Better Drinking

The other night we decided to try a new Italian restaurant in my little town of Hoschton. New restaurants are a bit of a novelty in Hoschton for a couple of reasons. One, it’s a small town with mostly crappy restaurants that change as often as my 6 month old's diaper, and not much more appealing. Second, the town has been going through a bit of a makeover and several new businesses had raised the hopes that some good eats might be on the horizon. Trepidation was replaced with hope as we pulled into the parking lot and the outside of Vinny’s Italian restaurant actually looked appealing to the eye with large white columns reminiscent of the old Athens Pizza chains. As we were seated in the rather small but clean dining room with Italian décor, we were starting to get excited; a nice restaurant we might be able to visit more than once.

The last ‘Italian’ restaurant we visited was recommended by a ‘friend’ although our friendship needed mending after a visit to this now closed establishment. There is no point giving you the name of the place since they are out of business but on our first and last visit I decided to try the Chicken Parmesan. What I got was a Tyson chicken patty covered with ketchup and some spaghetti noodles. My wife ordered a calzone that was elegantly served on a paper plate that quickly turned into part of her meal as the heat from the cheese and the blade of her plastic knife tore through the paper and fused with the cheese and bread.

The menu at Vinny’s, however, had a full selection of Italian entrees and salads and the wine list was surprisingly large for a small town restaurant. I decided to try the veal parmesan and an Italian beer called Birra Moretti. While my first instinct is to have wine with Italian food, our evening plans called for some running around with the children and wine leaves me feeling very relaxed; the last thing you need to feel while running errands with three girls under the age of 6. I really didn’t know what to expect as I had never tried Italian beer but the look of it did not give me much hope. The appearance was that of a traditional American lager; pee colored and bubbly. We had a friend with us that night who ordered a Budweiser and the look of both beers was exactly the same. In fact, I still wonder if they mixed ours up and I was served his instead. There is a Simpson’s episode in which Homer gets to tour the famous Duff Beer brewery. The scene opens with three giant vats being filled via tubes with Duff, Duff Light, and Duff Draft labeled on the vats. As the camera pans away we see a single tube feeding the other three. This is the best illustration I can think of to describe my Moretti experience. The taste was much like the look as described above. I really couldn’t tell the difference between this and any other nameless, tasteless American lagers. For all I knew the three taps in the kitchen for Budweiser, Miller Lite, and Moretti were being fed from the same keg.

The food, however, was excellent with delicious Italian fare and a desire to go back to try another dish with wine; something the Italians may know something about. If you visit Hoschton in the near future, be sure to check out Vinny’s but skip the Moretti.