And then we finally had Italian food.

I love Italian food. Some people simply equate Italian food in America with pasta in red sauce, a week night shortcut for when you don't have time or know how to cook. In a Yuppie culture where sushi, fusion food, and tapas are en vogue, I find myself missing Italian (as much as I enjoy the others).

So when some girlfriends decided to go Italian for dinner a couple weekends ago, I was ecstatic. Acqua al 2 in Capitol Hill is a fabulous sister restaurant of the original in Florence. Though there is a third location in San Diego -- which immediately led me to ask, "Is that called Acqua al 3??" (it's not) -- you can tell right away that it's anything but a chain.

Now, in Italian cuisine there are four main parts to a standard meal: antipasti, primi, secondi, and dolci (not including things like a cheese plate, after-dinner drink, etc. -- the Europeans got it right). Antipasti is a hot or cold appetizer, something like thinly sliced meats and cheeses. Primi is usually a pasta or risotto. Secondi is a meat or fish dish. Dolci, dessert. Previously in situations when presented with the multi-course option, I usually just got either a primi or a secondi. But I was so excited to be going to an authentic Italian restaurant (guilty pleasure confession: Olive Garden) for the first time in a while that I decided to go all out and get all four courses, an aperitivo (before-dinner drink), and (little piggy that I am) a glass of wine with my dinner.

I started the meal with a glass of prosecco. I love cultures that start the meal with bubbly (see: Spaniards and Cava, French and Champagne). We ordered a special antipasto to split among the four of us: a spectacular burrata (a fresh cheese made with mozzarella and cream, literally meaning "butter") with grapefruit, honey, and pine nuts. The creamy cheese was perfect with the sour grapefruit and buttery pine nut crunch. (Apologies for the usual low-light restaurant situation -- I almost burned down the place when I dropped the candle I had been holding awkwardly while trying to photograph the pasta.)

Next I ordered a porcini fusilli: the porcini mushrooms were enormous pillows soaked up with flavor, and the house-made fusilli was perfectly al dente. The sometimes too-sour taste of the porcini was perfectly offset by a drizzle of velvety white truffle oil. (Also noteworthy, it was a perfect-sized portion considering that it was a course and not the entire meal.)

For my meat dish, I ordered an item that had been recommended to me by three separate people when they found out I was going to Acqua al 2: a filet mignon topped with a rich and tangy blueberry sauce. I don't often order steak in restaurants, but it was perfectly cooked (slight crust on the outside, perfectly tender inside) and I literally had to restrain myself from licking the sauce off the plate.

For desserts, we split two: there was a vanilla bean panna cotta with a passion fruit drizzle and a perfectly crumbly butter cookie, as well as a salted caramel ice cream with a chocolate-almond biscuit on the side.

At the end of the night, we went happily home with full bellies. You can't go wrong with good company and simple, fresh ingredients. (And that's a philosophy that spans all cultures and cuisines.)