Nonna Tata
Earlier this week, on a cold and rainy evening, Melinda and I were sitting in a darkened car on a ramshackle street in Fort Worth with a bottle of wine between us. The bottle wasn’t open, mind you, just sitting there. As were we.
In Fort Worth on business, we planned to have dinner at a small restaurant called Nonna Tata. The restaurant has 21 seats—quite literally. We counted them, including the four that were piled in the corner next to our table.
Being not much bigger than a phone booth turned on its side, the restaurant doesn’t take reservations. There’s really no place to wait inside till one’s table is ready. Hence for us, and I suspect several other patrons, our car became our waiting room. We were called on the cell phone when our table was ready.
Nonna Tata doesn’t have a beer and wine license, so when we put our name on the waiting list, we were told we could buy wine at the shop across the street. The shop across the street turns out to be a vegan coffee shop, the Spiral Dinner, that stocks one type of red and one white wine. Both organic. The red was quite drinkable.
Dinner turned out to be an unexpected delight. Our antipasto platter was well portioned for two and featured an array of superb quality Italian meats and cheeses. The spaghetti with spinach and lemon was perfectly cooked and had just enough cream to keep it from being dry but not overly rich. The lemon juice provided a spike of excitement to the flavor. The salad was disappointing, but not because it wasn’t good. It just wasn’t Italian. The dinner salad included with each entrée, was packed with an array of fresh vegetables plus a sprinkling of canned corn kernels. It was a great American salad but out of character with the rest of the meal. Neither of us had room for dessert.
We planned to go back the next evening to try a few other items on the menu but when the weather got even colder and rainier, we decided that we weren’t up for sitting in our makeshift waiting room till a table cleared out but we’re eagerly awaiting our return to Fort Worth in better weather when two outdoor tables are added to the mix.
On to the business of accreditation…
As noted in a previous blog, NCQA came out with its clarification to CR 6B on November 19th.
Comments