Love Life, Hate Kittens

Lounge food, bar food, upscale ‘pub grub’ ala gastropubs (defined by wiki), whatever you want to call it is my love. Always has been, always will. I’ve been saying this since I was dragging my friends to hotel hop from one bar menu to the next. And yes, Viceroy is still one first love. There is something quite romantic and delightful about ‘bar food’. Non commital and carefree. Meeting up for ‘bar food’ is the new lunch. And we all know lunch is the meal before dating (tm Blair Waldorf). Duh.

Recently went to Il Moro (who advertises specifically as a gastropub on the menu for some odd reason. Weird influx of the term ‘gastropubs’ ala Western Tavern lately.) for a quick meeting and I forgot how great their happy hour was. Prosciutto wrapped italian tomatos, cheese, skewers, pizza on some days, penne arrabiata, caprese salads. And get this…all for free.

Free!

And get this… it’s NEVER crowded. Wow right? With a deal like that, you’d think they have the work crowd knocking down their doors every day at 5. I mean, I work down the street. How do I not take advantage of this! The drinks are moderately priced at 12-16 bucks but hell. I’m going to be drinking ANYWAY so why not save on food.

As for the other aspects of the restaurant, here is an excerpt from my previous yelp review I never got around to tack onto the blog:

Re: Ordering ‘pay’ food - “…..I got to give Il Moro major props for portions. Me and Jenni ordered the fried calamari/pink shrimp, prosciutto and cheese plate, and eggplant with mozzarella strictly based on two people. I mean, we weren’t thinking about ‘oh this would be enough food for the whole party’ (at least I wasn’t) I was thinking. Man I hope this feeds the both of us. :-/”

Re: Dinner - Their dining area is separated from the bar and it’s along the lines of upscale Italian food. I thought it was pricey. Especially for pasta. But if you must get something, get the lobster and shrimp pasta with the creamy saffron sauce. It is not something that you whip together at home. Unless you’re a baller and you just got lobster on deck like that. Been here a couple times for random networking meetings and dates. Scratch this off your date list. Way too stuffy. Unless you’re dating your boss.

Il Moro

(310) 575-3530