Vita (2) - Erwin Square, Durham

Last night, I returned to Vita with my dearest female amiga. We were destined for wine, dessert and girl talk (is it still girl talk when I'm over 30?). I have no photos to share because though I don't mind annoying my husband, I do not yet expect other third parties to tolerate me with the camera at the dinner table...

Our waiter was new and his lack of experience or efficiency landed us our entree salads free (we didn't even mention anything, the bartender just comped them). I had the spinach, goat cheese and pancetta salad, which I lovingly renamed, "the bacon salad". It was covered with probably a 1/4 pound of crispy pancetta, lovely creamy goat cheese nuggets and walnuts. The balsamic vinaigrette was a wonderful companion and all the flavors complimented each other perfectly. She had the smoked salmon, arugula, endive, radicchio and champagne vinaigrette salad. She seemed to like hers and it looked lovely.

We shared a bottle of the Parducci Petit Sirah. It was half off bottles night - Awesome. It needed to breathe (waiting on alcohol is a true test of patience for me), but once it did, I really enjoyed it. We also shared the funghi pizza. All of this was more then enough food and we were both forcing the pizza down after finishing just the first half. The cheese at this restaurant is sooooo good. The mushrooms were fresh and woodsy tasting, the carmelized onions paired well with the acidic tomatoes and the crust was perfectly thin, crispy and chewy all at the same time!

Since we knew we were getting our salads free those calories didn't count (my food bible rule #1) we opted for dessert and quickly agreed on the chocolate mousse. It was served warm, with a molten center, topped with vanilla gelato. We devoured it in under 3 seconds...well not really, but you get the picture.

I just now realized that I haven't shared any of my food bible rules with this audience to this point. Perhaps I'll post one daily, like I do with the photos now...