La Vita Cafe Ristorante

La Vita Cafe Ristorante

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Posted 2013-10-14 by Chris Nugenfollow
It was a Monday night and I was catching up with friends straight after work so we needed just a nice relaxed place to chat. We usually catch up at a particular café restaurant and chose to catch up there again. However, it was closed that night so one of my friends suggested somewhere else that was open nearby. I was feeling a little hesitant because I didn't know of any other nice restaurants in the same area and wondered what the food and ambience would be like.



It turns out this was also a very nice café restaurant that catered to the same Mediterranean food. In fact, the similarity was uncanny. Both places served similar food; the ambience of both were relaxed and family friendly; and both offered a dinner service as well as just coffee and cake or gelati, if that's all you want.



The reason there are two restaurants that are so similar in the same area of the western suburbs of Adelaide is because there are lots of Italian and Greek residents. However, I will not compare them in this article but only focus on the experience that we had that night, which was at La Vita.



Meaning 'This Is My Life' and in true Italian spirit, La Vita opened in September 2009. Since it's opening, it has been a finalist of the Restaurant & Catering SA for Best Family Restaurant in 2010, a state and national winner in the same category in 2011 and again a finalist in 2012. In addition, it had a consistently high rating online, including a 90% rating on Urbanspoon, I can see that this restaurant was definitely worth a try and was glad that we ended up there.



Even though it was only shortly after five in the evening on a Monday night, this place was already filling with people. Whilst waiting for my friend to arrive, I noticed that the staff was like one big happy family. The manager was even out front chatting to the customers.

It was becoming very busy, but our waiter was very attentive to us throughout the whole dinner. He asked us all the appropriate questions at the appropriate times. He also showed a great understanding of the menu, and advised us of how our meals were cooked, just in case we weren't happy with how it was done.



We ordered fresh bread served with marinated olives, chilli, and balsamic vinegar and olive oil to start off with. I understand the bread is meant to be dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil, but I'm not sure about the bread and chilli combination and it's a bit difficult to eat whole unpitted olives with bread. However, if you consider them separately, each component were all tasty.



For mains, I ordered pan seared Atlantic salmon fillet served on a potato rosti, sautéed asparagus and brocollini topped with hollandaise sauce. The salmon was very fresh and cooked perfectly. The combination of the sauce and sides were exactly what I was expecting.



One of my friends ordered spaghetti with fresh cockles cooked in garlic, chilli, white wine and extra virgin olive oil. I'm a big fan of pasta and this dish did not disappoint. The saltiness was spot on. The cockles did not have any sand in them. The only minor fault with this dish was that it was just slightly too oily.



My other friend had chargrilled lamb rack served with roasted vegetables and jus. Too busy enjoying my dinner experience; I had forgotten to try this dish. My friend enjoyed her meal thoroughly and said the meat was very soft. It certainly looked impressive when it came out and smelt very fragrant. She only commented that the lamb was slightly over cooked to how she wanted it.



We also had a house salad of mixed greens with onion, tomato, cucumber, olives, fetta and walnuts drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. The salad was very fresh. I've never had walnuts in a salad before and quite liked it because it added extra texture to the dish.



My friends also had coffee after dinner. La Vita has good quality coffee and it's also organic. Unfortunately, none of us tried any of the gelati or cakes. We were all too full to have any more.

Overall, I was happily surprised by the dining experience. I would definitely come back another day, possibly quite soon with room for dessert.

#western_suburbs
#restaurants
#mediterranean_restaurants
#kidman_park
#italian_restaurants
#function_venues
#food_wine
#dinner
#dessert_bars
#child_friendly
#cafes
%wnadelaide
115389 - 2023-06-12 18:24:29

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