Mio Babbo's

A nice little mom and pop shop on Gayley in Westwood Village, this Italian restaurant made way for our 16-person L.A. Link Up group. The dinner was awkward, but hey, very few people knew each other. I had the mixed blessing of sitting across from both the strangest and cutest guys at the table. Lucky for me they were two different people. Unlucky for me, the cutest appeared to be half attached to an industry chick (OK, she was nice, but talked way too much about movies and tv and scripts and talent and everything else I hate about this damn place), but he was also not too into movies, so you never know what the next link-up event might bring. ;-)

The service was slow, but it was such a large group. Still there were moments when you were like, couldn't you please take our order or bring us our bill like 5 minutes ago? Still, they took special reqests, giving me my shrimp and scallop pasta with linguine instead of penne. The sauce was a little heavy with the spinach flavor (as opposed to the creamy vodka flavor I was expecting) and the scallops were a little dry (ahh!), but the portabello mushrooms were savory enough to make up for all of these downfalls. The caesar salad lacked great croutons and was small, but the dressing was a delight. Complimentary pesto/cheese/pepper on toasted crackers was a nice treat. House wine was good but a little pricey. Fresh roses on the table and in a dish on the bathroom was a rare, luxurious-feeling treat.

All in all, a nice little find for a quiet dinner if you don't run into a big random group like us. I probably could have ordered a little better. The ravioli looked amazing and there was actually enough to make it look like a real meal.