gutfud – the food, es ist gut

It has the feel of a family-style restaurant, and I thought the themed dining rooms were fun. We were seated in the Venetian room, with murals of a canal scene complete with hungry pigeons. Other rooms had a Roman them, Florentine, and Sicilian. I want the Sicily room next time. All these rooms spin off of a central circular sitting room that had a pretty circular ceiling of art nouveau designs.

Hot bread and water came out quickly and service in general was quite good.

We’re always eager to try the meatball sub whenever it’s available, so that was one order. Oh, excuse me, I meant meatball *sandwich*, thank you so much for correcting us, Ottavio’s. It tasted good, but was a little messy for so much sauce to get slathered into the small toasted bread roll.
I got the lasagne with meatsauce. The waiter probably meant to move the super hot baked lasagne onto my serving plate with a great flourish in front of me, but it ended up being more of a splat that flopped my baked pasta sadly across the plate. It was a good effort, and the lasange tasted fine, which is what mainly matters.

The salad that accompanies the meal is nothing special, pretty bland, but the soup of the day was minestrone and I found that to be hot and flavorful.

There are some early bird specials, and smaller sandwich plates for lunch. I’ve heard from acquaintances that the seafood canelloni (crepes filled with crab, shrimp, langostino, cod and scallops baked in a white sauce) is very nice.

There weren’t many cars parked in the lot during our late lunch, maybe four, but two of them were black maseratis. *touches side of nose knowlingly*

Ottavio’s
1620 Ventura Blvd.
Camarillo, CA 93010
www.ottavio.com