SO MY night started as many nights this past few weeks have, with a football match. I went to meet my clan in the Hatfield on the Ormeau Road where my arrival raised the average age of punters by at least 20 years.
In the interest of even-handedness I'll not specify which team I was supporting other than to say they were wearing green, and they won.
Anyway two pints and a few conversations later, during which the language barrier between Armagh and Belfast was never so evident, I took the most sensible of the group with me and left in search of sustenance.
The Ormeau Road is full of interesting places to eat these days and so, faced with loads of choice, we simply went for where was easiest to get parked.
Ambrosia Café and Ristorante is an Italian bistro-style spot with a gelato and dessert display as you go in the door.
Italian owned and run with really friendly front-of-house staff who brought us to a cracking little table at the window.
I had a driver reluctantly chauffeuring me around (It'll harden her – I gave birth to her and it hurt like hell so the least she can do is drive me about every now and then) and so a nice Pinot Grigio was ordered.
We got the antipasto misto to share while we checked out the menu. It came on a wooden board, laden down with really good quality Italian meats, Parma ham and salami, with torn chunks of milky fresh buffalo mozzarella, perfectly ripe and juicy tomatoes, homemade bread sticks studded with rosemary, and a salty tapenade.
It was all delicious and, if going for a few drinks, would be a perfectly portioned light meal.
For mains there were a range of pizzas – proper Italian thin-crust pizza with mozzarella, spinach and basil style, not the ham, pineapple and sweetcorn type. If the aroma coming from the pizza oven matched what it was producing then it was obviously good gear. I made a mental note to call in for a takeaway one night.
We checked out the pasta dishes and I was taken by the ravioli al pomodoro, mushroom-stuffed ravioli with roasted peppers and basil sauce.
After much deliberation the penne Alfredo picante was also ordered, a creamy chicken with chilli, bacon and garlic dish.
They arrived; they were absolutely huge. I think I've grown used to the kind of dining were food is arranged prettily on a plate but you don't get too much of anything. This was old-school Italian, like you'd called to a friends house and they were heaping it on to make sure you left happy with a full tummy. There is no moderation in Ambrosia, I can assure you.
My ravioli – of which there were many – were in a rich sumptuous sauce; however, the sauce was the main flavour and, delicious as it was, there was little in the way of mushroom coming through.
My daughter's pasta was full of still moist chicken in a rich white sauce groaning with garlic and little flecks of red chilli, giving it a light kick.
The pasta was coated in the sauce, deliciously rich and filling. So filling, in fact, she could barely eat half of it, although that didn't matter as our beautiful Italian waitress offered to box it up and so she took it home and polished it off for lunch the next day. Two meals for the price of one.
I loved the offer to take it home, as too often there is a snobbery around bagging up leftover food, but pay for it and it's yours so why shouldn't you?
We couldn't have managed a dessert but again I might call in for cake and coffee one day soon.
The meal was a success but the bill was a bargain – there was a midweek discount that chopped £6 off the end tally and, at £46 for wine and a mountain of food, that screamed value to me.
THE BILL
Pinot Grigio £14.95
Antipasto £12.95
Penne Alfredo £12.95
Ravioli al Pomodoro £11.95
Midweek discount £6.22
Total £46.58
