Gaetano's

In the mood for Italian, Tom and I hit up a little place called Gaetano's. It's located in Tierrasanta, in the same shopping center as the Albertson's we go to. We showed up at around 2 p.m. and were directed to choose any table we wanted. They weren't busy, but the service was a lot faster than we expected. Tom ordered a bowl of minestrone and a Campagnola pizza, and I ordered a meatball parmesana sandwich.

The soup arrived when my ice tea did. Tom liked it, but had to add a little salt. I thought it was tasty. My sandwich came soon thereafter.

It was very aromatic and hot. The melted cheese and tomato sauce were amazingly good. The meatball was a little too sausage-like for my taste, but Tom loved it. Since my gastric bypass 5 years ago I can’t eat a whole lot of food at one time, so I brought more than half of the sandwich home. Tom polished it off a few hours later.

His pizza, which took a few minutes longer to arrive than my sandwich, was a pesto, artichoke heart, chicken delight. He thoroughly enjoyed it. I can’t eat basil, or I would have loved it, as well. The artichoke hearts were great! Total tab for the meal was $22. I consider that a bargain. We will probably eat here again.

New year. New home. New traditions.

Living on our own for the first time in over 10 years has been a source of ever-growing happiness for me and my son. Even though our move was in the same county, it was a new city, and that provided fertile ground for us to explore. We started going to new restaurants—tasty new eateries—some even awesome. I never realized how much of a rut we had been in. Same old food, from the same old places. Don’t get me wrong, I cook—just not all the time.

So here we are, in an awesome location—San Diego. Add an awesome time—our new start—and it made all kinds of sense to create a tradition of dining at a new place every week. Awesome.

We made only three rules:

1.     The restaurant had to be new to both of us;

2.     It couldn’t have a drive-through; and

3.     The person who chooses the place has to pay.

We are ready to try new things, make new memories, and hopefully find some new favorite places. Let’s eat!