Authentic Recipes Arouse Taste Buds At Caffe Pinguini
During the last 18 years, Enrico Fiorentini and Tony Cotrufo, both from Rome, Italy have greeted locals and tourists to their cafe in Playa del Rey.
This quaint, romantic eatery is one that people flock to on a daily basis. In the evening, when the lights are dim and the candles are lit, the cafe’s washed out walls project a beautiful hue of copper while the beautiful frescoes add to authentic Italian dining. This was another good reason to bring my guests to meet Tony and Enrico and celebrate a new film project filmmaker Andres Carranza is producing.
With great enthusiasm, Tony, Tom Hallick, who is known for the film Gangster Squad, where he had a scene with Sean Penn, and his wife Yin Jiang, a concert violinist with Andrea Bocelli and New West Symphony took a picture, then got ready for some delightful Italian cuisine. This was well worth waiting for, because the cafe was sold out on Valentines Day and on that Friday. Tom and his wife started out with Pinguini’s homemade bread and Insalada de Mare, prepared with warm mussels, shrimps, calamari with extra virgin olive oil and lemon. Tom and Yin had no trouble devouring that salad.
I, on the other hand ordered Minestrone soup and Caprese buffalo mozzarella with fresh sliced tomatoes. The main entrees were Branzino Sea Bass prepared with roasted potatoes and broccoli for Tom and his wife and Rissotto for me, along with Linguini Alfredo. The Linguini Alfredo is prepared with thin noodles boiled, then butter and garlic with some cloves browned in a saucepan. The noodles are drained, then the sauce gently poured on top of the noodles, while gently stirring the ingredients together.
This is one of my favorite dishes, along with the Risotto. If you have a healthy appetite, then the richness of the these two dishes will set you in Heavens delight.
Our culinary journey ended with a pleasant array of deserts consisting of Gelato, Panna Catta from the Piemonte region of Italy and Tiramisu, without any alcoholic ingredients.
Caffe Pinguini is located at 6935 Pacific Avenue in Playa del Rey. Hours of operation are 12 pm-2:30pm for lunch Tuesday-Thursday and Tuesday -Thursday 6-10 pm for dinner, opening 6 pm to 10:30 pm on Friday- Saturday and 5:30 pm-9:30 pm on Sunday.
Call for reservations for dinner and any special functions for your partyat (310) 306-0117. Celebrity Scene News awards four stars to Caffe Pinguini.
