There aren't many places to eat in Arlington that are not chain restaurants, so I'm always on the lookout for individually owned places. There is a new-ish shopping center on Abram and Bowen where the old skating rink used to be called Brownstone Village (www.brownstonevillage.com) that has a restaurant in it called Bocaccio Café. There was a buy one entrée get one free coupon, so we thought we'd tried it out.
I loved it! The atmosphere of a restaurant is pretty important to me, and this place was perfect. The attention to detail was great. The room was dimly lit but not too dark. The table linens, chairs, decor was beautiful. Everything looked wonderful. The only part of the ambiance that slightly bothered me was the music. Instead of having a CD playing or XM radio, they had it tuned to a local radio station, so every time the commercials ran, it was a bit distracting.
The food was excellent! The salad that I had before the meal had a honey-lime dressing. I had never heard of that before, but I decided to try it. It was fantastic. My husband had the ribeye and loved it. I had the veal parmigiana and also loved it. The portions are HUGE, so you may want to split a plate. Since we had a coupon, we each got a plate, but we had plenty leftover to eat for lunch the next day. The bread that they serve is made fresh daily and delivered from a bakery in Dallas. It's very good. They have a sour dough and a whole grain wheat bread. We tried both and liked both. I was partial to the wheat, though.
The service was great. Our waitress made our experience wonderful by spacing out our courses at the proper pace. It was very enjoyable. She was also very knowledgeable about the menu and the ingredients.
The only negative is that they don't have their liquor license right now. They're working on getting it by summer of '06. They welcome bringing your own bottle of wine, though, and provide you with wine glasses. There is also a place in the shopping center that sells wine.
I highly recommend this place! I loved it and will make it part of my "regular" places to eat.
www.brownstonevillage.com - click on Bocaccio Café
more