Ponti

A close friend from law school celebrated her birthday by buying everyone dinner at Il Ponticello. When we heard about the plans, the first question from everyone was, "Bukas pa ba 'yun?"

Ang sagot: "Oo."

It's still very open and oh so very hip. When the old phogies left at midnight (because it got too noisy) the kiddies were just herding in. (Note to self: Really skimpy shorts are now acceptable clothing at restaurants and bars.)

The last time I was at Ponti was in law school (we graduated in '99), and at that time it was arguably the coolest place in town. We'd sit at those tables along the wall and make lots of noise as the rest of the clientele tried to eat their dinner in peace. (Remember when making noise was cool? Made you feel part of the "in" crowd? If you can't, then you're really old.)

A group of 8 would order one pizza and a whole lotta drinks. We'd get just a bit too rowdy then the clock struck one and everyone had to get going. People had curfews.

Tonight everyone had at least three courses and only a few had wine. Everyone whined about the noise though, and the general demographic of the other customers (i.e. do these people even work for a living?).

The food's still good though. The tuna carpaccio is worth writing home about. So was the anchovy pizza. We tried two kinds of risotto (seafood and mushroom) and both were satisfactory. The coffee was not hot enough though. Ghrrr...