Ristorante Ponticello

I had a very nice meal here, but it was very expensive.  The food was very good although nothing was excellent.  I ate here on a Wednesday night with 3 family members, the place was busy.  Nice looking restaurant, very high ceilings, mirrors all around.

The meal started with cold bread and butter.  Kinda strange not to be offered olive oil.  I don't think i had butter once in the 3 months I lived in Italy, to be fair this was northern Italian and i lived in southern Italy, so for all i know this is typical, although I doubt it.  I ordered the Stuffed Avocado with Crab, it was good.  Crab was good quality canned crab, on a 1/2 avocado with some onions, red peper and lemon.

Others at the table ordered the Lobster Ravioli, which was a very small portion even some a heavy dish, there were only 3 ravioli's.  My fiance had the Eggplant Rolatini, which she liked very much, but it was not actually rolled it was more like eggplant parm.  The table also had the Pasta Vongolette, it was very good, huge portion of small New Zealand clams.

For the main course i had the Stripped Bass with a light tomato and Onion sauce and polenta.  This would have been great if the fish was better, it was not as fresh as i would have liked.  Good but not great dish.  The polenta was a huge disappointment, because i was expecting the traditional version, and instead it was more like polenta cakes, still good but not the best way to enjoy polenta in my opinion.  My father had the Chicken and Filet Minion combination, you would have thought he died and went to heaven.  He loved the meat, very nice size piece of filet with surprisingly a marsala sauce that worked real well.  The chicken turned out to be fransais, well done.  The Swiss Chard potatoes were very good and something i've never seen before.

4 people had apps, entrees, desert and a drink each and the bill came to a little over $200.  The service was  very good and they were very accommodating turning entrees into apps and vice versa.  I would not go out of my way for this place, but if your in the area its worth a visit.