I was pleasantly surprised when I was on restaurant.com a couple weeks ago and saw that they offer certificates for Farina's Winery & Café. I had been there once with Joni last summer, and it's one of her favorite places. They only offer $25 or $50 certificates, but we were pretty confident we wouldn't have trouble reaching the minimum.
Farina's is in downtown Grapevine, on Main street. I really like Grapevine. It's a great old town, and the downtown has lots of shops and restaurants. You could easily spend a whole afternoon here, just browsing. It was such a gorgeous day we went straight to the patio to find a seat. You can get to the patio from the back of the restaurant if you park back there; or, like us, walk through part of the antique shop next door and through the kitchen and out to the patio. The patio is really pretty awesome, because they have a full bar back there, as well as both covered and open seating. Of course all the tables in the sunlight were full, but after about 5 minutes a 2-top opened, and we sat down.
We were in absolutely no rush, and had to spend at least $50 to use the certificate. They serve Sawbuck malbec, one of my favorites. So I was very happy. Joni went with a sparkling white, and it comes in the little bottle. I love those little bottles. Joni has this weird habit of putting ice into her wine to keep it cold. She started out using ice from her water, then asked our server for a cup of ice. I guess she didn't have a cup big enough, because here was her solution
Not pretty, but very resourceful. And it did the job.
We decided to start with spinach & artichoke dip
This was really good, with lots of spinach. A lot more than you get at other places. The pita chips were delicious as well. After a while I stopped eating the dip, and just ate the chips. Eventually I really just wanted the entire plate to go away so I would stop the mindless eating.
I have no idea how long we relaxed and chatted, but finally we decided to order some food. Joni raved about the pizza, so I decided to join her and get one. I briefly considered the spaghetti pizza, but then just decided to go regular. They charge you by the number of toppings. Since cost wasn't really a factor, I loaded up
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| Basil pesto, bell peppers, pepperoni, grilled onions, spinach |
Wow, this was excellent. I'm becoming more a fan of thin crust pizza, which this is. The basil pesto adds such a wonderful flavor to the pizza. I'm definitely doing this next time I make it at home. The pepperoni is so much better than anything you can buy at the regular grocery store. I need to start buying better pepperoni too. I already had a bunch of spinach with the dip, but I love spinach on pizza. And this pizza is a meal for one, or appetizer for 2. I of course had mine as a meal for one.
The only down side is that they screwed up Joni's pizza, and the young lady who brought the pizza out kind of argued with Joni that it was what she had ordered. Our server came out, took one look at the pizza, and realized they had made it wrong. And they quickly made a new one.
She took the pizza off of our bill, but we really needed it on there to meet our minimum for the certificate. But she went ahead and credited the certificate anyway, without charging us for the pizza. That's great service.
I'm quite certain that Farina's will be a must-do every time I'm in Flower Mound. And I have to make sure to check restaurant.com early in the month, because these certificates sell out fast. And I'm not at all surprised.
