After my PIC left for his work stuff I met up with an old friend for a terribly mediocre taco lunch. The second food “miss” this visit, especially in comparison to what we can get back in the boonz. What gives??? 
Spent the afternoon bopping around our old stomping grounds near South Street & the Italian Market for some shopping: a box of Italian cookies from Isgro’s to have around for our afternoon coffees (no doubt there will be another visit before we leave), two new feather toys for our crazy boys at our favorite pet shop, then made my way back to our hotel.
Met up with @Bigley9 at a cute Mediterranean/Italian, cash-only BYOB near my hotel that happened to have a table for two open… and I happened to have two bottles of chilled white: a lovely WA Riesling and a Falanghina.
The restaurant started us off with a plate of nice enough but not very interesting hummus, olives & fresh toasted pita bread.
We split the octopus app with chorizo, potatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and romesco sauce — a must-order item for both of us, plus the beet salad. The octopus was very tender, but we missed a proper char on the outside.
The beet salad was lovely and refreshing.
For our main we split the cacio e pepe rigatoni with black truffle and lobster, and I’m glad we did. It was very good, but also very rich.
We hit up the same bar my boo and I went to the previous night for a couple of martinis, then called it a night.
Good evening, better food, and even better company 
We’ll hook up again tomorrow on our way out to retrieve the SEAM lemongrass sausages Pat was nice enough to pick up for us 
