making the place look raw but not too 'in-your-face'. The restaurant also had kids' paintings on display, which made the place even more charming.

It took me awhile to settle on what kind of pasta I wanted. Vesuvio had a good variety for decent prices, with the Linguine Di Mare being the most expensive one. 

We started off with bread — pretty standard, and it wasn't overly salty, which was nice. They gave a choice of two white buns and two multigrain buns, for the more health conscious folks.

The pasta for that night was the carbonara. I haven't had it in awhile so why not? I've mostly been eating fettucine or just spaghetti and meatballs, so this is a nice change. However, this particular dish was quite creamy, so I was thankful that I only took half, or else I would not have had the empty stomach space to try their pizza.

And the main attraction — the Vegetarian pizza. I don't know if it's normally like this, but when I get pizza from a restaurant that is allegedly "fresh" from the oven, I would expect it to be really hot. I know that I took awhile to finish my portion of carbonara, but I don't think my pizza would turn lukewarm that easily. Even my boyfriend found the temperature to be cooler than usual and he had the pizza slices way before I did. There is one redeeming factor though, and that is that the taste was pretty good, as the olives served as the tipping point in making the experience different than other vegetarian pizzas I've had. It's funny, because I normally opt to have an olive-free pizza (I can tolerate them, but they're not high on my preferences list) and yet with this one, I'd feel like something is missing if the olives weren't there.

Overall, Vesuvio is a decent Italian place, and if I were to go there again, I'd probably try their other pastas instead. I wouldn't consider it the best pizza place in the GTA though. I guess I'm still on the hunt for that :P